Death Valley National Parks on the Air Activation

On Monday, October 31, 2016 Dave Flack, W6DLF, and Dave Crocker, W6VYC, travelled to the ghost town of Furnace in the Greenwater Valley. There's really not much there except some covered copper mine shafts and tailings piles. This is where we set up our campsite and radio operations at an elevation of 4,900 feet overlooking the valley floor. Death Valler is behind us to the west. We had a clear view from northeast to southeast. Locating on a hillside also helped us get signals out over most of the U.S. It's the best location we've ever found.

Our goal was to see how many hams we could contact from Death Valley National Park for a NPOTA (National Parks On The Air) award. We contacted over 400 stations in the US and around the world. Check out the award at the bottom.

Looking northeast across the Greenwater Valley to the east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park

The steel cage over the mine shaft was used 
to secure the 33 foot military crank-up mast.

The mast supports a 2-element, 3-band Mosley antenna.A halyard line supports a 40 meter inverted V antenna.

Dave, W6DLF operating SSB, CW, Psk31, and Olivia modes.

Night ops were chilly but we had plenty of power.

Dave Crocker, chief logistics officer, meal planner, and chef.

 Dawn at the campsite. We had daytime weather in the 60s to 70s and down to the 40s at night. Windy at times, but not bad for Death Valley.

Our signature QRPedition breakfast picture.

Videos

Overall view of our campsite and operations.

Dave Flack later moved his operating position to a half tent.

Dave Crocker's operating position near an abandoned copper mine.

Dave Crocker handles an SSB pileup on 20 meters.

NPOTA Award

We worked over 400 US stations and DX stations in South Africa, 
Jakarta, Asia and Europe. Modes were SSB, Digital, and CW.

Jalama Beach Adventure--May 2016

Jalama Beach County Park is located 15 miles west of Lompoc, California.

Pictures from our outing to Jalama Beach in May 2016. It was attended by Dave Flack, W6DLF, Dave Crocker, W6VYC, Hiroki Kato, AH6CY, Bob Mix, KF6ABC, Harley Hahn, KJ6BRF, and Cliff Sojourner, K6CLS.

Dave Crocker, W6VYC, and Hiroki Kato, AH6CY, using Hiro's coffee-can vertical.

73 from Williams Hill QRPeditions

The breakfast boys say QRX until May at Jalama Beach.

Our antennas at Williams Hill

Two element tri-band Mosley beam at 33 feet. Crank-up military mast. Rotor is a ChannelMaster.

End-fed half-wave (EFHW) wire fed with 9:1 unun. Using long steel cable as counter poise. Didn't work all that well and never as well as the top-loaded vertical.

Six meter yagi,up about 20 feet.

The main antenna was a 40 foot vertical with a 140 foot flat top. It was grounded using 200 square feet of chicken wire which was also attached to the perimeter steel cable. A good tune from 160 meters to 10 meters.

Exploring Williams Hill transmitter/relay site

Williams Hill is located on BLM land near Lockwood, CA.

The hill was originally used as a fire lookout.

Cloud cover fills the Salinas Valley, to the East. 

Cliff, K6CLS, and Dave,W6VYC, in the motorhome.

Why we do what we do!

Some stations worked on 10 meters

WP4PJI, Victor;  NN4NC, Mac;  W4LID, Cyrus;  KD9BKY, Alan;  AJ4FX, Ken;  LU1JHD, Marc;  W4OOB, Eric;  KD8PJP, Scott;  Thank you all.

Antennas up despite the storm

3-band, two-element yagi; three-element 6 meter beam and 43 foot vertical antenna set up in the wind. 

Waiting out the storm in the motorhome.

Time for soup and hot drinks

Happy New Year

We are updating the blog to get ready for our 2016 QRPeditions. Thanks for visiting. If you would like to follow our adventures please use the FOLLOW US BY EMAIL tool to the right.