Hoping to duplicate my success of my last outing with the KH1, things got off to a frustratingly slow start today. Towards the end of my activation, I had a couple of surprise QSOs that made it worthwhile.
I headed up to Norristown Farm State Park (US-4363, KFF-4363) for an early activation. Given the rainy weather this morning, I hunkered down under a picnic pavilion. Not surprisingly, I was the only one in that area of the park.
As with my last outing, I went with my KH1 and whip antenna in the “tabletop mode.” I used a right-angle adapter for the whip and ran my counterpoise wire across the concrete floor and out onto the grass. I tuned up on 40M and logged a park-to-park contact with NZ1J in Connecticut before calling CQ myself.
Compared to my last outing, the pace was painfully slow this morning. Despite some very strong hits on the Reverse Beacon Network, there was nothing even remotely resembling the pileups I encountered last time. In fact, there was a 10-minute gap between my 9th and 10th contacts. I was thinking I wouldn’t make it to 10. Undeterred; I forged on, logging 14 contacts before moving up to 20M.
Normally, the KH1 will tune right up on 20M, but not today. I had to fiddle with the counterpoise wire for the KH1 to find a 1.7:1 match. I don’t think the counterpoise wire liked the wet concrete floor.
The activity was slow, but the calls were coming in. At one point, I heard I4RHP faintly calling. I answered a few times, but got no response. Three QSOs later, the band must have perked up, because I finally completed a QSO with I4RHP. (I really appreciate Rodolfo’s persistence.) Four QSOs after that, I received a call from DL3HXX. Italy and Germany with four watts into a 45-inch whip! That’s the kind of stuff that makes QRP fun.
Anyway, I made one final QSO before wrapping things up. I ended with 26 contacts in about an hour and 15 minutes. Given the pace of things early on, that was much better than I expected.
As I was walking back to my truck, I spotted an interesting location for a future activation with the KH1. That one will require better weather than we had today, though.
72, Craig WB3GCK
