After doing solo Field Days as a 1B from an island in Northern Wisconsin for two years in a row and as a 1C from Nevada last year, I returned to a favorite remote spot at 7400’ in Kern County, CA. I operated as a 1B in the San Joaquin Valley section from the mountain range above the Great Plains overlooking Bakersfield, Fresno and points north. As is my usual custom, I set up on Friday and had fun talking to other stations similarly situated at their FD locations on 3.913 MHz. It got quite chilly at 41 degrees by the time I went QRT at 2330 hours local. On Saturday during the day it was a comfortable 75 degrees but again went down to 41 at night. The bands were initially slack for me on 20 and 40 meters when FD started but eventually picked up in the later afternoon and evening. Six meters was open for SSB contacts from a dipole into WA, OR, and British Columbia. Sunday had good propagation. Overall I only had 215 contacts which is much lower than usual. I also was able to activate a nearby SOTA (Summit-on-the Air) on Friday morning.

But the highlight of the trip was before I even got to my FD location. I encountered the largest bear I had ever seen lumbering up the rough dirt road in front of me. The first thing I did upon seeing the critter was to check for any cubs. Not finding any, I figured it was a boar and because of its size. For over 20 minutes I had to hang back 60 yards while he took his sweet time. While I honked my horn, only once did he glance back as if to say, “I don’t care.” At one point he laid down on the road. Finally when I honked again, he got up without looking back and disappeared behind a tree. I crept slowly forward wondering if he would ambush me but found that he had taken a side path off the road. When I got to my site a mile further up besides setting up my equipment and antennas, I kept my most important piece of gear around my neck: a whistle in the event I had to send “di-di-dit dah-dah-dah di-di-dit” in case my new friend showed up.  Smokey didn’t.

73 de Scott