Hi!
After the presentation and demonstrations in Long Beach last Friday (3 April), I did not take the direct route back home to Arizona. I made a long detour, stopping in different locations to work satellites until I eventually returned home on Sunday (5 April) afternoon. I have done day-trips to hamfests and other locations after those hamfests, but it had been a while since I did a drive like this in the southwestern USA.
When I left the Los Angeles area on Saturday (4 April) morning, I was planning to end up in Las Vegas later in the day. A simple drive - get over to the I-15 freeway near San Bernardino, then head north to Las Vegas. I wanted to stop in either grids DM14 or DM15 on the way to Las Vegas, which straddles the line between grids DM25 and DM26. DM15 has less activity than DM14, so I decided to skip DM14 and try to work DM15 in the afternoon.
My first stop in DM15 was northeast of Barstow, in the southwestern corner of the grid. I was planning to try an FO-29 pass around 2045 UTC, which was a shallow pass out there. I heard stations, and heard myself, but was not able to make any QSOs from here. Back onto the I-15, and north I went to the small desert town of Baker. This point is in the northeastern corner of DM15, and a better FO-29 pass was coming around 2220 UTC. I had about 35-40 minutes to spare before the pass, which I used to scout a good location to park and work the pass.
Once FO-29 came up from my southeast, I had a much easier time to hear myself and other stations. Once I started calling CQ, Dave KG5CCI called me first. After logging him, I went on to work 12 other stations over the next 15 minutes. Several were looking to make a contact with DM15, and the subsequent QSL showing up in Logbook of the World, and I was happy to oblige. I worked stations from coast to coast during that pass. It was pushing 90F/32C out there on Saturday, a warm day on the edge of the Mojave Desert.
After that pass, I had about 75 minutes until an SO-50 pass at 0005 UTC. I needed to drive just over 80 miles/130km from Baker to the spot I wanted to operate from in Las Vegas, sitting on the DM25/DM26 grid boundary. The traffic up to Baker was going slowly at times, but north of Baker I-15 was more like a drag strip. I was able to make the drive to Las Vegas in 65 minutes, with 10 minutes to spare before SO-50 appeared. I set up my station, took the obligatory photos to show my location on the DM25/DM26 grid boundary (I tweeted a photo of my GPS receiver from that spot), and then went on to work 14 different stations on the first SO-50 pass. Later, I worked 5 more stations on an SO-50 pass that favored the west coast.
I saw an ISS pass was coming up from the southwest just after the sun went behind the mountains at 0225 UTC. Using my TH-D72A HT, I completed one QSO using APRS messages with N7NEV in the Phoenix area - a call I have worked via the ISS a few times in the past few months, either from home or when I have been on the road. After the pass, I looked on the ariss.net web site to see that two others were trying to work me after my LOS on that pass.
After the ISS pass, I checked into my motel, then returned to the DM25/DM26 boundary for one AO-73 pass. I worked 3 stations during that pass. Not a bad effort for 4 different passes in a few hours, after the drive up from Los Angeles.
On Sunday morning, I left Las Vegas - after a stop at the famous "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign and a drive up Las Vegas Boulevard. I drove to Kingman in northwestern Arizona, looking to work an AO-73 pass just after 1700 UTC from the DM25/DM35 grid boundary north of I-40. I had a lot of time to spare before this pass, with the bridge that now crosses the Colorado River south of Hoover Dam cutting down the drive time a bit. I found the spot, one I have used in the past, and set up my station. After taking photos of my station and GPS receiver with my station, I went on to work 3 stations.
Before I left Kingman, I made additional stops for lunch and fuel, and then made the 3-hour drive home. In total, I drove 1053 miles (almost 1700km) on this road trip, and operated from 5 locations in 5 different grids. I used to do more of this, and with different operators coming on the satellites in recent times - it may be time to do some of the road trips I did in the past again.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK