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Pictures from KH8/K8GU

8 October 2014 | by Ethan K8GU | Share | | Leave a Comment (0)

I don’t really have time to do a full write-up, but I made a “quick” trip to American Samoa over the weekend to plan a future scientific instrument installation and managed to get on the air for a few hours. Here are some snapshots from my phone.

Snapshot of Utulei village near my hotel.

The "Main Road" in American Samoa.

The road up to (or rather, down from, in this case) the research/operating position.

184 steps lead down to the point where I operated. Although I left the antenna set up overnight, that was a hike even with the relatively light K2, computer, and provisions.

From the point, looking back toward the pump shack where my equipment and operating position were.

Looking about due West from the antenna location. JA is actually to the right of this photo. The upshot is that I had a clear all-water path to JA, EU, and NA, and sometimes the band was open all three places at once.

The "GU Special" fully extended for 40 meters. This is facing approximately North, or toward EU. 40 meters was a bust with lots of radar and freebander interference.

The operating position at KH8/K8GU. Poor ergonomics but it was good enough to make almost 1200 QSOs in about 12 hours of operating over two days.

Moonset captured on my way up to the Observatory one morning.

Ethan Miller, K8GU, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Maryland, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

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