Over the week before ARRL Field Day 2007, I made 3 treks up to the Field Day site to stash my 7AH SLAs (6 pounds each) and extra water in place ready for action.

The FT-817 drinks a lot of amperes for breakfast for a little QRP rig! But it was the effort to try something different.

Friday night - Field Day Eve - I got to test out my latest QRP gasified wood stove made from a metal soup can and Foster's aluminum beer can sleeve weighing in at 5.2 oz.

It had rained on the way up Friday afternoon so finding dry wood was a challenge. Since my alcohol stove wasn't with me this on trip my dinner depended on finding dry wood! I tried sending up an SOS of smoked signals using a new(old) mode "smoke signal" (SS1-wet wood) but got no replies that I could see.

I had bad QRN from the wind! But it did calm down the local swarm of bugs. And I managed to heat some water to re-hydrate my carnitas / rice / veggie with salsa - despite the weather. Yummmmmm.

OK, now to Field Day and QRP:

I worked 80 / 40 / 20 / 15 / 10 /6 / 2 m and 70 cm all SSB / QRP! And dare I say: NO CW? What?

Nope. None. Zip. All for a very relaxed and casual 55 Qs as N0TU 1B CO. I didn't even use my key except to tune up my antennas. I guess the smoke signals could count as Morse code or maybe not. For shame.

Seriously, though, it was an absolute hoot to call stations with SSB in the Field Day pileups running a measly 2-watts PEP SSB and have the OP say the "Tango Uniform" station please go ahead ... woohoo!

Speaking of antennas: I used an 88'CFZ fed with 300 ohm twinlead to T1 with the FT817 (low power 2.5w), vertical dipole for 6m and hand held 5 element log periodic for 2m / 70cm while standing on the rocky summit of Raspberry at sunrise. For the smoke signal antenna it was end fed radom space.

Of course, Goat Mania prevailed! It was Rooster and Peanut - my pack goats - with their usual antics of knocking over my stove and breakfast, stealing food when I wasn't watching and other silly acts of goathood to include kicking over Dave Ek's, NK0E, K1 while doing the Deer Fly Stomp! He had hiked up with his XYL for the day was in the middle of an exchange with a MT station that he had staked for the at least 15 minutes.

My big goat Rooster went berserk while a deer fly was buzzing him and kicking over the K1 - big ooops - causing Dave to miss the Q! The K1 jumped a KC or so up the band from being knock off its perch! It was a good thing Dave wasn't packing heavy metal or we would have been tasting "goat burgers" for lunch.

It was worth every smoke filled Field Day second!

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Steve Galchutt, N¯TU, is a longtime QRPer and outdoorsman living in Monument, CO.

Steve and the boys' pictures at:
FD07 page: http://www.angelfire.com/planet/goatman/FD07.html
Home page: http://www.angelfire.com/planet/goatman