06/26/2007 | N0TU Raspberry Mountain (8400'ASL) is located just west of Monument, Colorado along the Rampart Range of foothills ~40 miles south of Denver. The week previous to FD weekend I made treks up to the FD site to stash several 7AH SLAs (6lbs each) and extra water in place ready for FD action ...the FT817 drinks a lotsa AMPs for breakfast for a little QRP rig! But it was the effort to try something different to have the FT 817 along.

Friday night FD eve I got to test out my latest QRP gasified wood
stove made from a metal soup can and Foster's aluminum beer can sleeve
weighing in at 5.2 oz. It had rained on the way up Friday PM so
finding dry wood was a challenge. Since my alcohol stove wasn't with
me this on trip my dinner depended on finding dry wood! I tried
sending up an SOS of smoked signals using a new(old) mode "smoke
signal" (SS1-wet wood) ...but got no replies that I could see? Bad QRN
from the wind! But it did calm down the local swarm of bugs. And I
managed to heat some water to rehydrate my carnitas/rice/veggie
w/salsa despite the WX and QRN! Yumm!

Ok onto the FD and QRP:
Worked 80/40/20/15/10/6/2m and 70cm all SSB/qrp!! and dare I say NO
CW? WHAT!?? nope! ...none ...zip! All for a very relaxed and casual
55Qs! as N0TU 1B CO. I didn't even use my key except to tune up my
antennas?! I guess the smoke signals could count as morse code or
maybe not? ...for shame.

Seriously it was an absolute hoot to call stations w/SSB in the FD
pileups running a measly 2w PEP SSB and have the OP say the "tango
uniform" station please go ahead ...he heard me! Wow, what a thrill! woohoo!

Speaking of antennas: 88'CFZ fed w/300ohm twinlead to Elecraft T1 w/FT817 (low power 2.5w), vertical dipole for 6m and hand held 5el log periodic for 2m/70cm while standing on the rocky summit of Raspberry at sunrise. For the smoke signals it was end fed radom space.

GOTA -Goat mania prevailed!
Rooster and Peanut my packgoats with their usual antics of knocking
over my stove and breakfast, stealing food when I wasn't watching and
other silly acts of goathood to include kicking over Dave's K1 while
doing the Deer fly Stomp! Dave/NK0E who hiked up with his XYL for the
day was in the middle of an exchange with a MT station that he had
staked for the at least 15 minutes. My big goat Rooster went berserk
while a deer fly was buzzing him and kicking over the K1 (big Oops!)
causing Dave to miss the Q! ...his K1 jumped a KC or so up the band
from being knock off it's perch! Good thing Dave wasn't packing heavy
metal or we would have been tasting 'goat burgers' for lunch.

It was worth every smoke filled FD second! Ready for more next year!

Steve/n0tu and the boys.
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/goatman -- N0TU