12/08/2009 | K6EI This year I operated portable from a rural location in the East Bay hills above Fremont about 25 minutes from my home in Sunnyvale. I was running QRP and managed 341 QSOs, 65 multipliers, and 45 states. High point of the contest was working the Galapagos Islands with my mighty 5 watts! Then again, I was having so much fun I didn't sleep either night. I was pretty fuzzy-headed by the end of the contest. My code speed dropped from 24wpm Friday evening to 15wpm (with plenty of errors) by 7am Sunday morning.

The temperature at the site dropped to 25 degrees Saturday night. The "south bunker" where I set up my radio gear is just a concrete-lined hole in the ground and is not insulated. I had an electric space heater running at its highest setting and was wearing a down coat and wool hat both nights to keep warm!

I was using an inverted L with 52 100-foot ground radials. I also had a pair of 650ft Beverage receive antennas, but found the inverted L to be quite adequate on receive. (Many thanks to W6ESL for helping me install the antennas.) I suspect my 160m transmit signal was a bit stronger than what I normally achieve from my home QTH, but the really big difference was on receive. Compared to the city, the RF noise floor here was incredibly low -- in spite of the local coyotes howling at the moon each evening.

The inverted L was 58ft tall with a 95 foot horizontal leg. I had an SGC237 remote tuner at the base. It was really nice being able to automatically retune the antenna as I moved up and down the band. In the old days, I would have to run out in the rain to retune the antenna every time I wanted to shift from the lower to the upper portion of the band. Not fun.

I had borrowed an Elecraft K3 for the weekend, and I'm now officially spoiled. Before this weekend I was perfectly content with my old rig, but after using the new K3 I feel like Im returning to an old Tercel after driving a new Prius. What a paradigm shift! -- K6EI