I Swear I Don't Have a Yagi! K-4514 POTA: Cibola National Forest Trip Report

Hey Everyone! It snowed! The ham radio was awesome though! Project TouCans was spotted in England, and made three QSOs into Europe about about 4 AM in the morning in New Mexico!

Here's TouCans braving the winter storm.

It's low in the center of the picture in it's coffee bag rain/snow shield. The white streaks are the camera picking up rather rapidly falling snow flakes.

Unbeknownst to me, the rental car that KO6BTY and I had picked up the night before was very, very much not a 4WD SUV. Just two, and not a good two at that. We'd checked the weather three times on the way up the mountain the day before, and snow was not in the forecast. When I woke up t midnight to a gentle pattering on the top of the tent, since it was a bit warmer, I assumed the pattering was rain. It wasn't. It was snow. A thin layer of snow on the rain fly will actually serve as insulation, warming the tent a bit. Oh boy.

As an aside, Tawnse, the youngest of the gang ( now 9 ) and I had a similar experience last year. Of course, we set out out do it on purpose, had a flatter camping spot, and apparently a better rental car.

KO6BTY and I wound up sitting in the car for a few hours while she did her College Algebra homework waiting for a truck to pull us over the tiny hump the car couldn't manage on it's own and out to the road. Annoying, but in no way harrowing. And, once we were down the hill, we realized, the snow was actually fairly gorgeous!

We finally made it down the hill to Mountainair at about 1 in the afternoon after detouring to Estancia to hit an ATM to pay the truck operator, and descended on our favorite breakfast joint, Alpine Alley. If you're ever working K-4514 and want a really good breakfast, I can't recommend it enough. The people are friendly, the food is excellent, and the interior is cozy.

I promised a radio report though, right? OK, here goes.

First, the remote keyer prototype worked like a champ! The gang—13, 11, and 9 year-old Daize, Mota, and Tawnse—have been learning Python programming using a PicoW and a series of YouTube videos by Lori Pfahler. We adapted the Morse code episode into the gadget you see below.

The blinking LED is on the same Pico-W output as the relay whose orange light you can see dimly behind the rig's power supply. The whole thing adds a bit of ambiance to the tent. Watch for it to all be packaged into Project TouCans soon. If you listen to the very end of the video, you'll hear NN3Z calling in!

I started in operating the rig after KO6BTY and I got the campsite setup at about 02:00 UTC. An all time record early setup for us. (We usually take the red-eye to New Mexico, and wind up setting up camp at about midnight.) For whatever reason, the F2 layers had decided to setup a direct line to Maryland and Pennsylvania. My first and only call to the West came in early, NN3Z is in Washington. Everything else was out to the East Coast or even further east!

Which, did I mention, Europe!!!??? At about 11 UTC the next morning in New Mexico an RBN station in England spotted TouCans and then, three QSOs came in from Europe in succession! They were from Spain, Poland, and France in that order. You can check it all out in more detail on Google Earth.

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Copasetic Flow

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