Author Archives: k2lrv

Quick Second POTA Activation

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Well it has been a while since my last POTA activation, but while on a family vacation we stayed at Charlestown State park in Indiana. The park is designed as US-2253. We were there only two nights, so after a trip into Louisville in the morning/early afternoon when we returned I decided to to try and activate the park, even with the sweltering 98 degree temperatures.

for this activation I used my Xeigu G90 HF radio, and for an antenna I used an end fed half wave antenna. Since I still am working on my CW (slowly getting there) I operated SSB. Stringing up the wire antenna was made quickly using an arborist rope and weight. I managed to get over a branch at a decent height on my first tray, and pu;;ed the wire up. The configuration ended up taking the shape of an inverted V with the wire attaching to the 49:1 UnUn placed adjacent to the transceiver. My operating position was on a picnic table close to the tree. Power to the radio was via a DC-DC converter with one of my Milwaukee M18 too batteries as a supply.

after a quick check to see if everything was working I chose to run 40M. No special reason why, the antenna tunes up on 10-40m, but when I powered on the radio 40m was already selected and I quickly spin of the knob revealed several stations so I said why not.

I self spotted on the pota.app site around 21;42 UTC and started calling CQ. Within minutes I began to hear the familiar sounds of people tuning up on/near my frequency and had my first contact at 2144. I had 8 total contacts in 5 minutes so was very optimistic on a successful activation. 10 more were in the log by 22:01, with 14 contacts in the log at this point I was happy I decided to activate. I complied my 24th contact by 22:09, and at this point with the heat I decided to call it a day.

Below is a map of the contacts location. For logging I used HamRS and it provides this map on the fly.

Thanks to everyone that hunted me, and hopefully I will do this more often, hopefully in much cooler weather!

73,
K2LRV

First Parks On The Air (POTA) Activation

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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.