This has been quite a week for me. I started out on Monday, by ordering
the wood to begin construction of the long awaited basement ham shack
and sanity retreat.
Tuesday night, my daughter asked me if I would go down to her school
and help build sets for her school play. "But...what about the fox?",
I think. No, I didn't say anything. Bob and ol' Kenwood were due
on the air at 9, I could put in two hours and come home with plenty
of hunting time remaining. So, my 14 year old son (who's on the
tech crew at the high school) and I loaded up our tools and went
down to build. Got two "scenery wagons" designed and the bases built
before I quit at 9:00. Came home, fired up the NC-40, tuned around
for almost an hour, but just couldn't find hide nor hair of Bob, ol'
Kenwood, or any of the hunters. Next day, I came to work, brought
up KI7MN's foxhunt page, and noticed that Bob's hours were 0400-0600,
not the usual 0200-0400. Oh, well...I've done *that* before.
Wednesday night, I went down to the local ham club and discussed
what we were going to do about our repeater antenna, which
has developed an expensive-sounding set of "crunchies". It turns
out that the antenna is repairable, so I ran off to the library
to run off a copy of an article from an old issue of QST, for
a guy on the HAM-HOMEBREW mailing list. We have a complete
set of QST going back to 1940 at the club shack. Very useful.
Last night, it all got really interesting. Back to the school
for another session of set-building, but this time, I got smart
and pre-cut some of the wood on my table saw. Got home in plenty
of time to hunt. "Oh...the party", I remembered there was supposed
to be a fox graduation party on 7122 or 7112 or something. Gosh,
and it's already 8:30...I bet all the chips and dip are gone.
Run downstairs to hook up the rig and see if the party's still
going on. Nope...just a couple of guys on 7108 ragchewing. Good
fists, though, and QRPers by the sound of it. Well, let's find a
spot to tune up, I think. Plenty of forward power...and just the
same amount of reverse power?!?!
So, I check the tuner, antenna cable, and try to tune out the
mismatch. No go. Maybe the antenna came down in the wind? Good
thing I had the builder put in the floodlights, huh? Run outside
(past the wife, who's looking under the doormat for a note from
a neighbor) and notice that, oh-oh, half of the inverted-vee
seems to be missing. Lower the rest of it, find the missing
leg under a bunch of branches, and untangle everything. Hey, it's
pre-stripped! Maybe I shouldn't have soldered the wire into a loop
at the center. OK, just for tonight, I suppose I can just twist it
together. Haul everything back up into the tree and run down
into the basement. Check SWR. Hey, that's better!
Since I'm planning on loaning out my NC-40, maybe this would be a
good time to try to get a fox with the QRP+. It seems like cheating
a bit, but since I'm planning on using the QRP+ for QRPTTF, I
may as well get some practice. Tune around 7037...there he is!
We swapped 559s...Tom was going a mile a minute, nice of him to
slow down and answer me on my first try! Kinda makes up for
missing Bob, but his stories are so much fun to read, I do
wish I had been able to meet ol' Kenwood.
Only four more foxes to go, and I have yet to get two in one week.
I've done better this year than I thought I would. Fox hunting
is fun, and well worth the effort in getting the rig set up. It's
going to be a lot more fun next winter, when I have a ham shack
with carpet and painted walls and lights and all that cushy stuff.
The whole family seems to enjoy it, too. Must be the thrill of
the chase! I smile every time I look at Bob's (AE4IC) "fox QSL"
on my wall here at work. Gotta come up with one for our Spring
QRPTTF expedition.
So thanks, foxes *and* hunters, and QRP-Lers, for making a cold
New England winter a lot warmer and a lot more fun!
72
Peter, KA1AXY
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