Hi!
This was a good day out in western Arizona. I worked 6 different passes from the DM23/DM24 grid boundary (two on each of the 3 FM satellites), scouted out another location closer to the Colorado River still in Arizona for this grid boundary, and logged a total of 60 QSOs with stations from central Mexico to western Canada and all across the USA.
The spot I stopped at was approximately 11 miles/17.7km southeast of Parker AZ, north of the intersection of Arizona routes 72 and 95 in La Paz County. The coordinates are 34 0.00 N 114 12.925 W (this should work for Google Earth or Google Maps). I had parked away from those two state highways on the side of the paved road running north across railroad tracks to a dead end, thinking I would be out of the way and not attract attention from the law enforcement. After my recent experience at DM31 near the Mexican border 2 weekends ago (a couple of encounters with US Border Patrol agents), I should not have been surprised to see a state trooper pay me a visit this afternoon.
I left Phoenix around 9am (1600 UTC), and had lots of time to make the drive out to that spot. Instead of taking a direct route to there, which would have taken about 2.5 hours, I went a little further west and drove through the Colorado River Indian Reservation along the east side of the Colorado River. There was another spot on the DM23/DM24 boundary I could have worked from, without returning to where I stopped last year and worked from this boundary. After stopping for fuel and lunch, I went out to the spot I wanted to work from. It took a few minutes to get the GPS reading to show 34 degrees North, but once that was done I waited for the first AO-27 pass at 2051 UTC.
The first AO-27 pass to the east is usually a good one to work stations all over North America. It was a good one once again, except for a brief interruption. I was able to work the first 2 minutes or so, before an Arizona state trooper stopped by and asked if I was having car problems. Apparently someone driving along one of those two state highways called the highway patrol to report my "breakdown". Once I told the trooper I didn't have a breakdown and that I was working the radio away from civilization out there, he drove away - and I resumed working stations. A total of 16 stations were worked in about 6 of the 7 minutes on that pass.
Before the second AO-27 pass, I drove back to Parker to get some snacks and take pictures at the Colorado River. The western AO-27 pass at 2232 UTC brought 6 more QSOs. Unfortunately, this pass was interrupted by an Echolink node somewhere in the western US using 145.850 MHz as its frequency. I never heard the node ID itself, but did hear one call of the station using the node. I have my recording from this pass and the others I worked out there, so I can go back and get the call I heard and hope that the ham has an e-mail address. Maybe that ham will tell me which Echolink node he was using at that time.
A few minutes after that AO-27 pass, I had a shallow northeastern SO-50 pass at 2252 UTC, with a maximum elevation of 6 degrees. I worked 7 stations in 5 minutes on that pass, a nice surprise. Then I had the first of the AO-51 passes at 2333 UTC, a 12-degree pass to the east. Fifteen QSOs logged, with stations in Mexico and all over the US.
The last two passes, an SO-50 pass at 0028 UTC followed by an AO-51 pass at 0111 UTC, had 8 QSOs each. By the time the AO-51 pass wrapped up, I disassembled my station and drove back home. For a trip that I didn't give a lot of advance notice about, and having worked from DM23/DM24 last year, this turned out to be a good day. I know I worked some calls for the first time today, and hopefully there will be a second QSO with them when I'm operating in or around Phoenix in the near future.
If anyone wants a QSL card for a QSO - or QSOs - made with WD9EWK out in DM23/DM24, please e-mail me directly with the details of each QSO. If you're in the log, I'll send you a card. No need to send me a QSL card or SASE. I will need to make new QSL cards for this stop, since my previous trip to the DM23/DM24 boundary was in California. I hope to do that in the coming week.
Thanks to everyone who showed up and worked me from out there in western Arizona. 73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/