(February 14, 2024) In the social forums, I often see the question posed by a newer POTA enthusiast asking if anyone does any Parks on the Air activations on the 80 meter band. This is a great question, as 80 meters is excellent for getting those local and regional contacts and it often is a band that is needed if you are interested in your N1CC award. But there are certain challenges with that band and they are multiplied when you go portable.

Being at the top of the solar cycle, 80 meters is relegated to being a night time band. During the day the noise floor is just too high for the weaker signal of an activator to compete. This is often compounded by the highly compromised antennas we end up using on the lower bands. There’s a reason why 80 meter aficionados use amplifiers: it’s to overcome the limitations of band noise and antenna losses. To top all that off, many parks close in the evening hours, making it even more challenging to activate a park on that band.

With all the challenges of 80 meters, I found myself in a spot where I had the time and ability to do a late shift at a local park, Rib Mountain State Park (POTA K-1473).

Late shift for Parks on the Air purposes is defined when Zulu day (00:00) rolls over. Here in the midwest in the central time zone, we are 6 hours behind GMT, Zulu, or Universal Coordinated Time, so at 6:00 pm local time (7pm when daylight saving time begins) is the start of the new POTA day. This late evening activation period is affectionately called the Late Shift, as it happens during the evening hours and the contacts count towards the next local time day.

On February 14, Christine was flying back from a business conference and her plane was expected to arrive at 9:00pm. I could have stayed at home and snoozed on the couch before picking her up at the airport, or I could make myself useful and activate a park. Fortunately my favorite local park, Rib Mountain State Park, is only 15 minutes from the airport, so I could be out until 8:30 or so, get on the air, and make some late shift contact. I grabbed a quick dinner and traveled up the hill for a couple hours of late shift.

Setup

Being it was the evening, my plan was 40 and 80 meters, two bands I don’t operate much from the mountain and two that will have good performance after sunset. Being this is winter and the ski hill is operating, I knew that I would have some noise on the 40 meter band from the chair lifts. Checking the schedule, the hill was operating until 9:00pm. My only hope was that they wouldn’t be operating the lift on the far west side of the hill. If it was, my only recourse would be to operate digital on the 40 meter band as the chair lift noise all but blanks everything out.

Sure enough, when I got to the top of the hill, there was plenty of activity near the park entrance and the two large high speed lifts were running, but driving to the other end of the park, everything was dark. The parking area was unlit and the 3rd high speed lift was not in operation. Excellent! That meant 40 meter phone operation was on.

For My setup, I used the 213 inch whip paired with the Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet 1000 coil. I needed the extra length of the SB1000 for 80 meters, so that was the perfect choice. The longer whip meant that the coil would be somewhat efficient as I wouldn’t have to drop the collar all the way to the bottom to get a match. Sure enough, on 40 meters, I only needed about an inch or so of coil and on 80m, the collar was at about the 3/8 point, of just under half way down. I had both my window screen ground network and length of Faraday cloth (magic carpet), so I laid both down under the antenna to increase the surface area of my ground network. This was an excellent choice as the SWR on both 40 and 80 meters was under 1.5:1.

For transceiver, I put the FT-891 on the dash of the car, set the power of 50 watts, and started calling CQ on the 40 meter band.

The Activation

I was on the air 00:49 (6:49pm) and made my first contact 2 minutes later. To say that hunters weren’t looking for late shift activators is an understatement. For the next hour I averaged about 2 contacts a minute and racked up 95 contacts for the almost one hour period that I was on the air. Propagation was quite good and I easily worked stations on 40 meters that I often hear on 20 meters during the day, including a few west coast stations: California, Oregon, and Arizona.

Since the purpose of me being on the hill at night was 80 meters, and since I also had a hard deadline to keep, at 7:45pm I changed bands. At this time it has started snowing on the hill. We were expecting some rain/snow mix but the forecast said it would start after 9:00pm. Evidently it got here a little early as my ground screen and cloth was covered by a light dusting of snow. Moving the collar down to 80 meters, I got a good match, and the snow didn’t seem to affect anything. I was ready to rock and roll.

Band conditions on 80 meters was excellent that evening. My noise floor was about S2, which is amazing, and many of the hunters I got on 40 meters followed me down to 80 for another contact on that band. I operated for 40 minutes and got 26 in the log. A little slower pace than 40 meters, but expected with the shorter coverage the 80 meter band offered. By this time is was 8:30pm and my wife was expected to land in 30 minutes.

But as I mentioned, it was snowing, and that same snow delayed her flight out of Minneapolis. I now had about an extra half hour before I needed to be at the airport. There was only one reasonable thing to do, work another band. I needed 30 meters at the park for my N1CC, so I retuned the coil, hooked up the Digirig, and got 8 30 meter FT8 contacts in the log. Signals were really good on 30 m that evening and the passband was full of activity. I secured at 8:54pm. According to Flight Aware, she would arrive at 9:20, so I had just enough time to pack up, head down the hill, and get to the airport.

