09/20/2007 | XE2/K6NKC Record setting tropo conditions, flying dishes, hot temperatures, stuck vehicles, good coffee, beautiful seaside vistas, high winds, good friends, many Q's, and emergency loaner rigs at the eleventh hour. What more could one ask for during this year's ARRL 10GHz and Up contest from Mexico? Well, *we* didn't get visited by the Red Bull girls like another group did. Too bad.

This was my first year on the Microwave Baja Team. My thanks to team members Frank 4C2WH (WB6CWN), Mike 4B2WB (W6YLZ), Bernardo 6I2HWB (XE2HWB), and Antonio 6I2HWH (XE2HWH) for inviting me, guiding me through the logistics, and making it a fun trip.

Good tropo conditions were evident when I realized that every contact that we were to make during both weekends would exceed my personal best DX of 600km to date. It truly is a matter of location, location, location.

A last minute change of departure time for Frank, meant that he would not rendevous with the rest of us the first weekend. That was very bad news, as he had Bernardo's rig with him and was 150 miles north of us. Departure to Mexico was hours away for the rest of us. A quick call was made to the San Diego Microwave Group to see if there were any loaner rigs available. There were none. Kerry N6IZW quickly offered his primary X-band rig as a loaner. Thank you Kerry for that generous act.

At one point on the way down, Mike's 4 foot dish flew off the top of his vehicle and after several revolutions, landed on its top edge damaging a moderately sized chunk. Several yards of duct tape later Mike proclaimed it fixed! And fixed it was! My vehicle got stuck in the sand, twice. Don't ask!

On Saturday, while we were racking up the Q's at 600 - 1000km a pop, Frank was driving straight through to a location w-a-y south of us. When he got on the air that afternoon, he made several record making contacts. Shoot, we made 400km just working Frank. Cool!

Slow times between Q's were spent watching the pelicans dive into the waves for their dinner, or exploring along the beach.

The second weekend was excellent as all of Team Baja operated together. The jokes flew, fun abounded, and the Q's just kept mounting. Bernardo and Antonio were introduced to their newly acquired rigs that were built by Frank. Fine rigs they are too. Expect to see some records set with those.

Wayne N6NB made a quick showing in the contest, or so he had planned. On a Sunday at 6pm, he got on to make a few X-band Q's. When he realized that he could work Mexico from Los Angeles with his modest setup, he decided to rove to many grids before the midnight cutoff. The signals got stronger at every stop. Finally, at his last stop at 11:50pm, he was 40 over S9. We asked him to go to FM mode. He did and it sounded like he was right next to us. Not bad for an 800km qso. I think Wayne's hooked!

Lastly, a big thank you to everyone from the San Bernardino Microwave Society, the San Diego Microwave Group, and the Federacion Mexicana de Radioexperimentadores that made this effort fun and possible.

73,
Dan K6NKC -- K6NKC