The trip and contest went great. At the last moment we invited our friend
(but not-a-ham) Brian to go with as we had an extra seat on the plane.
He acted as porter, chef, antenna raiser and photographer. He contributed
at least as much as Eric and I.
The flight on Channel Islands Air was spectctular. We were on weather hold
for a while, but we made it out. The pilot pointed out at least a dozen
blue whales off the coast of Santa Cruz Island. A few minutes later he
slowed the prop, turned the controls, we floated out of the sky and
touched down on the dirt strip in one of the smoothest touchdowns I've
ever experienced.
We operated from a hill that forms the northern half of the valley that
the campground is in. For six meters we had a five element yagi at 15'
at more or less a 60deg beam heading. The two meter antenna was also at
15' on it's own mast with the 432 bouncing between the two as we tried to
figure out what to do with it.
I've already received one qsl card and I am working on the design for ours
using pictures that Brian took during the weekend we were on Santa Rosa.
We made sure to get a shot of the gps displaying CM93xx as we had a few
incredulous callers that doubted that we could be in that grid.
We had fun, had a great contest and everyone came home safe. Now that we
know more about what it takes to do a DXpedition, even a mini, we are
thinking of ways to improve. More at http://w6xm.org/2011.jun-vhf/
---
Bands QSOs Value QSOPts Mults
50 90 1 90 51
144 35 1 35 11
432 8 2 16 6
Grids activated: 1
Totals: 133 141 68
Claimed Score: 9588
--
john weaver - W6XM
On Thu, 9 Jun 2011, John Weaver (W6XM) wrote:
Hello,
John (W6XM) and Eric (KR0VER) will be in CM93 on Santa Rosa Island. We've
got two 857d's and 10db+ gain antennas on 6m/2m/70cm. A combination of
lack of power/training/skill prevents us from doing anything other than
ssb; Maybe next time. Please see http://w6xm.org/2011.jun-vhf/ for more
details. Good luck in the contest!
--
john weaver - W6XM
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