QST de N7GMT

A young man in my neighborhood went down to the Utah County ARES Field Day outing. They were setup to teach the Radio merit badge. He got so excited about the whole thing that he went, found himself a book, studied, and took and passed the test!

By the time I met up with him, he had his license (Welcome aboard!) and was looking for help deciding which radio to get first. I went over to their house one evening and … well, you know me, I explained and enthused and went on about the hobby.

He and I have been corresponding via email and talking on the phone whenever he has a question. I invited him and his parents to come over anytime to get on the air to experience a little HF.

Today, about half-an-hour before we left for Day 3 of the DeHart family reunion, he called to see if this would be a good Saturday to try HF. We were pressed for time, but it gave me an excuse to <ahem> unpack my rig that had been packed since Field Day. I got it setup and we started dialing around.

We tried a little CQing on 20 meters but had no takers. (Probably a little early in the day.)

We moved down to 40 to try our luck there. We found a couple of conversations in progress, so we slid down a little further to find a free frequency. I had been doing all the calling up to this point, to show him how it was done, but now it was his turn. I wrote out how to call, using my callsign, and handed him the mic.

I think he was a little nervous, but like a trooper, he keyed up and called.

CQ CQ from N7GMT, November Seven Golf Mike Tango…

He only called two or three times when we got an answer:

N7GMT N7GMT this is KF7FA, over

I could almost read the question in his eyes, “Yikes! Now what do I say?”

I whispered to him some simple things to say, and KF7FA, Larry, was very friendly and helpful, holding up his end of the conversation. We found out he lives in Lake Davis, CA, which is about 45 miles north of Lake Tahoe. We did the basic first-contact stuff, exchanged weather and such. He encouraged my young friend to start studying for his General license, to which he responded that he already was. We thanked him for returning our call, wished him well and signed off.

Afterwards there was that little gleam in both our eyes. That is what Ham Radio is all about. Sending your voice out into the aether and having someone else answer you, and you hold a conversation. Total strangers, becoming acquainted, and sometimes becoming life-long friends — even if they never meet face-to-face.

For the log:

30.Aug.2008 16:50Z (10:50h local) – KF7FA, Larry, Lake Davis, CA; Weather 72°F and clear.

Thanks again, Larry! Congratulations and come again, A.

The last full weekend in June is ARRL’s Field Day 2008 (yes, I’m just that slow posting). This year my boys and I joined UDXA in their FD outing up on Skyline Drive near Fairview, UT. They boys aren’t yet licensed but I figured this would be a good year to have them work on the GOTA station. This station is specifically meant to let folks get acquainted with Amateur Radio … and hopefully to get them bitten by the Ham bug!

Warming up in the sun while eating breakfast.

The boys had a blast! They each made about twenty-five contacts with folks from all over the States. One YL had already worked our station, but wanted to work us again, just because we had young folk on the radio. My boys are nine and six.

My nine year-old, the Gamer, was working stations almost without prompting from the get-go. He is my Ham buddy and has worked a contest or six with me before. He’s getting quite good, actually. Once he has listened to me give a contest exchange several times, and has done a couple of them himself, he settles right down and works like a veteran. Several of the UDXAers commented on how well he did and how impressed they were with his operating skills. We <cough>I</cough> need to get him going on getting his license so he can join me more regularly.

This was the first serious radio event for my six year-old, the Etymologist. He was a bit nervous and a bit shy at first, what with everyone wanting to help him. Once he warmed up, he did really well, though — especially once he got his “outside” voice going. (Not his real outside voice, which he occasionally uses on a festering, ingrown sibling, but his normal voice with enough punch behind it to bust a pile up! I was very proud of him.) He turned out to be the darling of the GOTA tent; every shutterbug in camp wanted their turn to get pics of him with the headset and boom mic on.

The night before, my boys and I wrangled ourselves some radio time over on one of the rigs just to see if maybe we could make a few contacts for fun. Thanks to Hal, WA6ZHK up in Roseville near Sacramento, CA; and to Craig, N7CAL, up in Custer, Montanna. The boys were especially excited to talk to Craig: he lives and works on a spread up there in big sky country, where they ride four-wheelers and horse to help run about 900 head of cattle. To a couple of suburbanite boys, that sounded like heaven! (Craig was going to be having a different kind of field day; he was expecting a “water turn.” Having cousins who had to herd cattle and help with the water turns, I know it can be fun — for about one day, then fun it is&nbsp;&hellip; not quite so much. Brought back fond memories though. Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane, Craig!)

Sunrise behind the SSB tower.

The club was running 3A — which means three full-time stations running on generator power. We had a dedicated CW station (operating Morse code), a dedicated SSB station for voice contacts, and a “mixed” station for working either CW or SSB on whatever band seemed to be hopping and would help us get the most points. This group is incredible; they had two huge towers up there on Skyline Drive. Oh, and they call it Skyline for a reason. the horizon up there is (at or lower than) straight out pretty much in all directions. It’s a beautiful area. There were virtually no flying critters (we saw a few ’skeeters and a fly or three) and the temperature was pretty mild at 9100 ft. (2770 m) ASL. There were lots of ants and old mole trails, but that was just for effect.

Cereal at 9100 feet ASL.

All in all, it was a very pleasant weekend. We only stayed the one night and left about six hours into the actual operating event, but even that little bit was a bunch of fun. I certainly wouldn’t mind going up again next year; maybe this time we can stay long enough so my boys’ dad can get some operating time in himself.

Go Team!

Well, they got after me and wouldn’t let me participate passively tonight for the local Morse code practice session. They teased and cajoled and mocked and brow-beat and … well, actually they just gave me a bit of a bad time.

You know, we’re not going to take your excuses of “Oh, I can’t find my paddles.” for very much longer. You can’t keep saying “I still need to get the wiring fixed.” or “I need to find that adapter.” And we’re all not-very-good, so you can’t use that excuse at all. You’re going to have to just jump in, so I’ll start and hand it over to Chris, and Chris will hand it over to you, then you hand it back to me, and we’ll just keep going until we’re done. [Did you see how smoothly he did that?] Now QSY down to frequency …

And that was that.

(more…)

“Who?!” you ask.

“Wallis and Futuna.”

“… Weren’t they the neighbors that had that incident when someone ate a funny whelk?”

“Erm … no.”

Wallis & Futuna is a set of islands in the deep pacific, about half-way between Fiji and Samoa. The only reason I know this is because my obsessed friend, KE7JSM, called me about 22.30h t’other night; the conversation might have been something like …

“Wallis & Futuna on 20 right now!”

“You don’t say.”

“Get on 20. Wallis and Futuna is on. Right now.”

“And what are they doing there?”

“Not who; it’s a where.”

“Well, where is that?”

“I don’t know, but they’re on 20!”

Thus I can well imagine your confusion. Anyway, there was the nice Young Lady named Jan on 20-meters, having a quick chat with anyone who would chat, then she got down to business and worked as many stations as she could get while the band held.

I calculated from Wallis Island (Wikipedia has a nice map), where Jan said she was operating from, to my home QTH in UT: just over 5500 (statute) miles. She gave my 100W a generous 59, and I gave her 75W a 57 — completely subjective, because she was hardly moving the S-meter, but she was very easy to understand above the static and noise.

All that with the poor, droopy 80m horizontal loop that I’m replacing. Now I really wish I’d gotten that G5RV finished, so I could have done some A/B comparisons. Oh well. The price of procrastination.

At least I got the Q.