Desert Experience

Desert Trails RV Park site 15, Tuscon Estates, Arizona

I haven't been able to do anything with ham radio since Nancy's illness. It's been about nine months since she passed away, so I am slowly moving forward with my life without her. I took off from the Wisconsin winter snow shoveling by staying at an RV park in the Tucson area for two months. I have a few more days here before I start heading home.

Before I left home, I thought I would bring the FT-991A and accessories along, and I'm sure glad I did. I mounted the radio by it's mobile mounting bracket to the cabinet shelf I made. I placed a fused line directly from the battery to the RigRunner so I can have extra connections for the Garmin GPS and a few other things, and my Heil mic is on a short boom. So far it has worked out great! An upcoming test will be when I get back on the road with the trailer. I'm planning on leaving everything in place except for the antennas.

The Yaesu FT-991A and FT3D in the camper

For ease of operating, I purchased a Yaesu ATAS-120A screwdriver antenna for HF, and a separate 2m/440 antenna, both mounted to the rails on top of the all aluminum camper. I made some heavy braided ground bonds from the mounts to the aluminum skin roof. So far, so good, but I will likely make two custom mounts from aluminum and bolt them directly to the roof. The SWR suffers a little with the current setup, so I believe a closer bond to the counterpoise will likely fix that.

With this setup I quickly made eight contacts, four of which are trans-equatorial on 10 meters. Pretty fun thing to do sitting in a tiny camper! I can hardly wait to do this in the middle of, well, anywhere!

Next on the list is getting my Raspberry Pi computer in the camper so I can use my logbook and other ham software while away from home.

East of Gates Pass, Tucson