It was cloudy with on and off rain when we met up at the CVS pharmacy in Crestview, FL. This is where we parked my truck and jumped into Jerry's. He has a nice Chevy pickup with alot more room than my Nissan Hardbody! Once we had everything loaded up, off we went. Its took about 35 minutes to reach our destination. The drive is nice with farmland being the norm along the way.
Lakewood Park is the name given by Walton County where Britton Hill is located. At a whopping 345ft it is named after a Post Mistress that lived in the area. What is funny about Florida's highest point is that it is by far the lowest of the 50 states. It is not even close. DEAD LAST! More information can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britton_Hill.
With the weather being not so good I was reassured to see the pavillion waiting for us when we arrived.
It was time to spring into action and get our stations and antennas up and working. Jerry and I put up a 20m GP and 40m dipole.
Jerry put up his G5RV using a fiberglass mast as the center support.
Once the chairs, food and antennas were setup up it was time to break out our stations. I was using my Wilderness Sierra, ZM-2, Te-Ne-Key while Jerry was using his FT-857D and LDG Auto Tuner.
My setup:
Jerry's setup:
Now it was time for the fun part. I fired up the Sierra on 20m and Jerry hit 40m. There were tons of stations on and I was really excited. Once tuned up I started hunting for PB's. Almost immediatly I heard Jed AD7KG in UT with a HUGE signal!!! I was excited. Great things had to be coming my way to hear CQ PB this quick. I set the keyer to 18wpm and answered back. No reply. I answered again. No reply. I was stumped. For Jed to have this big of a signal I was certain that he would be able to hear me. "Never fear, I'll move on and come back to him" I thought. So I worked up and down +/- 14.060. No shortage of activity with the Elecraft QSO Party but I was unable to get anyone. I returned to where Jed had been but I did not hear him. I was starting to get frustrated so I decided to move to 40m. Once I had removed the 20m coax from the ZM-2 and placed the 40m coax on I noticed an error. Not a rig or tuner error but, an OPERATOR error. I had never put the switch on the tuner from the "tune" postion to the "operate" position. No wonder nobody heard me. I was replying to everyone into a 50ohm dummy load! Bonehead Award goes to me!
On 40m Bob K3KKA quickly answered my CQ. Bob's QTH is near Daytona, FL. He gave me a 589 RST which I was happy about. Bob told me an interesting story about the antenna he was using. He said it was a long wire with his swimming pool as the counterpoise. I chuckled because thats the first time I had heard of a pool and HAM radio being combined! It was a great QSO and Bob enjoyed the fact that he had just worked Floridas highest point. Thank you for the QSO Bob.
Meanwhile Jerry was hunting and pouncing on stations. He was working people from the Pacific Northwest all the way across to the East Coast. If there was an award on the number of QSO's, then Jerry took that trophy home with NO contest!
Jerry taking a break:
About this point I got hungry so I broke out my peanut butter & jelly sandwich that Ann had made us before I left. About that time Jerry's and my good friend Phil N6COP showed up. What an unexpected suprise. While Jerry and I ate our sandwiches Phil jumped onto Jerry's setup and got into the action.
During the little break I got my GPS out to see what grid we were in and how far off the elevation was. To my suprise the elevation said 350ft! Not bad considering that a GPS' elevation is usually much further off in my experience.
It was around 1500cst that the rain and wind really got bad. The temp had been 65 degrees all day but it was now starting to drop. I decided to jump onto 20m again before it was too late and this time I remembered to put the tuner into the correct position. I called CQ a couple of times and Ed K1GDH answered. His QTH was Webster, MA. He was running 5w while I was running 1.7w. We had a great QSO going when the Elecraft guys jumped right on top of us. I lost him completly! I was angry but I won't jump on that soap box. RST received from Ed was 539. Thanks for the QSO Ed.
As the temp kept dropping Jerry and I both knew that it was time to wrap it up. Once all of our gear was packed up I took a quick second to run over to the granit marker at ground zero and take a picture.
As we were leaving I saw something that I had not seen when we arrived. We were in such a hurry to setup that I had not looked at the view that Britton Hill provided. It is not the most beautiful sight I have ever seen but it was nice enough.
And what is a trip to any state's highest point without a picture of the crew? Thank you Phil for taking the picture!
In summary it was a great day. I had a blast. Jerry and I talk most mornings on the Eglin AFB repeater. This was our first chance to get out and operate together. This won't be the last of the N8PXE & W6EOD crew. 2 great ragchew QSO's for me and a boatload for Jerry! Look for us the next time we're at Britton Hill!!!
72
Steve
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