Hi!
I had planned on going to CO60/CO70 today, but could not find a good spot to work satellites out there. Lots of trees, hills, and being stuck at the bottom of valleys looking at obstructions up to almost 30 degrees of elevation to the east and southeast would have been no fun. I came back to Campbell River, where I spent last night after crossing the ferry from Vancouver, and went to the (very) nearby CN79/CO70 boundary. There is a monument near that spot, erected by the local Rotary group, to mark the 50th parallel. My GPS claimed the monument was just a little north of the actual line, and I spent the day working from that area. Being in Campbell River, I could simply take a short drive to get lunch and not have to pack food with me if I spent the day out in the forest not wanting to come back to town.
I worked at least 13 passes, and logged at least 1 QSO on 11 of them. I worked SSB and FM, shallow passes and very high passes, and was able to put these grids in the logs of stations all over North America. Alvaro XE2AT was *very* happy with getting CO70 in his log this afternoon, and I'm sure there were others happy with either of both of these grids in their logs. I logged a total of 77 QSOs from CN79jx/CO70ja today. Adding in the 24 QSOs I logged last night from Vancouver, this is a great start for the radio part of my trip. And I'm doing sightseeing, and taking pictures as I go.
Now for what will probably be the most ambitious driving I will do on this trip. I will go northwest from Campbell River into grid CO60 to some point where I get a good view of the sky for satellite work. If there are good roads beyond the town of Port Hardy at the far end of BC route 19, I may even be able to get out to the CO50/CO60 grid boundary. Port Hardy is at least 3 hours away from here, and it could be another hour or more from Port Hardy to the boundary line if there are roads good enough to drive out there. If I go out there, I have to come back from there, so you can imagine the distance I will cover (or visit a site like Google Maps to check it out for yourself). Depending on the surroundings at the times for the passes, I may stop and work some passes on my way to and from Port Hardy or the CO50/CO60 boundary, for more chances to get at least CO60 in logs.
From what I saw this morning, once I left Campbell River for at
least the first 70km/43 miles or so away from this town, the GSM cell coverage went away. It does not pick up again until I am most of the way to Port Hardy. If, for some reason, I do not get to Port Hardy, the only way to know where I ended up would be to work passes in the daytime and early evening tomorrow. If I can get a signal on the cell, I should be able to scribble a quick e-mail here announcing my location. I will have my gear with me for both SSB and FM birds, and with AO-7 hopefully switching back to mode B late tomorrow afternoon I may even get on there before returning to Campbell River in the (late) evening.
As for QSL cards, some have already said they were going to send me a card immediately. You may want to wait until after the coming week, so you can send requests for all QSOs that you may make with VA7EWK in a single envelope. For this trip, I would like to get QSL cards. SASEs are not required when working me via satellite, and I am happy to respond to QSL cards I receive with or without an SASE. I will most likely send out cards with SASEs, as I would like to see if I can reach VUCC after this week coupled with the trip I made to Vancouver in late 2008. It could be close.
Thanks to all for the QSOs today. It was fun to work the passes and be in 16C/61F comfort for the entire day in Campbell River. Hope to hear you tomorrow from wherever I end up...
73!
Patrick VA7EWK/WD9EWK - Campbell River, British Columbia http://www.wd9ewk.net/