CQP Comments for 2010

2010 CQP

A Good Launch

This was my 19th CQP county expedition to Mammoth Lakes in Mono County. I arrived on Tuesday night, an extra day earlier than usual, with my pickup truck fully loaded with several hundred pounds of radios, computers, antennas, coax, etc. Single op expeditions are a lot of work and it was nice to have an extra day to set up. The drive up Highway 395 is always enjoyable as you follow the Eastern Sierra mountain range on the left side of the road and pass lots of interesting little towns along the roadway.

Heading North on Highway 395 passing through the small town of Olancha

Best know as the home of Crystal Geyser bottled water

Having launched my antenna guy lines in the pine trees with a sling shot for about 20 years, I have decided to award myself expert marksman status. This year I hit my mark at the top of each tree on virtually every shot. My 3 element wire beams for 15M & 20M and three dipoles for the other bands were as high as they have ever been.

The Launch Kit...High powered sling shot, fishing pole and gloves for pulling up the guy lines.

And featuring a two-ounce fishing weight wrapped in red tape to enhance spotting as it descended on the back side of each of the target trees. This same weight survived to be used on every shot.

The 15M Wire Beam at about 60 feet between the trees

Unfortunately, my AL-80B amp picked this weekend to start failing...if I tried to get more than 400w out (200w max on 20 SSB), it would arc and drop to zero. So I ran with medium high power.

All the antennas seemed to perform well, it would have been nice to see how things would have worked with the full KW, particularly on 20M SSB. I did make the most CW QSOs that I ever have and it was cool working 128 EU stations. I got my sweep when KO7P called me on 75M SSB at 0741 UTC and gave his NR 11 in ID. That was good timing for going to bed a few minutes later...you always sleep better after a sweep.

In one of my many Canadian QSOs, a VE3 station gave me some new phonetics for my call...W6 Maple Leaf. Maybe I'll try those occasionally next year to see if I can get even more Canadians in the log, eh.


Packed up and heading home in the rain with fresh snow on the mountain tops		Storm clouds line the horizon

After CQP ended at 3pm local time, I spent the next 3 1/2 hours taking down all of the antennas, finishing just as it was getting dark. Since I had spent almost 3 days setting them up, that was pretty fast. The weather forecast of heavy rain on Monday (which turned out to be accurate) gave me the incentive to keep working so I wouldn't need to deal with an extra dose of Mother Nature.

As always, CQP was lots of fun and it was nice to have eye ball and CQP QSOs with the other active Mono County hams, W6SX and W7AB, W7FD and KL2P at W6M.

Thanks to all!

73,

Jim, W6KC @ W6ML, Mammoth Lakes, Mono County

Back to Mono County Expeditions


	Heading North on Highway 395 passing through the small town of Olancha	Best know as the home of Crystal Geyser bottled water


The Launch Kit...High powered sling shot, fishing pole and gloves for pulling up the guy lines.		And featuring a two-ounce fishing weight wrapped in red tape to enhance spotting as it descended on the back side of each of the target trees. This same weight survived to be used on every shot.