Conclusion

Late shift on Rib Mountain was a lot of fun. Getting down off the hill in the snow was not. By this time it was snowing pretty good, but taking things easy and the confidence of the Outback’s all wheel drive made the day. I arrived at the airport at 9:24pm and only had to wait a minimal amount of time while Chris got her luggage.

There is no camping on Rib Mountain, but the park is open until 11:00pm. Until this point I never really thought much about going up there for a late shift activation, but with the results of this one, I certainly am going to do it again. The vertical with the SB1000 coil was an excellent choice and I feel adding the second screen to the ground network made a big difference for the low bands. I will certainly do that trick again when I use the vertical on 80 and even 40 meters.

I got 129 contacts that day: 95 on 40 meters, 26 on 80 meters, and 8 on 30 meters FT8.

K-1473 Rib Mountain State Park 40 meter Late Shift Phone contacts

K-1473 Rib Mountain State Park 80 meter Late Shift Phone contacts

Map visualization of contacts courtesy of qsomap.com

If you go

Rib Mountain State Park
149801 State Park Rd
Wausau, WI 54401
State Park Pass required
Park open 6:00am to 11:00pm

The post Late Shift on Rib Mountain appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.

January 20, 2024 – This was a busy Saturday. I started the day out proctoring an FCC amateur license exam session. As the testing liaison for our club, an exam won’t happen unless I’m there, because I have all the materials. But I’m not complaining as our group tested six individuals and we ended up with a new Technician, three upgrades to General and two new Extra class license holders. A good day, indeed.

After the test, I decided to hit a park on my way home. The closest for me is Rib Mountain State Park, POTA K-1473. I’ve written about Rib Mountain quite a few times. Located just outside of Wausau, WI, I consider it to be my ‘local park’ and I’ve done 22 activations with 2300 contacts. Six of those were in the last two months. What I like about this park is how the activation strategy changes in the winter months.

In the summer, I have a couple of favorite spots where I set up on a picnic table, but when the snow flies, the ski resort operation on the north side of the hill goes into action and all of those spots are unavailable. I end up sitting in my car and operating from the front seat.

Setup

Vertical antennas work really well in this park. Rib Mountain, while it isn’t a mountain in the true sense, its height is 1927 feet above sea level, and the peak sits about 700 feet above average terrain. I’ve had very good luck with the ¼ wave vertical antenna set up with either radials or the window screen ‘magic carpet’ ground network. But today, being January, I wanted a faster setup, so I chose the go with the Shark HF sticks.

I had three sticks in the vehicle with me: the 10, 15, and 20 meter HF antennas. I knew that 40 meters would be a no-go as the noise from the ski operation chair lifts obliterate the 40 meter band. My setup with the stick is pretty simple: I use a Tram 5 inch magnet base that I put on the roof of the car and each of the sticks are fitted with quick release mounts. I slapped the base on the roof and put the 10 meter stick on the air.

One issue I have with the HF sticks, especially the 20 meter stick, it getting a good match. I think it’s partly due to the small size of my mag mount. I’ve heard reports that the large 3-magnet bases give a better match. The solution I’ve found that works for me is to add 25 feet of coax to the 15 feet on my mag mount. The extra bit of coax isn’t enough to burn off the mismatch due to feed line losses, but I believe it acts as a bit of a counterpoise for the antenna. It’s a simple solution, and for whatever reason, it works.

The temperature on the hill today was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit with a light breeze. It wasn’t stopping the skiers, as there was plenty of activity on the hill, but I didn’t want to stay outside too long. So after quickly deploying the antenna, I retreated to the vehicle, where the engine was still running, keeping it warm.

I set the FT-891 on the dash of the car and sit in the passenger seat. Doing this gives me plenty of leg room and I don’t have to contend with the steering wheel. The logging computer, running Hamrs, sits on my lap. Putting the headset on, I was ready to get on the air.

The Activation

At this point I turn the engine off and find a free frequency. 10 meters was quite active today. Apparently this weekend is the North American QSO Party and there were plenty of contesters on the air. It took a bit to find an open spot. I did find something around 28.383 MHz. spotted myself and started calling CQ POTA. For all the activity on the band, returns came in slow. I got a couple on that frequency and then I had to move as I was getting crowded by an adjacent contester. I moved all the way up to about 28.465 Mhz and resumed, after about 20 minutes I had 10 stations in the log. That’s when the band shifted and a NAQP participant showed up on frequency and started calling CQ. I didn’t fight it as I was happy with the 10, that was enough to consider this an ‘activation’ and on 10 meters, no less. That’s when I made the decision to drop down to 15 meters.

