10/21/2008 | K1YPP Last year (2007) I entered the contest while doing a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail from Damascus, VA. I was using a homebrew 1W QRP CW rig. I had a wonderful time and did a posting here about that event. A few days later, in July, having chest pains, I ended up in surgery and had a six-artery heart bypass done.
After 300 days off the trail, I got back on in Virginia and continued on the hike. This year I was near Duncannon, PA and operated the contest on Sunday morning for a few hours. I hiked south from Duncannon, to a high spot near what is known there as "Hawk Rock". It is a great location, and the weather was fabulous.
I threw a 51 foot wire up into a tree and set up the station on a flat rock. The station consisted of an AT Sprint 3A (ATS-3A), a kit from KD1JV in New Hampshire, built into an Altoids tin. The transmitter was running about 2W and used a series-L tuner for matching to the random wire. Power was a few Lithium AA batteries. Everything fit into a very small, light package for the hike.
Murphy stayed away and I had a wonderful time working stations for about an hour. Conditions must have been good, I made most contacts on the first call, and even with such low power, had a reasonable return rate on CQ's.
Operating FD with such a simple station has a real "primitive" feel to it and gives one a sense of almost being a "clandestine" operation. I highly recommend trying this for a future contest.
Field Day is still one of my favorite contests and I try to participate every year. I wasn't certain if I would operate this year, fortunately things turned out well and I once again operated from the Appalachian Trail. -- K1YPP