Assateague Island

October 12 - 14th, 2002

NA-139

I recently went  to Assateague Island on the Maryland side. Assateague has a large off road vehicle area for fishing and camping. My father and brothers all went for some surf fishing while I decided to take the opportunity to try some hamming. Propagation was great on all bands especially 10 meters where I was able to make lots of contacts in a short time.

I thought I'd use my favorite antenna, a delta loop for my contacts. However, I knew there were few trees to prop up my delta loop. So, on Friday before the trip I made a mad dash to HRO and picked up an MFJ-1919 33ft fiberglass mast. I was able to strap the mast to the front of the truck. The mast flexed a lot with the weight of the antenna but it didn't seem to be a problem. The mast handled the antenna and beach winds without a problem.

I spent the first day on the beach fishing. On the second day I set up the station. I started out with the equipment sitting on top of a cooler but quickly realized that sand was getting into everything so I retreated to the truck. The antenna was a 74 ft delta loop for 20 meters but worked great on all bands. Especially 10 meters which was booming to Europe all day. I actually had a mini-pileup for NA-139 at times. My radio was an FT-817 beefed up a bit for 10 to 12 watts out. My trusty Fujitsu Lifebook P ran MixW 2.06.