I enjoyed activating the Old Point Comfort Lighthouse this weekend. Went out both on Saturday and Sunday. Had some great QSOs. Was able to work N1LO and AG4GO (operating as N4P) at the New Point Comfort Lighthouse…. that was cool. Also had QSOs with Denmark, Bermuda, and El Salvador…. all new countries.
Learned some lessons when setting up a portable operation:
(1) Don’t set your operating station up farther away from your antenna than the length of your feedline allows.
(2) Don’t print your log sheets with an ink jet printer… when you’re sweaty after setup and try to write in the log, sweat will make the ink jet print smear,
(3) If you have a shelter to keep you out of the sun, go ahead and use it.
(4) Make sure you have everything BEFORE you pull out of the driveway (i.e. your feedline, log book, headphones, and tools).
Good news… this was the first real deployment of the ARSIB. Everything worked very well. Even used the the ARSIB and the vertical dipole on 17M, in addition to 40M and 20M.