First Parks On The Air (POTA) Activation

So this past week we camped at Jacques Cartier State park along the St. Lawrence River in New York State. I had recently been invigorated to get back on HF and knowing about the program I saw this as an opportunity to play radio while enjoying camping with the family. So I packed up some radio gear and decided to do an activation.

Our campsite was right along the St. Lawrence river with a nice view clear across the river. After getting setup (we camp in a travel trailer so setup is not too hard) and spending some time with the family, I get my station up and running. My station consisted of the following:

  • FT-450D transceiver
  • 12V power supply
  • Signalink USB
  • S9 31′ vertical antenna
  • LDG 9:1 UnUn
  • 25′ wire for a radial
  • 25′ RG-8x
The only photo I have of the setup. Next time I will have to take more.

For the first day I only operated FT8 and I was able get 11 contacts in the books with about 30 minutes of operating. I ran with 25-watts on 20m during this time.

Map of from qsomap.com of contacts made on Day 1.

Day two was pretty similar to day one. I worked two separate times first working SSB at 100w for about 30 minutes again, then a few hours later back to FT8 @ 25w. SSB I netted 14 total with 5 on 15m and 9 on 20m. On FT8 netted 9 contacts with 7 on 20m and 2 on 10m in about 20 minutes of operating.

Map from qsomap.com showing contacts on day 2. Red are SSB and Blue are FT8.

Overall a fun experience and will likely do this more often. Maybe it will finally get me to master morse code so I can operate CW.

Hello world!

Welcome to my little spot on the web. Not really sure where this will go, but initially my thought is to put up information on my current projects, ideas, and most likely random thoughts along the way. What type of projects? Well most likely they will be electronics related, but who knows!