NA7U, Casey Bahr, was mobile with the club call on the island of Kauai, HI the week of April 19th. Following is his K7FFF log entries and summary of activity. He operated with a hamstick and Ten Tec Scout running 50 watts. The hamstick was mounted on top of a rented Grand Am. Makes a decent ground plane, hi!

Remember, that even if you have worked NA7U or K7FFF before, you can count 1 or 3 points, respectively towards FISTS awards if you worked these calls in HI, according to FISTS Awards rules.

First of all, a big thanks to everyone who took the time to try and contact me during my skeds in Kauai whether or not we made a QSO or not! All in all it was a real treat for me to work mobile from a remote location with somewhat limited tools at hand. The fact that I was able to work several FNW members and friends as well as many other ops made it a very worthwhile endeavor. I hope that I or other FNW members can do something similar in the future.

Secondly, let me apologize to anyone who was confused by some mistakes I made in the published schedule, especially if it caused you to miss me on the air. As I often do, I forgot to align the dates with the UTC times that I posted. The dates were local time, but should have been 1 day later except for the Saturday sked to match the 0200Z start times. Also, I didn't realize that Hawaii stays on Standard Time the entire year, so the local HI times there were also wrong. I doubt that that made any difference to anyone except me, at least.

All the skeds were made while parked somewhere on the island in a rented Grand Am. Monday's and Wednesday's sessions were from different points in Kokee State Park near or at Waimea Canyon at about 3500 feet elevation. Propagation during these first two sessions was definitely better than later ones when I was near or at sea level, though who can say if that made all the difference. Monday's sked was easily the best as I worked stations almost back-to-back for a couple of hours, getting in some nice ragchews. As a warmup I worked a TX station just before the first sked was to start. The first official sked QSO was with Carl, KC7RZA, FNW #10. Carl may have been generous with the 339 report he gave me from Portland, but we both hung in there to complete the QSO.

Fortunately, that was about the weakest report I received during the trip. On Monday I worked up and down the West Coast, into Florida, and even got a 599 in OH. I also worked an op in Canada and one in Argentina! On Wednesday propagation was again good, but I didn't work as long. I was able to talk back-to-back with a couple of friends from my home QTH (who reported on the improved OR weather since my departure, hi hi), and again into the Southern U.S. and California.

I'm not sure, but I believe it was coincidence that I hooked up with N1YLA in Vermont during one sked. I had worked him before on April 5th the very first time I tested my mobile setup in our driveway in Hillsboro working the hamstick on my pickup! That was also the first time I'd ever worked Vermont.

After we changed our Kauai living quarters from Kokee, up in the rain forest, to Kapaa, at sea level on the east side of the island, I thought that propagation was just a bit less, but quite reasonable. On Saturday morning from the beach it was terrible, however. I worked 3 stations in an hour and had to struggle for every one. I cut that session right about at the hour and engaged in a more productive activity, a bit of snorkeling and underwater photography, hi.

Later, in the evening, I hooked up everything once more at our bungalow and worked as NA7U. Got a strong signal from CA, and my very last QSO was an op in Zambia who was just getting up for breakfast, Brian, 9J2BO! That was a great finish to a wonderful trip. My only regret, radio-wise, was that I hadn't taken the time to install the noise blanker in the Scout before I left. I let that task slip as I thought to myself that I wouldn't be using the radio while driving, but the real problem was that I usually operated in parking lots and got lots of QRN from the other cars. Live and learn.

Frequency    UTC     Station    RST (S/R)      Operator   QTH                    FISTS #

April 20th, local time (April 21st zulu time)
14030        0150    N5FI       579/559        Bill       Houston,  TX           2001
14030        0200    KC7RZA     559/339        Carl       Portland, OR           4279 (FNW #10)
14030        0213    VE6CGX     589/569        Tony       Calgary, AB, Canada    3919
14030        0232    K7WQ       589/579        Mark       Olympia, WA            None
14028        0250    LU1MBT     569/569        Frank      Mendoza, Argentina     None
14028        0305    N6MNZ      589/559        Mark       San Jose, CA           4056 (CC #402)
14030        0320    WB8OWM     579/599        Skip       Canton, OH             2415
14030        0330    WN4DX      559/559        Larry      Tampa, FL              3345

April 22nd, local time (April 23rd, zulu time)
14030        0155    N4ZZK      579/459        Al         Grayson, GA            4225
14030        0210    W3EVW      579/559        Roger      Lester, PA             None
14030        0222    K7MPH      579/569        Mark       Beaverton, OR          None
14030        0232    K7PJT      599/599        Tom        Hillsboro, OR          None
14030        0259    K4JG       569/589        Bob        Brooksville, FL        None
14030        0315    KC0AGH     579/489        Mike       Denver, CO             4510

April 24th, local time (April 25th, zulu time)
14030        0200    K7FD       589/599        John       Seal Rock, OR          2420 (CC #418, FNW #4)
14030        0223    K7MPH      459/559        Mark       Beaverton, OR          None
14030        0238    KE6JJR     599/559        Mark       San Jose, CA           3265
14029        0258    WI9M       449/549        Gary       Brown Deer, WI         None
14032        0313    N4RD       559/569        Dick       Englewood, FL          None

April 25th, local time (April 25th, zulu time)
14030        1930    K2LNS      579/559        Herb       Wilkes Barre, PA       None
14030        1942    N1YLA      549/559        Bob        Morrisville, VT        3068 (CC #253)