Hello!
After 7 days and over 1905 miles/3066km on the road, I'm back home in Phoenix. Today was mainly a travel day, not wanting to make a late drive home tonight before returning to work tomorrow morning. I worked two passes to help some operators get QSOs with certain grids, had lunch in between the two passes, and drove about 400 miles/640km today.
I started the day in Mesquite, Nevada - a small town along the I-15 freeway at the Nevada/Arizona border. Before leaving that area, I worked one SO-50 pass around 1449 UTC from the DM26xt/DM36at line just inside northwestern Arizona. DM26 is on regularly, but not DM36. I figured I'd make one pass from here, handing out more QSOs from there. I was in another part of DM36 in late May, operating from Grand Canyon Village. In 2008, I worked from 3 different spots in DM36 as part of my July 2008 road trip along Arizona's borders with Utah and Nevada. I worked 7 stations across the US and Canada, not a big number but pretty good for a weekday morning.
After the SO-50 pass, I made the hour-long drive down to Las Vegas. I met Jeff WB3JFS, a Las Vegas resident and satellite ham, for lunch. Jeff had told me earlier that he had never worked anyone in his home grid (DM26), but had worked the other grid that covers the southern end of metropolitan Las Vegas (DM25). I said I would try to help him, and planned to work from the DM25jx/DM26ja grid boundary where I stopped last year. Jeff gave me some QSL cards for QSOs we had made earlier in my current road trip, saving the postage for those cards. :-) After lunch, Jeff went home and I went to the south end of the Las Vegas "Strip" for an AO-27 pass around 2029 UTC.
In 7 minutes on AO-27, I worked 15 stations - including WB3JFS - from the DM25/DM26 grid boundary. I realize that these grids would not be the most rare of the grids in the state of Nevada. I was not intending on going to those rare spots on this trip. This stop, and the earlier stop in DM26/DM36, were made to help others specifically looking for at least one of the grids at those stops - and they were not out of my way for today's travels.
After the AO-27 pass, I dismantled my portable station and stowed the gear. It was time to return home and wrap up this trip. Other than s-l-o-w traffic passing over Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, the drive was OK. Some rain near Hoover Dam and near Phoenix, otherwise a quiet drive where I could set the cruise control on my truck. I made a quick stop at Hoover Dam to get some photos of Lake Mead (the water level was much lower than I have ever seen it in person), and held my camera out the window to get pictures of the new bridge being built over the river that will replace Hoover Dam as the way to cross the river at that point on the Arizona/Nevada border.
I will post a longer report covering all of my trip in a few days. So far, I know I made over 250 QSOs throughout the trip, working from 14 grids (DM25, DM26, DM35, DM36, DM37, DM38, DM45, DM46, DM47, DM48, DM49, DM57, DM58, DM59) in 3 states (Arizona, Nevada, Utah). In between the two AO-27 passes from DM58/DM59 in eastern Utah on Monday afternoon, I made a quick road trip to the Utah/Colorado border. I stopped at the state line to take some photos, then went to the first exit on I-70 in Colorado before returning to the DM58/DM59 boundary for the later pass.
If you worked me during the past week - going back to last Thursday, the day before the hamfest in Williams AZ started - and would like QSL cards for those QSOs, please e-mail me with a listing of the QSOs. If you're in the log, you'll get a card (or multiple cards).
Since I operated from so many unique locations, I will need a little bit of time to prepare cards. As I have tried to do in the last year with my QSL cards, all of these cards will have descriptions of the location for each QSO including the grid(s), name of the county I was in during the QSO, and an image of my GPS receiver's display showing the latitude and longitude for that location. I will include the GPS image even for those cards where my location was not on a grid boundary, to keep all of these cards similar in terms of the information I am presenting for my location.
Was this a fun trip for me? Yes! I've never driven beyond the Arizona/Utah border area in Utah, and it was fun to see more of that state. Getting on the air a lot over the past week, whether I was at the hamfest or on the road after the hamfest closed, was great. Generally there was good cooperation on passes, allowing many to get QSOs with me in these different locations. Meeting WB3JFS in Las Vegas today was a nice surprise, and I was happy to help Jeff and a few others get QSOs with new grids throughout this trip.
Time for bed. Good night, and 73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK - back home in Phoenix, Arizona http://www.wd9ewk.net/