One of the genius things about Parks on the Air is the awards program. There are all kinds of awards to choose from, and they are all automatically awarded. You don’t have to submit QSL cards or pay fees. They just appear on your awards page, and you can pick and choose which ones mean something to you.

I’ve never been much of a wall paper chaser, so, aside from the Rhino Rover award that my friend, Tom, W8TAM, helped me achieve, the 24 awards that I have somehow managed to accumulate don’t really mean that much to me. Yesterday, though, I reached a milestone that brought a smile to my face (as you can see by the photo at right). I hit 1,000 contacts from US-3315, Island Lake Recreation Area.

It’s been very hot here in the Midwest, but somehow, I managed to cajole Paul, KW1L, and Rick, K8BMA to accompany me to the park. We left my house just before 9 am, and despite some slow traffic, we managed to get to the park and get set  up by 10 am. Yesterday, instead of using my 66-ft. doublet, we set up Paul’s new Cobra antenna. Despite its claim to being “ultra light,” it was a bit heavy for my fiberglass mast. We solved that problem by not using the top two sections of the mast.

I don’t know if it was band conditions (I was calling CQ on 14.062 MHz), or the antenna, or a combination of both, but I began working them one after another right off the bat. I made the first 10 contacts in less than 10 minutes. I made the 45 contacts I needed to reach 1,000 in just a little over an hour, and I was up to 55 contacts at 11:25, at which point, we decided to eat lunch.

The contacts we made were literally all over the map. Somehow, the skip was short enough to work into New York and Pennsylvania, but also south to Florida, east to Prince Edward Island, and west to British Columbia.

After lunch, we switched to 15 meters to see what band conditions were like there. Right away, I got a call from an OK2 station, but not much afterwards. We pounded out another six contacts before calling it quits. It was starting to get hot out there, and any extra contacts would just be anti-climactic.

Paul likes to ask, “So, what did we learn from this?” One thing I may have learned is that using twisted-pair wire may not be the best feed line for my POTA antenna. I think that I have to give some credit to the Cobra antenna for the good results we had yesterday, and its feed line is 450 Ω ladder line. The feed line loss for 450 Ω ladder line has got to be less than the feed line loss of my twisted-pair feed line.

I think I’ll try to find some 300 Ω twin lead and see what kind of results I get. Is there an easy way to measure feedline loss? Has anyone already measured the losses of 300 Ω, 450 Ω, and twisted pair feed lines and compared the results?

As for POTA, it’s onwards and upwards. I have 315 contacts from the Pinckney State Recreation Area (US-3322). It’s only a little further away from my house than the Island Lake Recreation Area, and in some ways, is a nicer park. I’m thinking that if I can get out 2-3 times a week, I can get to 1,000 contacts from there by the end of the season.