White Sands National Park K-0970

Alamogordo, NM is 17 steep downhill miles and a 4000' descent from our Cloudcroft QTH - therefore, no liquified dinosaur bones are required to propel our car into town. Coming back up is another matter.

Just west of Alamogordo is White Sands NP - a sea of white gypsum, not sand - in a brown landscape. Sunglasses are recommended required.

The gypsum is of a very fine texture and is quite unlike beach sand. Being completely dry, it has no adhesive qualities at all, so it doesn't stick to the skin. Not even a little. It also doesn't absorb heat. After hours of direct desert sunlight, it remains cool to the touch.

 

After driving the park road and making some exploratory excursions among the dunes for future photographic possibilities, I attached the Hamstick to the car, plugged the battery into the FT-891 and started calling CQ.

Despite many prior activations of POTA sites, this was my first time to use HAMRS and I will definitely keep using it from now on. No more laborious transcription of paper log to PC after the activation - just export the adif file, upload to POTA and LoTW and call it a Day.

I'll be heading back to the park this afternoon (3/17, full moon) for another activation/photography session. Anyone up for EME on 20m phone?

.

.