Monday, July 21, 2014

Arkansas River Trail activation

Here are the details to my upcoming Arkansas River Trail activation on Saturday as a Pedestrian Mobile /PM Amateur Radio station:

Where: Arkansas River Trail
Transceiver: Barrett 2090
Power: 10W SSB
Antenna: DK2RZ DXM-90 with counterpoise

When you follow the individual links above, you will see a bit of background information on the various listed details. 

I will walk along the river, making a stab at walking 20km (12.4m) in 4 hours, while operating my backpack. No mountain to help me leverage my signal over the horizon. Temperature will be high and only partly cloudy - so no shade to count on (will have to wear good sunscreen!). Need to carry sufficient water too.




Yes, I am participating in the RaDAR Summer Contest but I will rag chew as much with every station as they are willing to chat with me!

Why did I choose 40m as my primary band for those 4 hours? Checking the VOACAP coverage map, I had the impression that it would yield me the best coverage.


20m band and higher did not look favorable at all, at least so I thought.


I will take on the challenge of 10W SSB with my DXM-90 40m antenna. I had a great QSO not too long ago with Greg N4KGL from Dallas when I used my 20m DXM-90, my hopes are thus that the 40m version might also deliver some good contacts. It is a gamble, but I can also always still mount my 12 foot whip or change over to a light dipole. The predicted dipole coverage certainly looks better.

73.

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