2015 - Dodge the rain

I had hoped to operate from an island in the Snake River downstream from Clarkston, WA like I did nine years ago in 2006. However, all week long there had been a low pressure off the California coast that sent waves of wind and rain into northern California, Oregon, and even the panhandle of Idaho where I live. These situations are known here in the Pacific Northwest as Pineapple Expresses. With a forecast of 100% chance of rain with accumulations of tenth to quarter of an inch and wind gusts up to 28 mph, I decided to operate from the back yard in Moscow, ID.

It rained all night Friday and was still raining hard Saturday morning at 1400Z. Finally at 1700Z the rain quit and I put up a 20 m end-fed half wave into the trees in the back yard. I operated from under the second story deck using a K2 and netbook running N1MM for logging and keying the radio.

Pretty quickly Paul, W7B, in CO found me. For being in a canyon, he was good copy.

Before the next wave of rain arrived at 1915Z, I was able to work familiar calls of K6BBQ in CA, NQ7RP in AZ, WG0AT in CO, and NK9G/7 in AZ. I took a break for lunch and waited until that band of showers passed. First up after the rain stopped and the sun came out for a brief time was Chuck, K7QO, in AZ.

During the 2100Z hour UT, NM, and TX made it into the log. Just before the final line of showers put a halt to my FYBO, I snagged Jerry, N9AW, in WI.

This was the first time I'd used the end-fed half wave antenna. The tuner end, a SOTABEAMS Mountain Tuner, was at ground level with the other end up about 30 feet in a pine tree.

Except for the WI contact, all the Qs were single hop from ID. I don't know if that was band conditions or it was all the antenna could muster.

10 Qs, 7 SPCs, field mult of 4, alternative power mult of 2 for charging my gel cell from a solar panel before FYBO, temperature multiplier of 3 for my low temperature of 48 plus working NQ7RP resulted in a score of 1,780. One of my lowest FYBO scores, but it was a fun day.