A Mini QRP Expedition
The ARS Sojourner
A couple hours after daybreak on a sunny Saturday morning I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders and headed out the door. Inside the pack was my tent, a cold weather sleeping bag, food, a tiny cookstove, fuel, a water filter, my DSW-20 and a several other essential items. The clicking sound of my hiking staff on the edge of the country road helped me establish the rhythm I hoped to maintain for the seventeen mile trip to the campgrounds.
Just over seven hours later I arrived at my destination. It didn't take long to get the tent set up (photo A) and my mummy bag unrolled onto a foam sleeping pad. I cooked some dinner, washed my dish and boiled some water for tea. The only thing left to do was get an antenna up before it got dark.
I found a small, smooth rock and put it in the toe of one of my wife's knee-high nylon stockings. To this I attached one end of a 33 foot antenna wire. The third toss with my rock-ina-sock antenna launcher put the antenna nearly vertical in an adjacent tree. A second, shorter wire was stretched out on the ground beside the tent. The opposite ends of the wires attached to my homebrew "filmcan" transmatch. (See my article in the January issue of the Sojourner for details.)
My backpacking transceiver, a DSW-20, (photo B) felt warm inside my sleeping bag. I fumbled inside the case for the earbuds and finger paddles and plugged them in along with an 8pack of AA batteries. I was pleased to hear quite a few signals around 14.060 MHz. I tried calling CQ but got no takers so I scanned up and down the band for a few minutes. Just for the fun of it I tail-ended a QSO between a gentleman in New Mexico and one in Oregon. The New Mexico station was playing with a brand new Force 12 beam and came right back to my call. When he turned his aluminum behemoth my direction I was forced to crank the transceiver's gain control almost all the way down. We chatted for about twenty minutes -- he about beams and me about QRP.
Later that night I called a couple JA stations. A brief contact with a station in Hilo, Hawaii confirmed that the batteries were still holding up. I got a QRZ from a Polish station but the QRM was atrocious. It was time to go to sleep.
The next morning I turned the rig on and listened around the band. I asked for and received a (weak) signal report from a station in Oklahoma. There were a few watery signals coming over the north pole, but like me the band was not yet fully awake.
I reluctantly left the warmth of my sleeping bag and faced the reality of a new day. After devoured a steaming hot breakfast of oatmeal and raisins I began breaking down my camp. The last thing to go was the antenna, but not before I took a quick listen around the band. Things were picking up but I resisted the urge to stay a while longer. I still had seventeen miles to hike and a million wild flowers to see on the way back home. It was a good day.
****
Bill Jones, KD7S, a renowned QRP radio and accessory builder, is a contributing editor to The ARS Sojourner living in Sanger, CA.