The car’s interior still felt comfortable so I didn’t restart the engine, but instead got out quick and changed from the 10 meter to 15 meter stick. It’s a fast process and took less than 2 minutes. The sticks are pretuned, so I don’t even check them with the meter, I just change and go.

Moving to 15 meters, I experienced more of the same. The band is lousy with contesters. I found a spot around 21.315 Mhz and started calling CQ. Just like 10 meters, the same happened on 15. I would get a few contacts and then the QRM got to be too much as someone would just pop up and call CQ Contest. During the course of my 15 meter activation, I moved three times and netted 24 more contacts in about 30 minutes.

I think part of the problem with my holding the frequency was the bands themselves. There was a significant amount of fading and shifting on both 10 and 15 meters. What started out as a quiet spot would be overrun as propagation moved around. While the Sharks Sticks are decent antennas, they also are a bit of a compromise, and my reduced power just couldn’t compete with stations running more optimized systems. But that never stopped me before, so I make do with what I got.

But after moving for the third time on 15 meters, I had enough of it and not quite wanting to go home yet, I decided to finish up my activation with a little bit of digital. I swapped out the antenna for the 20 meter stick, connected the Digirig to the computer, and fired up WSJT-X for some 20 meter FT8. For so much phone activity going on, and it also being Support your Parks weekend, I was a bit surprised that the waterfall on FT8 wasn’t fuller. I worked 21 stations in about 30 minutes. It took quite a bit of retries for a full QSO, either due to band conditions or my compromised situation. But by the end it was 2:00pm local time and I was getting chilly, so I shut down for the day.

But before completely shutting down, I managed three contacts on 2 meter FM simplex. Thank you to the locals that were monitoring the frequency.

Conclusion

Doing POTA during a contest weekend can be a challenge. I don’t have any issues with contesters and I’ve done the same things when participating in a contest that they do. It’s all part of the sport. You can either join them or work around them. I chose to work around them and since I was able to respot myself, I would just QSY to a new frequency and spot. If I was in a location where spotting was more difficult, I would have been more likely to stand my ground.

At the end of the activation, I netted 58 contacts, 10 on 10 meters, 24 on 15 meters, 21 on 20 meter digital, and 3 on 2 meter FM. I received favorable signal reports from most of the stations, so the hamsticks work.

K-1473 Rib Mountain State Park 10 & 15 meter Phone contacts

K-1473 Rib Mountain State Park 20 meter Digital Contacts

Map visualization of contacts courtesy of qsomap.com

If you go

Rib Mountain State Park
149801 State Park Rd
Wausau, WI 54401
State Park Pass required
Park open 6:00am to 11:00pm

The post Activation Log: Taking on the North America QSO Party appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.

January 13, 2024: To most people, Hatley Wisconsin is blip on Highway 29 in eastern Marathon County. Driving past at 65 mph, you probably notice the gas station, the Dollar General, and maybe the large Catholic church. This little village of about 500 people is more of bedroom community for the larger Wausau metro area. There was a veneer factory that is long gone and the rail line that established the village in the late 19th century was converted to a state trail about a 100 years later. And this connection is what brings me to Hatley for a Parks on the Air activation of the entity, K-9806 Mountain-Bay State Trail.

I’ve written two prior blog posts about the Mountain-Bay, so I won’t go into a lot of that detail, you can read more about the trail, here and here.

The Mountain-Bay runs the entire length of the community, but there is one particular spot that I prefer to operate from, The parking area of the Hatley public library. This parking lot is the local trailhead and it is also the crossing point of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail K-4238. Setting up here gives me a twofer: activating two Parks on the Air entities at one time. I also like this spot as it is a short, 20 minute drive from my home.

Weather

I normally don’t say a whole lot about the weather in my activations, but this time it’s significant. We had just come off of a major winter storm. The southern and eastern part of the state received up to a foot or more of snow, while the northern tier fared much better. In Wausau we got just under five inches. But the snow is only part of it. On the tail end of the storm were blustery winds and frigid temperatures. We’ve been lucky for most of the winter, experiencing above normal temperatures, but this storm ushered in a deep freeze with air temps below zero Fahrenheit and wind chills -20 and colder. Fortunately on Saturday, when I did the activation, the temperature was still around 19, but it wouldn’t stay like that for long.

After getting the driveway and sidewalk cleared, and the car scraped off, I drove east on some marginally clear county roads until I got to Hatley to activate the Mountain-Bay State Trail.

Setup

For this activation, I went back to my old standby antenna, the 1/4 wave vertical. Looking at the POTA spots page, I noticed that there was a fair amount of activity on the 15 meter band. The solar forecast also showed favorable conditions for the upper bands. I didn’t feel like dealing with the hoards of operators that comes with a 20 meter activation, so I set the antenna up for 15 meters.

