Hi!

Thanks to all the stations that worked WD9EWK on Saturday (14 February) afternoon, while I was in Los Angeles. I had driven to California on Friday night before giving a presentation on Saturday morning, then spent the afternoon operating from Dockweiler State Beach in grid DM03sw for a few passes in the afternoon before driving home in the evening. This was a very quick road trip for me, driving 822 miles/1323km in the span of 30 hours.

The beach is west of the LAX airport and the end of the I-105 freeway and Imperial Highway along the Los Angeles/El Segundo city limits. The beach, being lower than the road running parallel to the beach (Vista del Mar), gave me a buffer from the airport QRM I observed when I tried to operate from a parking garage north of LAX earlier in the afternoon. This was the first time I worked satellites from DM03, making it the 76th different grid I have worked from.

I worked two SO-50 passes, two ISS passes, and one pass each on AO-7 and FO-29. I logged a total of 27 QSOs - 4 on AO-7, 3 on FO-29, and the other 20 on SO-50. The 2202 UTC pass, which has been discussed on here and in other forums lately, saw 13 QSOs go in my log. I was able to work Dale KL7XJ in Alaska early in this SO-50 pass, something I haven't done on SO-50 from home due to obstructions in that direction. Seven more QSOs were logged on the later pass at 2344 UTC, which was much more orderly than the earlier pass. Unfortunately, I did not log any QSOs on the two ISS passes - one of those passing directly overhead.

If you'd like to hear what those SO-50 passes sounded like from my location on the beach, I posted them as YouTube videos. First, the pass at 2202 UTC Saturday afternoon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9KrUH6pDCQ

And the later pass at 2344 UTC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvI2Dowf2kA

Audio was recorded by my Sony digital audio recorder, connected to my IC-2820H through a splitter cable. The other side of the splitter went to an earpiece, so I could hear the downlink without any audio feedback into my microphone.

I uploaded my DM03 log to Logbook of the World yesterday. If you worked me on Saturday and want a QSL card to confirm the contact, please e-mail me with the QSO details. There's no need to send me your QSL card or an SASE first. If you're in my log, I will be happy to send you my QSL card.

73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/