As we approached the 2nd weekend of the 10 GHz and up Cumulative I was watching the weather carefully. My plan was to go to Mt Washington, FN44ig for at least one of the two days. As we all know, weather on Mt Washington is a big factor. At over 6200 feet, it can be downright nasty up there!

On Friday night, I made my decision to head to the summit on Saturday. Larry, K1LPS was debating whether to tag along or not. In September, the Toll Road doesn’t open until 8AM. I headed up at around 8:15AM. K1LPS was nowhere to be found at that point.

The temperature at the base was 37 degrees when I started out. I had packed all the “winter” gear – GoreTex pants, winter parka, heavy boots etc, in anticipation of a chilly day on top. As I climbed, the temperature rose. By the time I got on top, it was 46 degrees, sunny and no wind!

I set up my gear in the lower left South facing parking lot and worked the usual early morning suspects – AF1T, W1MKY, K2TXB, W1GHZ, KB1VC and KA1OJ who had 24 GHz as well. Signals to Dale, Mickey and Russ were the strongest I’ve ever seen in that direction, so I was hopeful for some propagation. I was not to be disappointed!

Soon after those contacts I heard a very loud signal on 2M calling me. It was a station in EM66. That contact was followed by one in EM54. Unfortunately, neither station had 10 GHz.

Suddenly I heard a loud call on 2M from Steve, KB8VAO. Steve and I go way back to the days of AO-10 and AO-40 satellites where we chased DX. I knew he had 10 GHz. He reported he was in FN00sn. We calculated a heading and I started sending dashes. He came back almost immediately that he was hearing me and said “go sideband”!  We worked easily – 719 km

By this time, K1LPS had shown up. We reconnected with Steve to see if Larry could work him. I run approximately 4.5 watts. Larry runs 280 mW. Larry was successful on sideband!

Below are two links to some MP3’s of the contacts. These were recorded by Steve. He was having some issues with his digital recorder, but you can hear both K1LPS and me work him.

http://www.burlingtontelecom.net/~n1jez@burlingtontelecom.net/N1JEZ_KB8VAO.mp3 

http://www.burlingtontelecom.net/~n1jez@burlingtontelecom.net/K1LPS_KB8VAO.mp3

 Things picked up from there. Here’s a shortlist of the longer contacts. The best DX was NA4N at 845 km. Both Larry and I worked Greg.

 1426   KB8VAO         FN44IG   FN00SN      719

1534   VE3FN          FN44IG   FN15IK      492

1729   WA3TTS         FN44IG   FN00RG      745

1753   W3SZ           FN44IG   FN20AG      588

1757   WA2FGK         FN44IG   FN21BF      505

1831   NA4N           FN44IG   FM08US      845

2003   K3CB           FN44IG   FM18VR      740 

The contact with K3CB was my second attempt. We worked pretty easily in CW after hearing nothing earlier in the day.

So I ended up breaking my previous DX record on 10 GHz of 595 km three times. I also added three new grids to the total from Mt Washington. It now stands at 31 worked. I won’t forget this day soon.