Hi!
As others have already said, thanks to Frank KA3HDO and his group for putting on a great Symposium over the weekend. A good show, and good news from AMSAT for the upcoming year or two - and beyond. Before and after the Symposium activities each day (except for Saturday), and on one lunch break, I worked several passes from outside the hotel. I also took quick drives north to Delaware and south to Washington DC, to put those places on the air for some passes. As always, working the satellites from somewhere else is a learning experience, and fun.
Except for two passes on Sunday, I didn't post any advance notice of my intentions to work satellite passes. I went to Baltimore to attend the Symposium and the AMSAT Board of Directors meeting before the official start of the Symposium, and any radio activity would be a bonus as part of this trip across the USA. Some stations were not fully aware of the location I announced on the air, knowing I am normally operating from DMxx grids in and around Arizona. It pays to listen, of course, regardless of whether or not there was an e-mail that announced the plans in advance.
First stop, Baltimore. The hotel, on the BWI Airport grounds in grid FM19pe, was where I did most of my operating. The large parking garage next to the hotel made low eastern passes interesting. Otherwise, the only issues at the site were the trees. I worked one pass Wednesday (7 October) evening after arriving in Baltimore, three passes on Thursday (8 October - early morning and evening on AO-51, lunchtime on SO-50), two AO-51 passes on Friday (9 October), then a pass each on Sunday (11 October) and Monday (12 October) morning on AO-51. From all these passes, I logged 70 QSOs with stations all over the USA, Canada, and the Dominican Republic during those 8 passes.
Along with my FM19 activity, I know that N2SPI also worked from outside the hotel over the weekend. There may have been someone else on from there, in addition to Richard and me. Many chances for stations to work someone at the Symposium, even without an "official" station.
Next, Washington...
Washington DC is about 30 miles/50km southwest of BWI Airport. In my almost 4 years of working the satellites, I have never heard anyone on the air from the District of Columbia. There is a station that identifies his location as outside of Washington DC, but never one actually on the air in the city. The grid, FM18, is not rare - there are stations on from both Maryland and Virginia. I operated from River Terrace Park, a nice park along the Anacostia River in the northeast quadrant of the US capital, east of RFK Stadium (grid FM18mv).
I drove down for two AO-51 passes, one on Thursday evening and one on Monday morning. The Thursday evening pass was a high pass for me, yet the footprint covered all the way to the Pacific coast. KG4ZLB in Florida was the first station I worked, and K7YDL in Oregon was the last of the 21 QSOs. I was surprised at that number, when I played back the recording to log my contacts. On Monday morning, I worked a pass to the west and logged 13 more QSOs with stations spanning across the USA, Canada, and Puerto Rico - even at that early hour for those out west.
I am apparently not the only one who had never worked anyone from Washington DC. For the most part, a contact with the District of Columbia doesn't amount to much on its own. For many state-based awards like the WAS awards from ARRL, DC counts as Maryland - the state that it was carved out of. I already mentioned that the grid covering Washington (FM18) also covers parts of Maryland and Virginia, and there are stations that get on from both of those states (I worked one of those stations, NL7VX, who is in the Virginia part of FM18). Several operators thanked me for putting DC on the air. Maybe this would be something a local ham might look to do, operate from Washington from time to time. I still haven't worked DC myself. :-)
Then, there's Delaware. Whether on HF, VHF, or satellites, this is normally one of the most rare states to get a contact with - and that all-important confirmation of the contact. I drove north on the I-95 freeway Sunday afternoon just over an hour to reach the Maryland/Delaware state line, contributing $11 in tolls on I-95 and the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel to get there (tolls are not something I normally deal with in Arizona), and then drove a few more miles/km to the city of Bear in northern Delaware (grid FM29ep). I parked in a restaurant parking lot near the DE-1/US-40 interchange, and saw I had 5 minutes before the start of an AO-27 pass to the west at 2024 UTC. In the 7-minute pass, I made 14 QSOs (2 XE stations, and the rest sprinkled across the USA). Shortly after AO-27 went away, the first of three AO-51 passes came up from the southeast. I only logged 3 stations on that pass, and heard a VE3 station as I lost the downlink.
After those two passes, I updated my logbook and quickly scribbled an e-mail to the -BB announcing I would be on the next two AO-51 passes from this location in Delaware. When the next pass came up at approximately 2216 UTC, I started working stations in the central and eastern parts of the USA. Seventeen stations went in the log, and I waited near my rental car for the third - and final - AO-51 pass of the evening from there starting just before 0000 UTC. Only 8 stations went in the log on that pass, but two of the 8 were from Mexico. Most of the QSOs were with stations in the west, what I had hoped for, before I went into the restaurant for dinner followed by the (cheaper - only $7 in tolls from Delaware back to the hotel) drive back to Baltimore for the night.
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With this trip, I now have operated from 42 different grids in North America, along with a total of 8 different US states plus Washington DC. I already have FM19 cards for QSOs made from the Symposium, but I will need to print more of them. I will make and print cards for the other two locations in the next few days. In the next week or two, I will be ready to mail out cards - which will also let me mail cards from the upcoming hamfest I will attend in Tucson AZ on Saturday (17 October) along with the cards from my Baltimore/Washington/Delaware trip. If you would like to receive cards for QSOs made with WD9EWK on this trip, please e-mail me the QSO details. No need to send me a card or SASE. If you're in the log, you will get the QSL card(s) from me.
This was a fun weekend, with the news from AMSAT along with a chance to work the satellites from the opposite side of the USA from where I live. Thanks to AMSAT and KA3HDO's group for a great Symposium, and to all the stations that worked WD9EWK from these locations over the past few days.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK (back home in Arizona now) http://www.wd9ewk.net/