Inside the Log of a Pedestrian Mobile Op

By Paul Signorelli, W0RW
Special to The ARS Sojourner

Editor’s note: Last month’s edition of The ARS Sojourner carried the feature story “Hiking Mobile with the KX1” by Paul Signorelli, W0RW, who reported his exploits with the small Elecraft transceiver while pedestrian mobile. Following is a report on how he fared during 2004’s FYBO.

First , I must offer thanks to every operator appearing in my FYBO log who who struggled to copy my weak little signal.

Running the KX1 at 3watts into an 8-foot whip stuck in my rear pocket did not make my signal the strongest on the band. I was also dragging a 15-foot ground wire on the snow. We had a great day at Divide, Colorado.

The temperature was 20F to start then went to 25F. KG5N, Nick, was working from the picnic table in 1-foot of fresh snow, He made about 50 contacts with a dipole in a tree.

I was hiking on the trail at 9,000 feet on the west side of Pike’s Peak.

It was a bright and sunny day and the winter birds were eating our lunch crumbs right out of our hands.

Logging was very hard as I stumbled through the snow, sometimes post-holing in deep spots. I hiked about 6 miles in the snow.

Twenty meters was best. I heard some signals on 40, but the 8-foot whip is too short.

Following are the stations that I logged:

NØBUI / Mike
KØTK / Jim
NØTU / Steve (camping on the next hill over at 9,000 feet)
NØUR / Jim
KØUU / Jeff
WAØFGV / Jiggs
NØEVH / John
WØOR / Bill
NT6K / Dave
NQ7RP / John
WD7Y / NV
WA8ZBT / Dennis
NA8M / John
WE6W / Ed
W1HUE/7 / Larry
W5USJ / Chuch
K7TM / Bob
N8KIE / Bob
KT8K / Tim
KL7R / Sid (my first pedestrian mobile Alaska contact)
K7NWS / Steve
W1PID / Jim
N7MOB / Bill
W6AZ / Ron
AC4XO / Ben
K4UK/m / Stan
K4MF / Gary
NØDA / Dan
NQ7RP / Terry
W5KDJ / Wayne
K7QD / Lee
WB8E / Walt
W5YR / George
K4PQC / Phil
W9FNB / Gary
* * * * * * * * * *
Paul Signorelli, WØRW, is a pedestrian mobile operator living in Colorado Springs, CO.