The long trek was made to Ransberg scout camp to expose the scouts to the digital HF world. I arrived about noon and the setup of the antennas began. This went relatively easily and after about 30 minutes, the coax hook up to the radio was ready. There were several scouts, Steve-W9THR and Barry-KC9MWZ helping in the installation of the antenna.
At this point, this is where the gremlins crept in and where the problems started. After several computer problems, some hardware problems….. everything was straightened out and the contacts began on 20 meters.. We were seeing lots of DX and getting ready to start the scouts on the station.
This where everything goes upside down….. Barry and I switched to 40 meters and sent a jt65 CQ…
This is the point where the fire alarms went off and we all had to exit the building very quickly.
As everyone stood outside in the cold, waiting for the ranger to reset the alarms, Barry and I had to confess to everyone that it was probably us that had unexpectedly injected rf into the alarm system.
It was at this point, that the station was torn down and put away and after several apologies, i left to begin the long trek home.
Steve W9THR