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Along the Road through Red Rock Canyon |
Only 186 more Miles on Highway 395 to Mono County |
Along the Road through
Red Rock Canyon Only
186 more Miles on Highway 395 to Mono County
This was my 15th consecutive year operating a CQP county expedition from Mono County. It really is a beautiful drive from the home QTH in Santa Monica to Mammoth Lakes, so the time and miles fly by quickly. Again I used all wire antennas…dipoles for 40m & 80m and 3 element wire beams on 15m & 20m. Using a sling shot, these antennas are anywhere from 60 to 70 feet in the pine trees. Part of the fun is having people walk by and ask how did I ever get them up so high? I always try and make up some creative answer before telling them about the sling shot and fishing pole line, etc.
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Usually during CQP there is almost always some kind of bear encounter…this year it was one bear and a lot of bees. When I was putting up the 20m wire beam, I didn’t notice that my sling shot guy line came down right above a beehive that was in a log on the ground. I was standing right on it for a few minutes until I noticed all the bees flying around my feet. I was wearing shorts and one of the bees bit me in the back of my leg…ouch! At least it didn’t swell up too bad. I proceed with extra care while I finished pulling up the antenna from that area. Later in the day I had my bear sighting, but he was a little one and was too busy eating pine nuts to pay me much attention.
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All of the equipment & antennas preformed well and I kept a pretty good rate going most of the time. I even added about 50 QSOs by using my second radio mainly in S&P mode. I had over 50 DX calls logged, mostly in Europe plus about 200 VEs including 100+ VE3s...thanks for great turnout…Eh. The last two sections I needed were SK and HI. VE5XD found me Sunday morning and literally with one minute left in the contest I found KH6GMP for the sweep!
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It was nice to beat my previous Mono County CQP record from 2004 by over 200 QSOs, come in 1st Place, Single Op, County Expedition and finally break into the top twenty (wine winners) for the first time.
73 to all!
Jim, W6KC @ W6ML in Mammoth Lakes, Mono County
Be sure to checkout the on-line logs from the CQP operations in Mono County.
