Wings 'N Things 2004

From W6GGF

Wings'N Things

May 1-2,2004

San Martin, California

Hi all,

Many many thanks to Don Trigueiro, Bill Gleason, Thom West and Jim Loring for all the long hours of work expended Friday, April 30th, which allowed us to get the antenna and station setup. It was a lot of work but I think it was worth it. Thanks to Tony Armendariz and Bill Culbertson, also, for getting the crank up mast for us. It worked like a dream.

We operated with a special event call, W6H (Wings of History). We had a total of 45 QSOs including 9 from Italy, 6 from Russia, 1 from France, 1 from Slovenia and 1 from Austria. (Sorry to tell you Thom, but that Sardinian station you worked was actually in Italy.) We had a pipeline into Italy and there was a contest going on which kept them calling CQ! Operators who logged QSOs were: N7FF, KD6CJX, KA6VVE and W6SC. I'm sorry that others didn't get to log some Q's. Especially Bill Gleason. I owe you a few Bill.

Of the 45 QSOs, 12 were on CW. All were on 20 meters. We heard a very slight amount of activity on 15M but nothing on 10M. We put up a vhf/uhf antenna but never used it. Sorry to all those repeater users for not making QSOs.

The club's beam worked very well. The 2:1 SWR bandwidth values for the 3 bands were 13.8Mhz to 14.7 Mhz, 20.9 Mhz to 21.85 Mhz and 27.69Mhz to 29.3 Mhz.

The 27ft mast went up very easily. Jim loaned us 4 short stakes which were easily put in and removed compared to the large ones we normally use. Four guy ropes were used at the 10 ft level. The antenna cranked up using an electric drill. We manually cranked it down with a makeshift handle. No effort really. That worm gear really works well.

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