In early June of this year my nephew, Rob (KD7SNX), and I began plotting to escape the desert heat of Southern Arizona. The ARRL Field Day contest provided the perfect excuse so we started planning a short trek up to Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains, a one hour drive north from Tucson. However, as luck would have it, disaster struck about two weeks before Field Day this year in the form of the Aspin Fire which ravaged almost the entire mountain. The fire burned for several weeks, well past Field Day, and in the end consumed just under 85,000 acres of forest as well as the small town of Summer Haven and numerous cabins.
   Well, being two fine industrious Hams not willing to throw in the towel with over a week to go before the big event, we decided to go scouting for a new location to host our operation. The Saturday before Field Day we drove the two and a half hours required to get from Tucson to the top of Mt. Graham some 90 - 100 miles away. Long way to go just to scout you say? Well, perhaps but we wanted to know where we were going when we set off from Tucson the following Friday evening and it worked out well. While we were looking for the perfect place, we ran into a group from a club in Safford Arizona who set up in the same place every year and do very well running QRP. By the time we had to start back to Tucson, Rob and I had found three good places that we both liked. Our plan was to head out as soon as I got off work the next Friday so we figured if we had three spots picked out, one of them should be available by the time we arrived.
   The big day finally dawns! I arranged to get off work at noon so that Rob and I would have plenty of time to pack and complete any last minute details. During our scouting trip the previous weekend, Rob and I had decided that a 3 element yagi would be a great antenna for us to use this Field Day. Since neither of us had one, we went to work to try and find one. We lucked out and located a used 10-20meter yagi for sale on one of the local swap pages for $100.00. After a trip to the local Home Depot, we had all the necessary rope and assorted hardware to erect the yagi on a 20 foot steel pole. Actually the pole was two 10 foot sections of threaded electical conduit which worked very nicely. By early evening, we had completed all our last minute preparations and with the truck loaded, and I meen loaded, we headed out.








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