I went to a parking lot near the SF Bay in Palo Alto and operated "mobile" with my FT-817 and Pac-12 antenna on the trunk and the laptop inside the car. I heard someone on CW on 14.070 calling CQ Test even before I plugged the antenna in! Thankfully he went away quickly. I ran the radials over the car and the roof and a few trailing to the ground. As they aren't tuned (or tunable in such a state, probably) I just relied on the Z11 to match it through 1 ft of coax. I heard someone in Wayne County, NY (near Rochester) in QSO with France, but couldn't hear the other side. I answered W9JIF Jerry in Sun City, AZ, who retired from being a middle-school teacher in Oskosh, WI. He was 599 and I got 589. I broke for lunch at 1:30 PST and it started raining a half-hour later. I couldn't get my PSKMeter to work -- it dailed to erspond when I transmitted -- probably from RF getting to the uP because it was inches away. Once I get approval from the ranger I will try operating portable from a little closer to the water, but he is out this week, so I stuck to mobile operation from the parking lot. I have staked out a spot that looks good, a park bench right by some grass near the water. I switched to 18157.5 USB with the 20M coil and relied on the tuner and heard some HFPack QSOs -- a W0 and a local SF W6 were very strong but the W6 was working the other stns in a roundtable and I wasn't interested in the local.
- posted by Leigh @ 23:05 z