Mini QRP to the field

On the evening of July 28th I took a short drive from Moscow, Idaho to Roundtop Park in Pullman, Washington where I set up my S9 vertical against a very tall pine tree, hooked up half a dozen radials across very dry weeds and ground, and then fired up my KX3 on 20m.

Here are a few photos from my setup on Roundtop at about 7pm local time.

This is the sign at the entrance to the short trail leading to Roundtop.

Here’s the KX3 with the S9 just beyond overlooking The Palouse on a beautiful Pacific Northwest evening.

Conditions at Gray Line time on 20m were very good. Lots of DX activity including Brazil, Russia and Sweden. I was able to work 2 Russian hams and another ham in Belarus. I was running about 3W on CW.

I was impressed considering the radials were, for the most part, not even touching the ground. Proving once again that it doesn’t always pay to get too hung up on all the technical details with antennas and radials.

The propagation gods were smiling down, no doubt!

2012 CQWWCW contest results

I worked the contest from the radio club station K7SEL at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories’ headquarters in Pullman, WA. My goal was at least 100 official contacts in the contest. I fell just short at 97. For 2013 my goal is 200 contacts and every US state.

Here is a quick summary of my results:

• Contest call: K7SEL
• Rig:   KX3
• Power: 3W
• Mode:  CW
• Antenna: multi-band trap vertical at about 50 feet
• Operating time: 5.9 hours
• Official contacts: 97
• Operating bands/contact
    40m: 57
  20m: 37
  15m:  3
  ———-
  Total: 97
• Countries worked: 20
• US States worked:  26

2 photos:

Multi-band trap vertical antenna hose clamp

mounted to a small railing on the HQ rooftop

at SEL in Pullman, WA. Ran 6 radials and used

the railing itself as two more radials.

The station setup for 2012 CQWWCW. KX3, Bencher BY-1

iambic key , 24-hour atomic click, iPad running HamLog

logging app.