Bob Cunnings NW8L | |
This year - to the desert for FOBB. The location was up on a mesa | |
overlooking the Arroyo Bernalillito area of the Ojito Wilderness | |
northwest of Albuquerque, NM. A narrow promontory juts out northward | |
from the main body of the mesa, with its head standing about 300 feet | |
above the surrounding terrain at an elevation of 6100 feet. This is a | |
great spot for a QRP station and provides a clear shot for signals to | |
the west, north, and east. | |
West view of mesa | |
Getting up there isn't too difficult if you take your time. The | |
lower portion consists of steep debris slopes, and the uppermost portion | |
a sheer sandstone vertical wall. Fortunately a cleft in the sandstone | |
is located near the operating spot, marked by a gnarly old pinon tree | |
growing out of the rock. A faint, intermittent trail provides a rather | |
tortuous path from the base up to the cleft, and from there a little | |
rockslide on the unstable slope of decomposed mudstone leading to the | |
caprock. | |
The antenna | |
Once on top I set up the antenna. It is made from 64 feet of 450 | |
ohm balanced line. One conductor is opened at the center and connected | |
to the 300 ohm feedline, and serves as directly driven 40 meter dipole. | |
The other conductor is notched out 15 feet in from each end to form a 20 | |
meter dipole centered at the feedpoint, but not connected (the "coupled | |
resonator"). The feedline is 40 feet long and connected directly to | |
KX1, which finds a good match on 30 meters as well as 20 and 40. The | |
feed point was supported by a 32 ft. telescoping fiberglass windsock | |
pole, tied to a juniper tree. Orientation was North/South. | |
The KX1 setup | |
The rig is my trusty Elecraft KX1, with a small self-powered speaker. | |
Power is about 3W on 20 m, 4W on 40 m. | |
The solar power setup | |
Power was supplied by a 10W solar panel charging a 2AH gel cel. | |
The radio shack | |
Near the edge the caprock is broken up, and I set up the shack in | |
this cleft under the juniper tree holding up the antenna mast, with a | |
"Noah's Tarp" for shade. | |
The view to the West | |
The view to the West, with Cabezon, a volcanic plug, on the horizon. | |
The view to the North | |
To the North, the mesa overlooks the area in the Ojito | |
Wilderness where the dinosaur "Seismosaurus" was excavated. Less than a | |
half a mile in are some nice petroglyphs. | |
The view to the East | |
To the East is seen White Mesa, where gypsum is imined to make wallboard. | |
The clouds were building as the day went on, as remnants of Hurricane Dolly | |
were drifting in from the southeast. | |
The view to the Southeast | |
Looking Southeast the main body of the mesa can be seen, and Sandia Mountain | |
near Albuquerque is off in the distance. | |
The radio shack before the start of FOBB | |
Ready to go. Conditions were a little better this year, it | |
seemed. I made 46 QSOs, 42 on 20 meters and 4 on 40 meters. 29 were with | |
fellow BBs, and 17 with home stations. It was great to hear more home | |
stations this year, thanks! 20 was the hot band, with some great signals | |
- N7OU, N5GW and K5OT come to mind as being strong at my location. Not | |
all were easy however, and I had to really strain to hear those which | |
were fading in and out. I switched to 40 only at the tail end, even then | |
signals were quite weak here. 21 states were worked: MI, TX, IL, MN, | |
AL, CA, AR, MO, OR, OH, CO, WY, NM, FL, ID, KY, WA, WI, MS, VA, and GA. | |
It was nice to work into the South, but I couldn't raise any stations in | |
New England, although I did hear a few, very faintly. | |
Once FOBB was done, I packed up and headed down since I wanted to do | |
a little sightseeing in the area and take some pictures before driving home. | |
North side of the mesa | |
At the bottom there is a tiny relic population of Ponderosa Pines, | |
left over from better (wetter) times. They seem really out of place here. | |
Some old ruins | |
I hiked in about a half mile to the North, near the Seismosaurus site, | |
where there are some old ruins. | |
Some petroglyphs | |
Nearby are some petroglyphs, on horizontal rock at the edge of | |
the Seismosaurus mesa, overlooking the Arroyo Bernalillito area. Human | |
arm, turtle, snake, sun, crescent moon, north star - it's the full catalog! | |
Petroglyph - hunter and prey | |
Here is an action scene, the Hunter and Prey... | |
Petroglyph - lizard? | |
... and here, a lizard? | |
The abandoned ranch house | |
On the way out, a short side trip reveals an abandoned ranch | |
house, at the boundary between BLM land and the Zia Pueblo Reservation. | |
The road out | |
The old ranch house is sited along an arroyo which crosses the main road here. | |
It's a bit muddy from recent rains. | |
A free range cow | |
Seismosaurus may be gone, but now the open range is roamed by New | |
Mexico's new dominant megafauna, the beef cow. The fence separates BLM | |
range land from the Zia reservation in the background. | |
See you next year! | |