07/02/2003 | K5DI Karl and Karl have planned this Field Day for over 3 months. We are both old Back Packers so it was planned we will camp out like it was a backpack. We both brought chairs (WalMart easy sitting) and 2 card tables. Three weeks prior to the event we made two antenna's exactly the same. They are 88 feet long dipoles fed with 450 ohm ribbon. We both have a Yaesu FT-817 and 5 amp-hour sealed batteries and antenna tuner and balun.Karl and Karl are K5DI and WF5A

This year it's Keep It Simple Stupid! We had two stations with one on SSB (the hardest job) and one on CW. I printed out the dupe sheets and the log papers from the ARRL package.

We drove 90 miles to a flat spot near Sun Spot NM at a gps elevation of 9,500 feet. Got set up and at noon started out on 15 meters which was open to California. We were QRP but had no problem working all we could hear.

I dropped down to 20 meters and really went to town working clear across the country, up into Canada and beyond. Remember, running 5 watts to a dipole.

Then Murphy arrived as rain. After dinner it rained 3-5 inches over a 5 hour period. We huddled into our tents and stayed warm and dry.

Sunday morning was clear and 40 meters was open. We did well on 40. But by 10:30 it was cloudy and at 11 it rained hard again. We put all our stuff away wet and headed home. It was 42 degrees at camp and when we reached Alamogordo, NM it was 92 degrees. -- K5DI