I always have my K1 in the car with me. I keep it in a tool box and have fun with it at work during lunchtime. When the weather is nice, I go out to the car, plop a Hamstick on the roof and break out the K1. More often than not, if band conditions are decent, I'll end up having a QSO.
Today, the weather has been hot; but things have been hectic at work, so I decided to take a break. I went out to my Ford Explorer; popped the 20 Meter Hamstick onto the magmount and fired up the radio and put out a "CQ" near the 20 Meter FISTS frequency of 14.058 MHz.
Much to my delight, Tom K4OFZ answered my CQ and indicated he was operating QRP, also. Cool! Band conditions were not the greatest and the QSB was deep; but we managed a 'lil QSO. I was able to learn that Tom is on vacation down at Edesto Beach in South Carolina. He was using an MFJ QRP radio to a dipole. He had a decent 559 signal into New Jersey before the QSB got so bad that it took us out.
If you get a chance; scope out Edesto Beach by doing a Google search on it. It looks like Tom knows where to go on vacation - really nice place! Would not mind being there myself.
More Hams should take some kind of QRP rigs with them when they go on vacation. It's a ton of fun operating from someplace other than home - seeing how far you can get on low power and maybe not the most ideal of antennas. A few weeks ago, I worked Geoff W1OH during the NAQCC Sprint. He was signing VY2/W1OH which meant he was vacationing at Prince Edward Island up in Canada. That's another place that I would like to travel to someday.
Ham radio - vacation - sunshine - warm air ....... does it get any better than that?
73 de Larry W2LJ
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