We Discover a New Trail
September 2013

Hanz W1JSB and I hiked along the river in Bristol this afternoon. We worked
Germany, Lithuania and the Balaeric Islands.



On the Old Back Road there are lots of unused mill buildings along the
river. Hanz discovered a trail there last year and we went to explore it
today.  We walked along a narrow footpath across some rocks and cement
dam structures that hung out over the river. Soon we came to a trail that lead
south right along the river. It was glorious.



After walking a mile or so we started looking for a place to set up our gear. We found a flat outcropping
that just happened to be under a large, over-hanging maple tree. Voila! Hanz threw his water bottle over
the branch and hauled up a half wave wire for 20 meters. He used the Par End-Fedz and had a perfect
SWR. He operated with his souped up SWL rig. (See a video of the rig here.)



After tuning around a bit, he made a quick contact with DF5DM, Wilfred
in Germany. Happy smiles!

Then I set up my KX3 and clipped onto his antenna. I listened on 15 and 17
meters, but didn't hear much, so I switched to 20. That was very active and
I made two quick contacts. The first one was with Pranas, LY2J in Lithuania.
He was a 599 and gave me a 559. Then I worked Keith EA6/G3SZU in
the Balaeric Islands.  Keith was 589 and he gave me a 459.  With that we
packed up our gear and headed back toward Bristol.

As we got there, the sun was just setting and I snapped a quick shot of the falls
above the river.