Friday afternoon and I was out and about in the car. Up pops a spot on SOTAwatch from Karel OK2BWB for a summit activation starting in 20 mins time:
Fri 05:23 OK2BWB/P on OK/VY-060 14.062 cw
qrv in 20 mins, fred +~ qrm (Posted by OK2BWB)
I was driving home and tuned up on 20m. With 20 mins to go I expected to be QTHR by activation time.
Location for mobile contact with Karel OK2BWB/P
Then I heard Karel calling on 14.062 so I drove on a bit until the QRM level dropped and I could pull over. I had 30m APRS beaconing so the location is as shown on the map to the right. I was on a suburban backstreet 4km from home near a lake and thought – might as well give it a go. Pulled the key from its cardboard box and set it up on the centre console while another contact was in progress. Then there was a break and I put my call in using my old hand key. Karel queried so I sent my call again to clarify and then the joy of hearing my full callsign coming back. Not too many signing with /m for mobile!
The contact was completed with me balancing a small notepad on my knee and trying to keep up with Karel’s rapid fire CW amongst the QSB and some CW QRM. I had not had time to switch on the narrow IF filter. Luckily the noise level was low. I used 100W into a screwdriver antenna with a 1.6m whip. Later I discovered Karel was using 2.7W into an inv-V dipole at 9.6m. Certainly a fun contact being able to work a DX summit long path from the mobile:
| 08/Aug/2014 | 05:48 | VK2IO/M | OK2BWB/P | OK/VY-060 | Sklenský vrch | 14MHz | CW | 6 | 4019 | R559 S529 14062 Karel (mob: Norwest) |
Thanks, Karel!
