“Ice Station WØJH” 2018 Special Event

SARA Ops

Operating from a frozen lake during Presidents’ Day weekend, Feb. 17 – 19 was SARA’s usual idea of winter fun!

This was the fifth year in a row for this event and maybe another example of SARA craziness … or maybe just normal ham antics!

Using the club’s call, WØJH, two-person teams (operator and logger) operated from Lake Elmo, MN (Washington County; Grid Square EN34nx) from an 8’x8’ portable shelter on 15” of ice. (About 10 miles east of St. Paul)

A 160-6m center-fed Zepp antenna (253’ long, 45’ high) ran north and south in trees along the shore. About 100’ of 450Ω ladderline connected the antenna to a 4:1 balun, bringing coax into the shelter. A Kenwood TS-590 transceiver ran 100 watts thru a MFJ-962 antenna tuner to the antenna.
A laptop was used for logging. Heat was provided by a portable propane heater.

Our operating mode was SSB, primarily on 20m, 40m and more morning contacts on 75m this year. And John (N5JLZ) made some PSK contacts were also made. Propagation was so-so allowing contact throughout North America and several DX countries. While on the air for 3 days, ~6 hours per day, we generated some huge pile-ups; with about 400 contacts.

You can view more photos here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsm7A2MLf

Sample QSL Certificate