Hi!

I will be driving to southern California next Thursday (9 July), in advance of a presentation I will give for the Escondido Amateur Radio Society that evening. After that presentation, and after spending the next day (Friday, 10 July) in and around San Diego, I will head north. Other than a planned stop at the DM04/DM05 grid boundary north of Los Angeles (the same spot I stopped at last September, near Mojave CA and Edwards AFB), I am probably going to head further north. I don't have to be back home until the following Monday (13 July) evening, so I have some time to go either north through the San Joaquin Valley, or over to the Pacific coast, or some sort of loop to see a lot more of central California.

I have not set an itinerary for the portion of my trip after the DM04/DM05 stop, but have asked other satellite operators via Twitter for feedback on some grids that I could visit while I am on the road. I'm now asking the grid hunters here on the -BB the same thing. If I look to go up or down the Pacific coast, grids I could visit include CM94 through CM96, and possibly even as far north as Santa Cruz and the almost-all-wet grid CM86. If I stay inland, DM0x grids would be where I'd probably drive through. I'm not planning to go all the way up to the Bay Area, although Santa Cruz is not that far from San Jose. Any thoughts from the crowd here, on grids that I should try to visit between 11 and 13 July?

On my way back to Phoenix on 13 July, I may be able to make a stop on the DM23/DM24 boundary, either north of Quartzsite on the Arizona side of the Colorado River, or just across the river along US-95 in California. This stop will depend on whether or not a satellite pass is available when I go through that area. I won't be driving I-10 on my way to San Diego on 9 July, so I won't be able to make this stop early in the trip.

While on the road, I plan on running APRS using WD9EWK-9, which should be visible on sites like http://aprs.fi/WD9EWK-9 . I'll also use my @WD9EWK Twitter feed to post updates, even if I can only send SMS messages with those updates. QSOs will be uploaded to Logbook of the World.

Thanks in advance, and 73!

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