Skeeter Hunting in Alabama

I combined a trip to my Parent's in Dothan, Alabama and the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt event. The house is where I grew up and has many tall pines. So I went with the 40/20 fan dipole in the front yard.. I used my Big Shot sling shot to get the center support line over a limb. There were higher limbs but my choice was up about 30 feet high. I did not start hanging the antenna until the start of the hunt. It takes a bit of time to secure the dipole ends and so forth. I did did not get the first contact until a hour had past.

The conditions could have been better. there was plenty of QSB. On 20 CW I worked a string of six including KX0R, W2LJ, N3AQC, NE5DL, WD8RIF and N3CU. I checked 15 meters CW and I worked N9SE doing SKCC.Then I mixed in 20 SSB and picked up three doing the Maryland/DC QSO Party. On to 40 CW Iworked N5GW doing the hunt. Not much more there so I went to 40 SSB. I worked K9HAM running a net on 7.285 and AK4YF on 7.255. My final jump was to 15 CW and worked N3AQC doing the hunt. I heard KC5FM/M a mobile skeeter on 20 SSB but he could not hear me. I also was called by someone on SSB too weak to copy. So lets see I count 9 CW contacts and 8 were Skeeters. There were 5 SSB contacts and none were Skeeters. So that was 14 over two and a half hours as I packed up 30 minutes early.

I was assisted by my Dad, Tom WD0HBR and Suzy our basset puppy. We took advantage of the shade. I enjoyed mixing up CW and SSB. The KX3 is a fine rig for that.Thanks to Larry W2LJ for setting up a nice QRP event. The local skeeters in the yard found me I did not need to hunt for them!

72,

Greg N4KGL