CWT Tour

For the CWT's of August 10-11, I decided to do them from three different locations, spending much of the day riding between them. The route that day was about 93 km. The whole loop from Madison to Albany and Blanchardville is one my friends and I have been riding for years. Tuesday afternoon, I rode the 48 km from Madison to Albany and camped by the river there.

Like many towns in this area, Albany is in a river valley.  Fortunately, there's a baseball park a ways up the hill, maybe 30 meters above the river.  There was no one playing ball at 8 AM, of course.  Not a very scenic spot, but the antenna seemed to work well. I broke the 50 QSO barrier for the first time QRP.  I should have gone to 20 earlier, though. The CWT's were all downhill from there, unlike the roads.

Albany Site

Single Op QRP 13Z
Call	QSOs	Mults	Op Time	Score	Club
NØUR	54	46	1	2,484	MWA
K9MA	53	41	1	2,173
W1UU	50	38	1	1,900
KI4MZC	21	16		336
K1SX	10	10	10m	100
W1TEF	6	6	:50	36	SFCG
VA3SB	5	5	.5	25	CCO

After everything was packed up again, which takes about 30 minutes, I hit the road to Cadiz Springs, with a lunch stop in Monroe.

Hilly Road to Cadiz Springs

Cadiz Springs is, of course, down in another hole, but I tried to make the best of it.

Cadiz Springs Antenna

Just as I was getting set up, a guy with a huge lawn mower showed up.  He agreed to cut the grass near the shelter right away, so he would be done by 19Z.  Unfortunately, in the middle of the CWT another guy showed up with another even noisier mower and completely drowned out the KX1 until the first guy caught up with him.  Missed a few QSO's there.

Cadiz Springs

When the 19Z CWT was over, I had 41 QSO's and 37 mults.

I had mobile phone data at Cadiz Springs, so I spent some time uploading the scores, and didn't get on the road until 21Z (4 PM).

On the Road to Blanchardville

I rolled into Blanchardville about an hour before sunset.  By the time I got dinner and got the tent set up, it was almost dark and the mosquitoes were voracious.  Blanchardville, naturally, is in another river valley, and I could only get about 10 meters above it in the park.  I couldn't see much, but I'm pretty sure the wire wasn't tangled in any trees, as it loaded normally.  Even the RBN's looked pretty good.  Then 03Z came around, and things were really tough.  I just couldn't get through to anyone.  Lots of CQ's in my face, even from folks like K6RB who usually come right back if no one else calls.  (Sorry about the dupe, Lar.  I'm blaming the mosquitoes.)  When I got home, I checked the KX1 output, which was fine.  It's a mystery to me.  After half an hour and 17 tough QSO's, I packed everything up and crawled into my hot, muggy tent.  I'm not sure the 03Z session is worth it on the road.  I'm either freezing my tail off or getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, and not making many contacts.  It will get worse as the days shorten and 20 closes earlier, leaving me only with 40 meters, as everyone else goes to 80 and 160 early.

One neat thing about the 03Z session was the meteor bursts I heard.  (Persieds was going on.) Because the KX1 has such poor AGC, they were really obvious.  Signals just suddenly jumped up 20 dB for a few seconds.  

The ride home Thursday was the most uncomfortable one I've done this season, as the dew point got up to 76 F/24 C, and a gentle tailwind made for a virtual calm most of the way.  The tunnel I rode through had a long cloud of condensation coming out the downwind end. A brief thunderstorm served only to further increase the humidity.  Oh well, by the time I do my next bicycle portable CWT in late September, I'll be stuffing the panniers with cold weather gear again.