Camping on Easter weekend in 2013

This year on Easter weekend Heidi and I went camping (as most Easters previously) at the banks of Murrumbidgee river near Yass.  Great place to be and to camp.  As a radio position it is not the best because the valley is surrounded by pretty tall hills.

This is "our" camping group... getting bigger and bigger

Lovely billabong for swimming

The radio reception is great, absolutely no RF noise.  Can hear well, however it is not the best for DX.  For the first time I used my folding hex beam and it worked well.

 

This year the CQ WPX SSB contest had fallen on Easter weekend and I "tried" to give out a few numbers.  Did not do very well, because the other activities:  Cycling, walking, swimming, drinking and sitting around the camp fire disrupted the contest intent.

It was the first time I've used electric rotator in the field, feeding the controller from a small inverter.  It worked rather well. I used beam (Spiderbeam) in portable situation before, but turned in manually.  This is new for me and it is going to be good in future.