KB1ENS and N1RZ September 22, 2000
Vermont Appalachian Trip
Howdy gang,
On 9/22/00 a co-worker (Tim N1RZ) and I (John KB1ENS) activated the
Appalachian trail just outside of Norwich, VT at approx 2100Z. Another co-worker
(Charlie, no call - we're working on him) went with us to show us where the
trail was. If you want to skip the story, Tim put up a web page with some
pictures at: http://timhavens.com/n1rz/qrp/index.html
I sent him the logs tonight, so they should be posted
there soon as well.
On to the story, but first, a little background...
Tim lives in New Hampshire, I'm in Vermont on the Canadian border. Both of
us work for the same company and tele-commute most of the time. We meet up and
car pool when we go into the office. Tim is an extra class and has been licensed
much longer then I. He's been fairly inactive on the radio for many years. I'm a
wet behind the ears
newbie licensed 10 months ago. Although Tim doesn't operate much, his CW skills
are pretty impressive. He's also very knowledgeable having worked for a cell
phone company for many years installing equipment. I've been trying to get him
to operate more and get him interested in QRP. I think this little outing helped
(more on that later)...
We set out from Lebanon, NH about 4:15pm and followed Charlie through
Hannover, crossing the VT/NH border on a bridge that happens to be part of the
Appalachian trail. A short ways into Norwich we made a left and drove about 2
miles straight up hill. We were at 941ft (Tim brought along a GPS). We parked
the car and unpacked the gear - that's when I realized I forgot to bring
rope/string/anything to tie an antenna up with (I did bring the antennas
though!).
Strike one.
We set off down the trail and found a nice spot to operate about 100 yards
in. The first antenna up was a too-short-to-really-work well 80 meter dipole. We
tied the ends up as high as possible; sort of up the side of an embankment and
over the valley we were in to the other side. It was probably 10 feet high at
best.
Then it was time for "real" 40 meter dipole - it was made out of
computer ribbon cable as was the feed line. We tied one end up in a similar
fashion to the 80 meter antenna just when I discovered I did have a 20 feet
length of nylon cord. I tied the cord to the other end of the dipole and strung
it over a high branch. I proceeded to hoist
the antenna and just as it neared the point where I wanted it, something snapped
and the whole thing came down.
Strike two.
The antenna had broke right at the point where the feed point
meets the leg. No, I didn't bring a soldering iron. OK, strip a little wire on
both sides, wrap 'em together real tight, wrap with tape - voila, one slightly
lopsided dipole. String it back up.. LET'S GET ON THE AIR!
Tim had the SW-80+ setup and tuned but was not hearing anyone (bad time
for 80m). I went to work hooking up my pepper can SMK-1 (with NB6M's 5w mod) run
through the NorCal BLT tuner. My keyer is tick-1 mounted in a RS enclosure with
a set of PC board paddles screwed in the top.
Up first was Ron WB3AAL who I've worked before. Ron was on the AT trail
himself in PA - so it was really exciting to have our first QSO be a
trail-to-trail contact! Ron asked to work Tim, so I handed the paddles over to
Tim who didn't realize Ron was on the trail at first. Tim yelled out about
halfway through "hey, he's on the Appalachian Trail too!!!!" - I think
that's when he got hooked! :) After Tim signed with Ron, he pulled the headset
off and said "Holy smokes, it sounds like a DX pileup!" The SMK receiver
is pretty wide and we had
trouble making out the calls. Tim ran a couple more QSO's and handed the paddles
back. I made a total of six QSO's, worked Ron one more time from his home and
Ken N2CQ who I also worked before when he was
on the trail a couple weeks ago.
We made a total of nine quality QSO's from the AT in VT on 40m. 80m started to
open at just as we were leaving and Tim copied a VE1 station for a while. Our
antenna situation was less than optimal, but we still managed. A little better
planning for next time, an earlier start and I think we'll be all set. I also
plan to build that K-1 I'm
begging my wife for this winter. ;)
I also got a great email from Tim today saying that he's going to build a QRP
rig so we can do this more often - hooked him! He was amazed the SMK-1 performed
so well (If you haven't done the 5w mod, I highly recommend it).
Thanks to everyone we worked from the trail. If you called and we didn't answer,
sorry. We plan to do this again (hopefully once this year before the snow
flies). 73/72,
John, KB1ENS
Holland, VT