SteppIR EZNEZ STUDY

TARANTULA MIGRATION DXPEDITIONS:  2004  2006

USS RONALD REAGAN

CQ DIABLO

IN MEMORIAM

FGA

Date

Journal Entry

I spent two full days at Grand Canyon Caverns (not taverns) working the bands.  I operated in the neighborhood of 20-24 hours while camped and logged only about 350 q's.  There were periods when things got quite active, but throughout most of the daylight hours my voice keyer got a workout.  Rabid contesters know what I am talking about.  If you're really good you can read a magazine or make lunch while calling cq.  Otherwise you go mad after about an hour of not making any contacts.  "What am I doing here?" you find yourself thinking from time to time.  Then it gets fun again.

I haven't yet gone through my log but I would say that the number of people calling is down sharply from when I was W6B two years ago.  And, only 20 and 40 were open--compared to all the bands in 2005.  So, conditions and simply the number of active hams seeking Route 66 contacts limited my success.  I really wanted to get to a couple of thousand logged contacts but after 6 days of operating, there was no way this was going to happen.  I was thankful for the contacts I made.  People were great and appreciated all the Route 66 OTA stations.  Many of my contacts I had made previously as W6B and operating from Clipperton.  I had a number of very good qso's in between working smallish pileups.

The Salmon run, which is a very popular state qso party, is scheduled for this weekend as is the Colorado QSO party.  With only 1 effective band and my Q rates in the basement, I decided to head back to Santa Barbara on Thursday.  I met up with Harry between Seligman and Ash Fork.  He said he'd continue on to Williams and probably spend the rest of the time there.  I decided I would do some rovering on the weekend from other points yet unknown.

All told, I made over 617 contacts, 66% on 20 meters, 33% on 40 and just a few on 80 meters.

Steve W6S (left) and Harry W6R

Mile Marker 298

Who's driving??

You see a lot of cars on roofs on Route 66.  Guess what make this one is?

Your typical cafe (closed)

Sept 16th

I spent the night of the 15th in Kingman.  I got the chance to catch up on the news that has playing havoc with the financial markets.  I had several hours of work in front of me and having a good internet connection allowed me to get caught up with my emails and take care of some business.

The next morning Harry, who had spent the night up on the mountain near Oatman, met up with me and we headed off to our next destination...somewhere between Kingman and Seligman.  What would determine when we got there, was how we were feeling when we did!

I hit Hackberry first and decided there wasn't enough there to warrant making some calls.  So on I went on to Peach Springs.  Peach Springs is on an Indian reservation and is the site of a nice spa.  But little in the way of nice locations to set up an antenna.  Off I went in search of somewhere to put down antennas for at least a day.

Next stop was Grand Canyon Caverns and they have a nice campground from which to operate for a couple of days.  So, I paid my $15 and found an isolated spot amongst some large juniper trees.  I set up both the TK and TAK antennas and started calling CQ.  The bands were lively and I worked about 250 calls over the next day on both 40 and 20 meters.

You can see my setup shown above.  The TW in the foreground, and the TAK on a 20 foot fibreglass pole showing its face above the trees.

Harry, W6R, showed up toward the late afternoon and put up his dipole between several trees.  It was a productive night for both of us as we worked the bands until about 10pm or so and called it a night.

Sept 15th

Amboy shoe tree. That's Amboy Crater in the background.

Oatman main street

W6R above Kingman Arizona.

Rising fairly early from the WigWam motel, W6R and I sped off into the morning haze and quickly found ourselves out of the Los Angeles area hitting Barstow around 11am.  We made a beeline to old Route 66 just past the Marine Base and arrived at the somewhat famous Bagdad Cafe.  Some years ago a film with the same name was shot on the location.  The inside of the cafe is filled with pictures and accounts of various Route 66 happenings.

Harry found some shade while I set up in the blazing sun.  We both started calling CQ and soon found ourselves working some smallish pileups.  Temperatures were somewhat pleasant at 101 degrees.  We worked for several hours until it got just a bit too hot and the contact rate a bit too slow.  We headed off down the road toward Amboy Crater, our next stop where we planned to spend the night.

I found the exact spot where I operated as W6B in 2005 and set up both the TAK-Tenna and the TW-Antenna (both shown above).  Since my last visit the park service has built some concrete pathways through the lava.  I lashed the support for the TAK-Tenna to the railing and got the 40 meter antenna up at about 20 feet up.  Calling CQ on 40 I had some pretty good pileups and worked nearly 60 stations in 107 degree heat.  Shades of Clipperton Atoll for sure but without all the humidity and the screeching of thousands of birds...not to mention their little presents.

