| QRP
To The Field 2004
This year's theme for QRP to the Field
was Battlefields. A little research on the 'net led me to the
site of a fort built in 1755 just after the beginning of the
French & Indian War. In 1755, Delaware Indians declared
their independence from the Iroquois, who were allied with England,
and attacked British  settlers
near present-day Lehighton and Stroudsburg PA. The French and
Indian War (Seven Year's War) had begun, and the Pennsylvania
and New Jersey legislatures authorized the building of blockhouses
and fortifications. These "forts" were often little
more than stone or wood farm-houses strengthened against attack
and enclosed by a log palisade. This particular fort is the
Van Campen House, located at the end of an 8-mile dirt road
that runs right along the Delaware River.
Back to the Monobanders
I'd been looking forward to this contest and
spent the day prior to it getting the antenna built, packing
the gear and making sure there was no reason I could get called
in to work (are you reading this HB?)! I decided to go "retro"
by using my old monobanders. They've been suffering from a severe
case of sibling rivalry ever since the K1 took up residence
here, so I thought I'd take them out and show them that I still
care. Also the ZM-2, Island Keyer, etc. The antenna was a 40m
dipole fed with cheap Radio Shack twin-lead, suspended at about
35 feet between oak trees. For 40m, I mainly use the Norcal
40a but also used the SST-40 for six contacts - AD6JV, N2JNZ,
K4JSI, VE3QDR, NX2ND and VE2HAC. All contacts on 20m were made
with my original DSW-20. Thanks guys, to everyone I worked with
these rigs. Their self-esteem is much improved and we are a
happy family.
QRM & QRN-Free
I got started about an hour after the contest began and was
happy to find lots of activity on both bands and the ease with
which the ZM-2 tuned the dipole for both 20 and 40-meter operation.
The weather was perfect, bugs were nowhere to be found and only
3 cars drove by the entire 7 hours I was there - and this is
New Jersey, folks! The QTH was quiet in all respects. But toward
the end of the contest, after sitting in the sun all day, I
could detect the faint aroma of black powder from those battles
249 years ago.
Highlights of the Contest:
 First
off, the theme of the contest was great. The best yet, in my
opinion. I researched the site with my daughter Meghan, who
already wants to be a history teacher. She's 11 and reads everything
she can find about colonial life and that particular period.
She'd rather go to Williamsburg VA than Disneyworld, so this
contest interested her in the research that we had to do. She
thinks it's cool when she knows something that I don't, and
there were a lot of those moments as we settled on a site for
me.
Second, it was lots of fun working you folks
whose posts I see to QRP-L. Puts a dose of reality into the
impersonal fog that the internet can seem to be at times. Lots
of booming signals came my way, so I know a lot of you really
put some effort into your set-up.
It was also fun being called by DX. HB9FMU
and EA1CS both called in answer to my CQ. I wasn't expecting
that.
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