• Management / Checker: Ramon Gandia, AL7X
• Assisting / Radio Op / Checker: Ken Shapiro, KL1YJ

Shown is the 10 x 10 portable Pelsue tent ordered from Western Safety in Seattle. It is a portable tent, 20-second setup, but not neccessarily the base camp tent we will be using in Boston.

This is the tent we saw the cable company using to do splices in Nome recently. It is very rugged, single wall, no floor. It packs up to 8" diameter, 76" long, so you have to consider the sled to transport this length. It will fit over a broken snowmachine or a caribou to be butchered. Cost was $898. Not bad!

Update! The tent has arrived and is being tried out.

Here is the tent being setup. This picture is of the smaller 6 x 6.

We got the tent, and have been setting it up. When it is taken out of the bag, it is somewhat awkward to set up. The Cable company guys tell us to have patience that with time and practice it is indeed a 20-second tent. But right now it is taking us about 2 to 3 minutes.

Once the first pop-out bow is snapped, the rest goes fairly easy. So far, Kenny and I have worked together to do it. In the picture above it shows just one guy...

The tent did not have a stove roof jack, and we purchased locally one made for canvas wall tents, in 4" size. It worked well. We need to get some sort of flap to put over it when the jack is not in use, like in summertime.

The tent does lack windows of any sort; even a porthole would be good, specially near the door. But one in every wall would be better.

Lastly, we fear for the zipper. It does not look like a real rugged unit, but in Boston March 26-31 it worked flawlessly. Nevertheless, we are concerned that if this zipper breaks, the tent will be cold and mostly unusable. We need a backup system, perhaps a velcroed flap etc. Kenny has some ideas.

When we set it up, we used a plywood floor made of 3/8" ply pieces, cut to fit the sled, and then screwed together helter skelter on the tent site. Once that was done, we laid a 12' x 12' heavy cotton tarp over it. The canvas was excellent, credit Kenny for this idea. The wood part could be vastly improved, or perhaps done away with and use spruce boughs. This is not an option in areas where there are no spruce trees.

--- Ramon Gandia