Mini DXPedition

My buddy WB6YOK and I have been toying with a semi-local mini-DXPedition. I brought up the hair-brained scheme last fall and we’ve dabbled at it here and there ever since. We decided to do something to commemorate the air mail arrows from the US Airmail service dating back to the 20’s. We found an arrow about 125 miles north of Salt Lake City, just across the border in Idaho. This Memorial Day we took a road trip to check out the site.

Airmail Arrows

In the 1920’s the Postal Service wanted to take advantage of these new airplanes that had seen so much action in WWI so they instituted the airmail service. Problem was, the pilots could only fly during the day, and they tended to get lost. With daytime restrictions, airmail was no faster than the train. Finally someone came up with the great idea to build 30’ concrete arrows pointing the pilots along the route, and to set up towers with beacons on top.

http://sometimesinteresting.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/airmail-beacon-route-19241.jpg?w=595&h=451

This article covers the history of the airmail system quite well.

Reconnaissance Trip

Monday we took a trip up with Chuck’s radio van (he has an old law enforcement investigation van that he’s converted to essentially a war wagon). Finding the site was really quite easy. We’ve been looking at the arrow on Google Maps for quite some time, so we knew it was due east of the junction of Strevell Rd and 81/30s, just over the Idaho border. We pulled up to the intersection and discovered the road is being rebuilt, so there was a lot of equipment there. Nonetheless, we pulled off and I headed out to find the arrow.

This didn’t look like an auspicious beginning:

And of course, I found these bones just after Chuck made a comment about rattlesnakes and me wearing sneakers… I pushed ahead though and soon I found the arrow!

Sage brush is growing over it, and there’s a fair amount of debris obscuring it, but it’s definitely an arrow. Looking north over the arrow:

With a little more walking around, we discovered we could drive the van right up to it, so… We did! You can barely see the arrow in the sagebrush in the middle of this photo. Looking sound toward the arrow:

The purpose of the trip was to check our equipment, so we did a fair amount of work setting up and powering up radios. As you can see, we had a Buddistick supported on a mast on the side of the truck.

Once we had that tuned up, we were easily copyable into North Dakota, St. Louis, and California at 100 watts. With my 817 at 5 watts, we had a clear-as-a-bell QSO into Washington State (Spokane). Overall we were quite pleased with the site and the equipment, although there are some take-aways that we need to work on.

WB6YOK working contacts on 20m with a Yaesu FT-897:

Some additional photos:

Looking NE over the arrow. The orange piece sticking up in the lower corner of the arrow is the foot for the steel tower that sat on top of the arrow. This photo was taking from inside of what once was a cabin next to the tower – it appears they had two generators installed in the cabin.

Looking at the hills to the east:

Standing on the arrow, looking toward the north:

We have a ton of stuff to do to get prepared, but we’re really excited about the trip. Hope you can join us over the bands!

K7JTO: What's Comng

It's been quite some time since finishing my PFR3. And that coincided with work really picking up, so I have been slammed in my life. I've not been out to operate on HF, at all, and barely even on VHF. Good news though: my buddy WB6YOK and I are putting together plans for a local mini DXpedition. We are tentatively looking to activate an old airmail direction arrow north of Salt Lake City. We should be operating Thursday through Saturday noon the week after the 4th (July 10-12). We'll be putting plans together shortly and hope to have some big announcements to make soon.

My main goals:

- operate CW. I completed the CWOps Club class and have hardly touched a key since, so I need to burn some midnight oil between now and July to get my listening skills back. I'd like to leave the weekend copying and sending > 15 wpm and then keep it there by operating weekly

- operate SSB and digital (PSK)

- experiment with a variety of antennas, including a kite antenna

- kit up a couple project radios and make some QRP and QRPp contacts

- one of these projects is a Rockmite I can take when I travel, so I can do CW while on the road

- order and build a 20m QRPp rig, probable a Hendricks or a new Rockmite ][

- run and use WSPR on a Raspberry Pi, to check out propagation

- shoot the breeze with Chuck and anyone else who shows

- I have been wanting a contact from India, so I'm hoping to get that contact on the DXpedition.

- build my SSB and CW contesting skills 

Chuck's got a massive delta loop antenna he built for a Pony Express commemorative station a few years back when I first met him, we'll be using that as our primary antenna for QRO HF ops. Hopefully that monster will pull in Asia. I'll also be putting my Buddistick to use, and checking out (maybe building) a series of other backcountry EFHW and dipole antennas. We'll have a couple video cameras on site as well, and so you should actually see some activity on my YouTube channel. We are hoping to have Internet access and to keep folks up to date via Twitter--we'll see about that.

Want to know more about the arrows? Google "airmail direction arrows" to learn more. We'll maybe have a few write ups and stuff at some point, so keep checking here.