Aim Highest!

Had an opportunity to spend 5 days in the Great Smokey Mountains, in Maggie Valley, NC. My wife’s business enabled her to barter the use of a home half way up the side of the mountain. I took a week off from work and  loaded my hobby into the car and the wife and I headed up there. This time I used the EagleOne portable antenna (http://w8afx.com/) I setup the Kenwood TS-480 with coax going out a sliding glass door and insulated the opening as best I could for the cold mountain nights. I put up the antenna tripod in a good level area in the driveway and staked it to the ground. I also attached three radials to each leg and then extended the 31′ mast with the wire inside. At the base of the antenna, I use an LDG 4:1 balun, using the built-in antenna tuner of the KW TS-480.  Wow, what a great portable antenna. My first contact was N8W  operating from the Seney National Wildlife Refuge at Seney, Michigan during the National Wildlife Refuge Week Special Event. Other stations I QSO’d that day were in Ohio, Spain, Italy, Maine, Georgia, and North Carolina on 40 meters SSB. What a great few days, driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway, visiting shops in Asheville and Cherokee, NC and enjoying the cool crisp November air of the mountains. It was a very enjoyable vacation.