MOUNT GREYLOCK, MA 2011 REPORT                            26 July 2011
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                                                           Chris N2YYZ

After a late start - sorry all! - arrived at the summit parking lot a 
little before 12:30. 

Meanwhile I had missed a call from Roger NJ2R while driving up a 
winding mountain road - but by the time I got to the top, I had no 
cell service. 

Picked a location by the summit that looked like it had good lines of 
sight in both directions, and set up the VX8GR with a rubber duck on 
144.39 first. Then bolted the Diamond X50 to the top of a camera 
monopod, and bungie-corded the monopod to my camp chair. Did one last 
check that I had Bob's settings for D72 digipeating correct, and then 
GRYLCK-11 was on the air, right around 13:00. (Sorry again for being 
late.)

Right away I heard Sam's Point, NJ2R on voice talking to W2TTT at the 
alternate site High Point, NJ (who I could not hear); he barely heard 
my call between the bad intermod at his location. (There were sporadic 
blasts of intermod on Greylock, but they were weak and the frequency 
was still usable.)

Saw packets from SAMSPT-10 right away with no problems. Didn't hear 
MTWASH-13 until I realized I had the lines of sight wrong and moved 
position by about 50ft; after that there was no problem - I heard 
MTWASH and I think I was heard there (but confirmation would be 
appreciated). (I never did manage to raise Mt Washington on voice...)

Also got packets from Mount DENNIS alternate site KA1WPM and had a 
nice chat on the voice  frequency.  But I never did hear packets from
the High Point NJ test site.

At 14:59 I heard a packet from CMRRCK-4 (when GD-HILL was finally 
digipeating packets.  Soon after, at 15:05, was a packet from 
HWKSBL-6. Never heard anything else from the south, not even 
additional packets from those stations.

Stations copied today were -13, -10, -6, and -4. I had a great time 
on Greylock and definitely want to do this again next year (or even 
sooner - a weekend in September perhaps? ;-)

I also got plenty of questions about what I was doing and introduced 
several people to amateur radio, and introduced a couple of hams (one 
who saw me and asked, without preface, "2 meter DX?") to APRS & the 
Golden Packet event.

Many, many thanks to everyone who went out and set up stations, and 
especially to Bob for organizing the event and to Lynn for providing 
excellent comms support.

vy 73!
Chris N2YYZ