It's Snowy and Cold Here...
December, 2014

Tim W3ATB and I hiked up Veteran's Memorial Ski Hill in Franklin
to check on the 147.300 repeater. We worked Mexico, Tennessee and
Maryland on 20 meters.



It took about 20 minutes to make it to the repeater site.  There was no power in the shack because
of a recent storm and there wasn't much we could do about it... so we set up my FT-817 on 20 meters
and made a few QSOs from the hilltop.

I tossed a line into a small maple tree and pulled up a 20 meter dipole as a sloper. It wasn't as smooth
as all that, because my first throw was bad, and I wrapped the line around a tiny branch trying to
retrieve it. We had to wrestle a bit to get the line back for a re-try.

I made the first QSO by working Ralph XE1RK in Mexico City... Oh man... no snow there! Ralph
gave me a 559 and wished me well on the hill top.

Tim took the next turn.



Right away he heard Vic WB2U in Maryland calling CQ. Tim answered and made a nice
contact. Our feet were getting cold, but I wanted one final QSO before packing up. Sam, WZ4L
in TN was calling CQ and I answered. He was only running 5W, but what a signal... a solid 599.
With that we pulled down the antenna and headed down the hill.