An ARS Adventure: Ham Radio and Black Holes
The ARS Sojourner
Night time temperatures in the central California Sierra in mid-September can be downright chilly, but it usually warms up nicely by mid morning.
With that in mind I pulled on a pair of hiking shorts and a short sleeved polypropylene shirt.
I emerged from my tent just in time to see one of my hiking companions, Del, put a kettle of cold water on his Coleman stove. The plan was to break camp and be at the Woods Creek trailhead by 8 a.m., where we would meet up with Ed, the third member of our group.
Together we would hike some seven miles to a place on the map called Paradise Valley where we would spend the night. Del and Ed wanted to do some additional exploring in the area but my goal was to set up my 20 meter QRP rig and see if I could work a few stations competing in the QRP Afield contest.
The trailhead starts at road's end in Cedar Grove in the Kings Canyon National Park. The trail runs parallel to the middle fork of the Kings River for almost the entire trip. The first couple miles are easy going on a broad, sandy trail, but pretty soon we entered a narrow canyon that marked the beginning of a steady climb.
Four miles into the day we stopped at Mist Falls for our first break. Ed and I walked down to the river to filter some drinking water while Del guarded our backpacks from marauding bears and other wildlife. While we didn't see any bears on this trip, we did find it necessary to step over more than one pile of bear scat along the trail.
Just a little over three miles later we emerged into the beautiful Paradise Valley. We stopped at the first legal campsite for lunch where we shared the area with several deer also taking a noontime break. Somewhere between a handful of Cheezits and some dried fruit we decided this would be as good a place as any to set up camp for the night.
I picked a spot to set up my tent more with antennas in mind than camping, but it turned out to be fine for both. There was no shortage of good trees with clear access to the lower branches just right for a half-wave, 20 meter wire. I did have a concern, however, as I looked out at the surrounding terrain. I had forgotten that we were situated at the bottom of a steep walled canyon.
There was a solid granite wall about a quarter mile to the east that had "dummy load" written all over it.
It was still fairly early so I temporarily abandoned my station setup chores and joined Del and Ed on a three mile stroll up the trail. I noticed that the further we went, the more the canyon opened up. It may have been better to camp further up the trail, at least from an RF standpoint, but everyone was settled in where we were so it was too late.
We returned to camp just as the sun disappeared behind the mountain to the west so I quickly finished getting the antenna in a tree. Then, with my DSW-20 on my lap I sat down next a comfortable rock to see what, if any, activity I could find on the band. I was pleased to hear quite a few signals centered around 14.060 MHz. Not surprisingly, the strongest ones came from stations directly to the north and south. Several calls to stations east of my location confirmed that the canyon wall was blocking most of my signal in that direction.
I went on the make a few contacts, mostly in the Pacific Northwest. I attempted to improve my signal to the east by changing the antennas orientation from vertical to horizontal but it didn't help. Oh well, it was time to fix dinner anyhow.
The next morning I listened briefly but the band was still asleep so we broke camp and hiked back to civilization.
A few days later I looked at a topographical map of Paradise Valley and our camp site. The contour lines confirmed what I already knew. Although the area is breathtakingly beautiful, it is a black hole for ham radio.
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Bill Jones, KD7S, who is an avid QRPer, homebrewer and an expert ourdoorsman, is a contributing editor to The ARS Sojourner. He lives in Sanger, CA.