Thursday, August 04, 2005

Vacation Operating - Redeux

In a post or two below, I mentioned making contact with the vactioning W1OH during the NAQCC Sprint. Tonight I was calling CQ on 20 Meters, when lo and behold, VY2/W1OH came back and answered me! And tonight, instead of a quickie contest QSO, I was treated to a ragchew with Geoff.

He and his family have been vacationing up at Prince Edward Island for the past 17 years. What had started out as camping trips has evolved into extended vacation stays in rented cottages. Fortunately for Geoff, his temporary landlord has no problem with temporary Amateur Radio antennas. Geoff was using a doublet cut for 80 Meters with an antenna tuner, which allowed him to answer my CQ on 20 Meters.

Geoff's Yaesu FT-897 was doing a fantastic job from Prim Point, PEI to New Jersey. Geoff was about 100 yards away from the water; and I'm only about 10 miles from the New Jersey coast (as the crow flies) ; so maybe the RF was following the saltwater path between us.

From Google searches I have done on PEI, it looks like a pretty fantastic place to vacation. Now that I know that it can be Amateur Radio friendly - it just might be a place to visit one of these upcoming summers!

73 de Larry W2LJ

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