The TAK worked wonderfully.  In fact, I had the opportunity to compare my signal with Harry's who was operating a screwdriver antenna from his trailer.  I was told that my signal was quite a bit strong than Harry's and Harry later told me that he could barely hear some of the stations I was working.  For a 30 inch antenna on 40, the TAK is truly amazing.

40 Meter TAK-Tenna

10-20m TW-Antenna

Shown above is the TW 10-20m vertical antenna.  I can't say enough about how wonderfully designed and built this superb antenna is.  You really can put it together blindfolded in about 3 minutes.  Hook up your coax, select the band, and start working!  For portable use, this antenna can be deployed in seconds and taken down just as quickly.  And it works great.  It's quiet and 1:1.5 swr on all bands without a tuner.  If you're into rovering, you cannot go wrong with this antenna.  It's fantastic.

After a restful night, we headed off down Route 66 again.  Our next stop where we plan on spending a day or two is Oatman Arizona.

Harry, W6R and I left Santa Barbara at 6am, bound for the Santa Monica Pier.  After an uneventful drive along the coast, we found ourselves in Santa Monica on a cool, somewhat overcast morning.  Having no choice, we coughed up $10 to park next to the pier as it's impossible to park free anywhere near the ocean.

We found an isolated spot and I set up the TW antenna and fired up the Yaesu 847 to try my hand at 20 meters.  Conditions were horrible and after nearly an hour of calling, I only made a few contacts.  But then we were set upon by the parking lot traffic cop who told us we could not take up three spaces with our antenna and cable.  This, with a several thousand parking space lot that barely had a car in it.  But this man wasn't going to let us have any fun, so we quickly packed up and left the people's republic of Santa Monica and headed for the WigWam motel about an hour and a half away.

The Wigwam is a real gem of a funky old motel.  There used to be many of these motels along Route 66 in several states.  I took a wigwam near the rear where I could set up my antennas and work the bands without fear of being set upon by authority figures.  In about an hour and a half of operating, I made 53 contacts operating on the TW Antenna (below).

If you're ever in the Rialto, you can do no better than staying at the Wigwam.  The rooms are very comfortable and the WigWam's owners, Jack (above) and Ramila Patel, are wonderful people, like many of the folks you find on Route 66.

Tomorrow we head for the desert and some of the warmest portions of old Route 66 between Barstow and Amboy.  Our plan is to find a spot where we can stay for at least a day, depending on the heat.  We'll probably not get an internet connection until we pass through Needles in a few days.  But who knows...we're radio folk and we can sniff out RF just about anywhere.

Sept. 1st

The last two days I have worked with my buddy Ken, KG6JMJ to prepare the W6S Rover for the event.  Some rf in the audio problems prompted a total reinstallation of all antenna mounts, cabling and a new deep cycle battery.  With all the problems solved, I spent the balance of my time on Sunday setting up the computer and voice keyers.

We also tuned the TAK-Tenna for 40 meters and found very good comparisons between it and my 40 meter dipole.  Considering the dipole was at 60 feet and the TAK at 6', there wasn't as much difference in signal reports as you'd might expect, so I was quite impressed.

Sept 4th

I received and built the TW Antenna today.  I must say, it's the first antenna that I didn't need to put on my glasses to build.  It is wonderfully designed and simply goes together in about a minute.  It took longer to unwind and attach 50 foot of RG8x and connect it to my rig than it did to assemble the entire antenna.  No kidding.  First time I tested it, 1:1.2 on 14.266 (my operating frequency for 20 meters for the trip).  It was like that on all the other bands as well.  Very impressive.

I am very impressed by both the two antennas.  They will set up very quickly and provide full band coverage for me from 10-40 meters.  The quality of the production and the care taken to design excellent packaging shows that both manufacturers of these antennas are knowledgeable and eager to help their customers.  Steve at TAK spent quite a bit of time helping me tune his antenna.

So it's T MINUS 1 week and counting.

HELP SUPPORT THE ROVERS

BUY A GREAT SOUVENIR

Visit the official Rover Store and help Harry and Steve buy gas.  Each purchase will contribute $5 towards our journey.  That's about 1.3 gallons of fuel for each item sold through our store.  Wearing this shirt or drinking coffee from an official Rover coffee mug will make you louder in the pile-ups.

Exclusively for 40 meters, I will be using the TAK-tenna 40 meter antenna.  This is an electrical half-wave dipole antenna with a 30 inch boom.  

Many thanks to TAK-tenna for their support of Route 66 On-the-Air Rover 2.  

Click the logo to visit their website to learn more about this new antenna.

www.tak-tenna.com

TW Antennas has generously provided one of their unique TW 2010L Traveler Light 10-20 meter portable DX antennas which I will be using during our journey.

Many thanks to TW Antennas for their support of Route 66 On-the-air Rover 2.

Click the logo to visit their website to learn more about this new antenna.

www.transworldantennas.com