QRP from the Ashland Railroad Station
August 2015

Judy and I stopped by the Ashland Railroad Station today after visiting a blueberry field. I worked
eight stations in the NA QSO Party and a station in Bulgaria. It was a gorgeous afternoon.



The station is one of the stops along the Plymouth and Lincoln Railroad that runs between Northfield
and Lincoln, New Hampshire. The old depot is a museum now. The train makes regular stops there
during the foliage season in the fall when the passengers disembark to tour the museum.

I tossed a 28 foot wire into a maple tree on the other side of the tracks and sat down on the platform with
the KX3. I work part-time on the railroad as a conductor and know the train schedules.



The caboose in the background belongs to Brian, KA1JOZ who also works on the railroad. I started out
on 20 meters. There were plenty of signals and the propagation was pretty good for a change. The North
America QSO Party was in full swing and it was easy to make contacts. I seemed to have a pipeline to
Minnesota. Here's my log:

1 Aug-15 2011  14.019 NA0N    CW 599 599 MN   
1 Aug-15 2014  14.030 N0AT    CW 599 599 MN  
1 Aug-15 2016  14.033 N2UT    CW 599 599 NM   
1 Aug-15 2017  14.027 WO4O    CW 599 599 Fl   
1 Aug-15 2019  14.024 W9IU    CW 599 599 IN   
1 Aug-15 2020  14.019 K0MPS   CW 599 599 MN  
1 Aug-15 2021  14.018 K0AD    CW 599 599 MN  
1 Aug-15 2024  18.076 LZ73TRC CW 599 599 Bulgaria    
1 Aug-15 2027  14.027 WA4PHC  CW 599 599 NC 

   

At one point I switched to 17 meters to see how the activity was. I heard LZ73TRC calling CQ. He was
strong, and we had no trouble making a nice QSO. I operated for about 20 minutes and packed up.