Amateur Radio Station WD8RIF | 2014 Freeze Your B__

Two members of the Southeast Ohio Radio Adventure Team and a guest participated in the 2014 Freeze Your B___ Off, an operating event sponsored by the Arizona ScQRPions. Eric McFadden, WD8RIF; Miles McFadden, KD8KNC; and soon-to-be-licensed Tim Creamer operated the event in Tim's Aliner camper parked on Tim's driveway. Neither Miles nor Tim operated the radio.

The forecast for this day was partly cloudy with temperatures rising from about 35° to about 60°; this high temperature was a welcome change from over a week of temps remaining below freezing.

Eric and Miles arrived at Tim's QTH about 9:45AM to find the Aliner camper already set up and ready for the installation of the radio equipment. Unfortunately, Tim had turned on the camper's electric heater and the camper was a comfy 70°; upon discovering this, Eric left the camper door open in an attempt to earn a low-temp multiplier.

Eric and Miles quickly erected the MFJ-1910 33' fiberglass mast and used it to support the center of Eric's W3EDP antenna at 30'.

This event was to be Eric's first use of his Elecraft KX3 in a field operation. Eric set up his KX3 on the camper's small table, using the KX3 Travel Kit's 10-cell Eneloop battery-pack and Whiterook MK-33 Mini Single Lever Paddle. Eric configured the KX3 to continuously display the power-supply voltage so he could track the Eneloop battery-pack's performance.

This being the first time Eric had used the KX3 with the W3EDP antenna, he quickly verified that the KX3's internal antenna tuner could match the W3EDP on all bands without a 4:1 balun. However, he found that KXAT3 could find a better match, and more quickly, on some bands with the 4:1 balun so this was the configuration Eric kept for the contest.

By the time the station was ready for operation, the interior of the camper had dropped to 49°. Eric's first QSO was at 1537Z and the temperature for this QSO was the lowest recorded. As the afternoon progressed, the temperature inside the trailer rose to almost 60°.

Eric found FYBO stations to be few and far between. FYBO stations were heard and worked on 20m and 40m. No stations were heard on 15m; 10m and 80m weren't checked. A surprising number of stations operating the Minnesota QSO Party were found on the 40m QRP calling frequency. 20m was surprisingly noisy—by the end of Eric's operation, the noise floor had risen to S9.

Stations Worked by WD8RIF
Time	Freq	Callsign	RST(s)	RST(r)	SPC	Name	Pwr	Temp(s)	Temp(r)	Notes
1537	7031	AA8MK	599	599	OH	Jim	100w	49	73	Eric's CQ
1603	14061	AB9CA	599	559	AL	Dave	5w	55	68
1622	14061	W5MSQ	559	559	TX	Ed	5w	59	65
1634	7030	AB8DF	599	599	MI	Ed	5w	59	62
1655	14063	K4BYF	559	559	FL	Jack	5w	59	70	Eric's CQ
1700	14063	W1SFR	559	559	VT	Steve	5w	59	36	Eric's CQ
1704	14060	N4BP	599	599	FL	Bob	5w	59	77
1725	7030	K4UY	599	599	AL	Ron	100w	59	69	24-minute rag-chew

Because of the very slow progress of making QSOs, and because of the sunny 60° day that begged to be enjoyed on a bicycle, Eric tore down the station about 1800Z. By the end of the operation, the Eneloop battery-pack was measuring 12v during receive.