A Typical One Day Mobile Trip

County hunters are frequently on the road transmitting from "rare" counties. In this case "rare is any county someone needs. December 27, 1998 found me on the road into Virginia to transmit form one such county for Buck, W6HOR, a ham in California. This was the last county he needed in VA and the one of the last four he needed to have worked someone in every county in the county. Now this county is only about 16 miles from the center of the city of Richmond - so how rare is rare. The county, why it was King William County, located a bit northeast of the city.

Leaving from rural southern Maryland it made a pleasant Sunday drive. Of course an chance to transmit from one county must be expanded. In the end I passed through 15 counties and drove 335 miles in about 8 hours. First the trip was posted to the various county hunter web sites so others would know someone would be in some of those "rare" counties in the northern neck of VA. This resulted in an additional request for a QSO from King and Queen county by K8IW, one of a hundred or so he still needed.

Counties run on this trip were

• King George, VA
• Westmoreland, VA
• Richmond, VA
• Northumberland, VA
• Lancaster, VA
• Mathews, VA
• Middlesex, VA
• Gloucester, VA
• Essex, VA
• King and Queen, VA
• King William, VA
• Caroline, VA
• Charles, MD
• St. Mary's, MD
• Prince Georges's, MD

There were a total of 113 QSO - all CW. Both 40 meters and 20 meters were used. Countries contacted included in addition to the US were Sweden, Germany, and Canada. This was acutally unusual as a number of other European stations are usually heard. It is not uncommon to hear counties outside of North America and Europe.

The most interesting part of the trip was driving though Gloucester county where they had a recent ice storm. The trees were covered with ice. I had to dodge the hanging limb so at not to hit the antenna and watch for the ice on the road which resulted from the droppings from the trees and power lines.