I put my Cabelas pole into the Rakgear backpack I got on sale from Geek.com for $15, and poked it out the headphone port, and wrapped 16ft of Teflon-coated silver-plated wire around it, and tied a loop to the backpack handle. Then I attached 14ft of trailing wire to the ground side of the binding post, and put the 10 AA's on the back of the KX1.

20m sounded dead, but probably from lack of activity as much as the geomagnetic conditions. I could get L=0 C=0 on it, but I supect ground loss was a big part of that, as when I got off concrete and onto dirt it went up to L=6 and 1.5:1.

I switched to 40M and got 3:1, but it was too hard to get the longer wire out of the backpack (poor planning) so I just tried it anyway. I heard W6HVR on about 7.045, 599, talking to a VA7, whom I could barely copy. I called twice after their QSO ended, and Gene answered me. He was in Oregon, and said he could copy. He had to go open the door (I think for the cat) in the middle of the QSO, and then after a while said his arthritis was acting up, and we said 73. He said my KX1 was doing a fine job.

I looked up Gene and he's a member of the Old Old Timer's Club, of people who were hams or other radio operators more than 40 years ago. The group started in 1947, when the bar date was 1907! I'll be eligible myself in a few years (got my novice at 7)...I think it's the first organization I've seen whose web site boasts a link to Members that have NOT been reported dead.

Along the way, an anthropologist stopped and took a picture of me...I will post it later if she sends it along. Update

- posted by Leigh @ 18:20 z