The Full Moon Effect: Portable Radio On Mount Ascutney & Gifford Woods State Park
October’s Hunter Moon was taking its toll. Columbus Day weekend, like any good three-day break from work, put a lot of people on the road. As in we were re-routed to locals by the google maps app in order to avoid significant delays in the Concord NH merging of Interstates 93 and 89 Saturday morning on our way to Vermont. Which meant the leaf-peepers were traveling at least 20 miles under the speed limit on the windy, two-lane, townie roads. My patience was wearing thin and AA1F was getting the brunt of my snide remarks as we made our way to Mount Ascutney. I am not proud. But I also am going to choose to blame the giant, full, deliciously illuminated Hunter Moon. Or maybe even Nellie, our dog. Or perhaps Google who chose this route full of aimless drivers… Anyone. Anyone, but me.
We did make it to Mount Ascutney where I set up the standard 20M EFHW and AA1F popped up the radio station. The one and a half mile round trip hike from the summit autoroad parking lot was a breeze. And we activated in a hurry. AA1F put on his best SOTA model expression…
Where as I channeled my inner grumpy…
Fortunately, I have found that pizza cures everything. Including oversized full moons. Conveniently located between Mount Ascutney and our temporary domicile in Gifford Woods State Forest, Ramunto’s Brick Oven Pizza in Rutland had already been vetted on our last trip to Vermont. One large sausage pie, one large pepperoni pie, and a tray of garlic knots later, we would have both tonight’s and tomorrow’s food ready to go…
We arrived at the Gifford Woods State Park at approximately sunset. I would have about 15 minutes of light in order to deploy both 80 meter and a 40 meter off-center fed dipole antennas. The last shred of sunlight was gone by the time I flung the remaining short end of the 80M OCF in a tree. I put the 40M antenna up entirely by headlamp.
As always, tarps come in handy. I created a wall on the front of our three-sided lean-to. It was imperative that the tarps did not blow freely around and it was quite windy out. I used the concrete-filled buckets to anchor down the temporary barrier.
The reason we could not have loose fabric was due to the fact that we were using a propane heater attached to a 20lb propane tank to help keep us comfortable overnight. We were expecting sub-zero tempertures, and we are quite sure we got them. We used our Mountain Hardware 0 degree sleeping bags. And Nellie had not one, but two bags to herself. You can see the layout of my station below.
And AA1F’s station…
So, what does the full moon have to do with this? Well, radio-wise, I never uploaded the device drivers for my Yaesu FT-991A into the little Evolve III Maestro cheap computer before leaving our Boston QTH. Therefore my intention of running digimodes overnight were squashed. Next, I could not get the Signalink to work with AA1F’s Yaesu-FT891 and his Evolve III Maestro, and the drivers were installed for his! It turns out I simply forgot to plug the USB from the radio into the computer to complete the necessary CAT control. Next, while AA1F made 131 qsos, I just barely squeaked in 15. Of course, I am proud to say that 6 of those were CW! And without any decoding software since my computer was not properly prepared for this activation. Thanks to KC1MXB, KQ4CD, VE3QC, WE1C, WA2NYY, and WR2E for accommodating my painfully slow CW (literally too slow for the Reverse Beacon Network to pick it up!!) You were really the highlight of this trip for me!
And then we followed the moon home.
KM1NDY