07/05/2007 | WA6FGW If we told you during our Field Day QSO that we were operating from an island in the Pacific Ocean which is part of the United States, where are we? If your answer is Hawaii, try Santa Barbara Island in the Channel Islands National Park, 40 miles off the coast of Malibu, CA. This is a treeless one square mile island with 150' cliffs with no beaches or fresh water. Nevertheless the five person crew working WA6FGW 1A Santa Barbara had a whale of a time. Running an Yaesu
FT-817 with a 20 watt homebrew amplifier and a Buddipole antenna, 114 contacts were made from a campsite on a bluff overlooking the big blue ocean. This included QSOs from Alaska to Puerto Rico on 20 meters and Nebraska and Missouri on 6 meters running 5 watts during the Sunday morning opening. This was in spite of heavy QRM. But the QRM was not from RF. Rather it was from the hundreds of sea lions who made their presence known by their barking and roaring from their QTH at the bottom of the rocky cliffs. But the weekend was not all ham radio. Hiking and sea kayaking enabled views of the sea lions and thousands of nesting sea gulls and brown pelicans with their young chicks. As those who work Field Day in the wild and outdoors say, half the fun is getting there. It was no exception on this trip with views of dolphins right alongside the moving boat and a sighting of a whale spout and its flukes. -- WA9STI