I activated Joshua Tree National Park, NP32 in the Southern California's High Desert, at an elevation of 4,000' (+ 75'). Temperatures this time of the year are easily in the 30's and 40's and on on this trip never exceeded 50 degrees. I worked 500+ stations on 75M and 20M and never got an opportunity to use the 40M, 15M, and 10M antennas on the 100' tower trailer. Since I only had 100' lengths of coax, I limited the height to 75' so the coax could reach the radio.

I worked outside on a picnic table using a Yaesu 897D at 100 watts with an Alcatel 145 Ah AGM battery I purchased from Southwestern Division Assistant Director Marty Woll, N6VI. While I had 4 other AGM batteries in stand-by and a 100 watt solar panel and charge system, I never had to use them. This battery did the full 100 watts all three days! The Heil headset and PTT trigger worked great! Working outside limited my time on the air because it got to cold. After the sun went down, I was shacking so bad I was having a problem logging and remebering callsigns I just heard. A camper is in my future!

2 weeks prior to the event, my wife and I made a trip to Park HQ to make any necessary arrangements with the Powers In Charge. This proved to be wise as the Director of Operations, Dan Messaros, was very open to me operating from the part and setting up my 100' tower trailer. We brainstormed a few ideas and came up with a plan that would allow me to leave my tower set up for 3 days and not impact the rest of the visitors on this New Year Holiday Weekend! He informed his staff and when I pulled into the Black Rock Canyon Ranger Station with the tower trailer, the National Park Staff was ready for me and offered any assistance I needed! Dan and his Staff were GREAT! Based on the pile-ups I had all three days, I'd say we picked a perfect location! I couldn't be happier!

While in the Ranger Station, a few of the campers overheard me talking about the event and came by on Saturday to check out this big tower they seen me pull in with. One couple was very interested in becoming amateur radio operators and I handed them a few of my ARRL flyers I had out on the table, as well as my personal information if they had any questions or needed any help.

Friday evening, I only had enough time to set up the tower and pull out the IAC 75M Double Bazooka. I made 50 contacts on 75M before I got too cold and shut down operations at 1930 Local. The next morning I built the Force 12 C3 and installed it on the tower trailer. I was on the air just after 1200 local.

Saturday afternoon, Chris, WB6CDF, and Lesley from San Bernardino FIRE were driving by on their way to go hiking and saw the tower. In Chris' words, "I HAD to stop!" They spent a couple of hours and promised to come back the next morning to operate. Pile-ups were new to them and they worked 150+ Q's on 20M Sunday morning. They had a blast and I offered to bring my tower trailer back up for their club to host an event later in the year.

My plan for Sunday morning was to get on 40M, but Chris and Lesley came by and really wanted to operated 20M. I let them make their Q's and finished the morning on 20M myself, until it was time to pack up and head to LAX to pick my beautiful wife up from her trip to Denver.

We made over 500 contacts. As always, there were lessons learned. Just about EVERYONE was loud and based on the reports I was getting, I was loud too! I worked ZL, OH4, IK, YV, VE's, and a bunch of A, K, N, W's! It was a blast and I'm already planning two more activations for later in the year.

I want to especially thank Sean Kutzko and Norm Fusaro for all their help and work! I want to thank all the Facebook users who said I should't take a 100' tower trailer to a National Park because its bad for Amateur Radio; that was GREAT entertainment! This was a fun event and I'm looking forward to much more this year!

Dino - KX6D

dino@kx6d.com