There is a lot of other cool information about this Mountain, and the range that it is in - make sure to Google it, and to check out the park service's website for Mt. Rainier.
- Fighting with my antenna mast. I have a buddiepole that usually works pretty well for me, but it's an older model that I bought used, and the clamps for each section have been wearing out. Several gave out at once, so I wasn't able to get my antenna more than about 6 feet in the air. Maybe time for the new mast that has the redesigned clamps...(or maybe I just make the switch to wire antennas....thoughts?)
- A noisy power supply. I took along a wire harness I had made up that has battery clamps on one end and powerpoles on the other. This way I could run my radio off the rental car's battery. As it turns out though, my rental car was making noise at about an S7 level, so I tried to operate some, run the car some to charge the battery, etc. Should I just start traveling with batteries? Maybe one of those fancy new Lithium Iron (that's right Iron, not Ion) Phosphate batteries...(message to my YL: if you let me buy one of the bigger ones of those, I promise not mention a tower for at least a month...)
- An inefficient antenna? Once I finally figured out how to temporarily keep my mast up (electrical tape) and figured out what my noise source was and turned it off (the rental car) I only got 1 answer to my CQ's, that I could barely hear - something in the range of a 3-3 both ways. For a lot of my activations I use the equipment permanently mounted in my vehicle - a hamstick. With that hamstick I've always had great luck on 40 meters, but my buddiepole on 40 meters seems hit or miss. Should I reserve my buddiepole for 20/17/15/12/10/6/2 and just start using wire on 40 meters?