Silver State Signals
The final day of driving on our recent western states road trip found us waking up in Winnemucca, Nevada. Growing weary from days on the road but refreshed after a night’s sleep we once again pulled onto I-80 West.
Up to this point I had never activated a POTA reference in the state of Nevada, even though it’s the closest other state to me at my home QTH of San Francisco.
About 50 miles west of Winnemucca is Rye Patch SRA (US-4444). I had my eye on this park as potential operating spot since I would reach it still fairly early in the day and it was not far off the highway. Rye Patch Reservoir is an 11 mile long man-made lake that runs parallel to interstate 80 and is held back by a dam at its southern end.
We got to the turn off and despite my desire to put the hammer down and get home, I thought to just have a look around to see what Rye Patch SRA looked like.
Naturally, once inside the park there is very little chance that I am not going to attempt an activation. At 10 in the morning, the high desert had already warmed into the 80s and I wanted to keep this operation on the quick side, if possible. These facts called for an in-car operation with the air conditioner running to try keep both the humans and the radio as cool as possible.
From the road I spied a parking area where a lone tree provided a patch of shade. It was in a bit of a bowl, but better that than roasting in the full sun up on the desert plateau.
I used the Yaesu FT-818 this time, perched on the center console in an attempt to keep it cooler. Turns out it would have been easier to use the KH1 in this situation but I didn’t feel like taking the time to switch radios.
About halfway through the hour of operating needed to get to 10 contacts for a valid POTA activation I was visited by the park rangers who’d obviously taken notice of the out-of-state plates and big antenna on the car. They were friendly enough and mentioned they’ve seen other ham operators at the park in the past.
I was just glad that I had paid the day use fee at the self-serve kiosk prior to my activation. Not to say that I had even remotely considered not paying! I fully encourage supporting our parks so that we continue to have access to this great public resource.
With 10 QSOs in the log, we furled the station, rolled up all the windows and put the A/C on high before jumping back on I-80 for the drive through Reno, over the Sierras and back to our home in San Francisco.
This is the conclusion of this short series of brief field reports on outdoor amateur radio on this western states road trip. Six new to me POTA references activated from five new states with a total of 65 QRP CW QSOs.
73 de W6CSN