With my vertical, I have three choices for the ground network: radial wires (I use 8 16 foot radials), a 36×84 inch aluminum window screen, or a 42×108 inch piece of Faraday cloth. It was cold and windy, and I felt the faraday cloth would be the fastest to deploy.

For the most part it was, except the wind was taking the cloth everywhere. I didn’t have any weights or branches to hold the cloth down, so I did the next best thing. I grabbed several chunks of frozen snow from the snow pile at the edge of the parking lot. This provided enough weight to keep the cloth in place even though the winds were gusting up to 20 mph.

In setting up the vertical, I extended the whip and sort of eyeballed its length. I’ve gotten pretty good at doing this as when I check the vertical on my analyzer, I was coming in at 1.44:1 on 15 meters. That’s good enough for me so I left it at that.

For the rest of the setup, I got out the Yaesu FT-891, 20ah LiFePO4 battery, headset, and logging computer running Hamrs. The radio was set to 50 watts transmit power. I like to set the radio on the front dash of the car and sit in the passenger seat. That gives me plenty of legroom and no steering wheel to contend with.

Activation

Turning on the radio and tuning to 15 meters, the first thing I noticed was the noise. Background noise was coming in at about an S5. Usually this area is pretty quiet with an S1-S2 noise floor, so the higher noise level was a bit unexpected. I’m guessing this was atmospheric as there isn’t any industry in Hatley, and being a Saturday, any noise generating businesses would be closed. Despite the noise, when I started calling CQ, the contacts started to roll in and and most everyone as at or above the noise level, so copying stations wasn’t that difficult. Once I got established on the band, contacts rolled in at a steady rate, not overwhelming, but steady. I seemed to have a pretty good path to the west coast, getting many California stations, along with the northwest and rocky mountain states. I logged 82 contacts on 15 meters in about an hour.

As 15 meters was slowing for me, I decided to jump to another band to finish out the activation. Still not wanted to go to 20 meters, I did the next best thing and set up on 17m. Extending the whip a bit, I was able to get a really good match, with an SWR of about about 1.1:1. Again that was mostly by eyeballing the whip length as I extended it. Noise on 17m was almost worse than on 15m. Not only was it still at an S5, but I also had a buzzing and clicking in the background that made copying weaker stations very difficult.

I had more pileups on 17 meters than I did on 15m as was evidenced by my run time, 70 contacts in 40 minutes. I also got some DX on 17m: Alaska, Dominican Republic, and Barbados. The band was open but noisy. The clock hit 2:30pm local time and I have over 150 in the log. I was also nearing the limits of my listening to the noise, so when there was a lull in the contacts, I did ‘last call’, got two stragglers, heard nothing else, and shut down.

Conclusion

This was my 5th activation of the Mountain-Bay State Trail, netting 152 contacts on 15 and 17 meters. So far at this park, I’ve made 742 contacts and worked 5 bands and I’m pretty much the leader at this park. So ignoring 20 meters wasn’t so bad (In one activation I did 20 meters exclusively and made 209 contacts). I’ll come out here again, most likely on a Friday afternoon and do a big 20 meter activation to give the park more exposure.

The snow chunks kept my faraday cloth in place, it didn’t blow away that afternoon. A couple of the sections on my whip had frozen, I’m guessing there may have been a touch of moisture inside the whip from a previous activation. But they broke free, it wasn’t enough to totally freeze them in place.

And finally, staying warm. In weather like this I can usually operate for about an hour in the vehicle before I have to stop, start the engine and warm up. I keep the engine off during activations to help reduce noise. My fingers are the first to feel the cold, but I was parked facing south and got just enough afternoon sun to help keep things warm inside the car. I didn’t have to pause to warm things up again. I’ve got a few strategies for staying warm during cold weather POTA activities and that will be the topic of a video in a week or so.

K-9806 Mountain Bay State Trail 15m contacts with 1/4 wave vertical antenna

K-9806 Mountain Bay State Trail 17m contacts with 1/4 wave vertical antenna

Map visualization of contacts courtesy of qsomap.com

If you go

Mountain Bay State Trail passes through the communities of Wausau, Weston, Hatley, Norrie, Eland, Bowler, Shawano, Bonduel, Pulaski, Anston, Howard, Green Bay. A State Trail Pass needed for bicycle and horseback riding

Hatley, WI Trailhead
Marathon County Public Library, Hatley Branch
435 Curtis Ave
Hatley, WI 54440
Open weekdays and Saturday, hours vary

The post Activation Log: Sometimes you just have to Improvise appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.

December 24, 2023 – It has become a tradition over the last few years to do a POTA activation on Christmas Eve. Christine is Danish, so we have a big celebration on Little Yule, December 23, and again on Christmas day, but Christmas eve is sandwiched in the middle with not much going on. This is especially true with the kids now out of the house. So what could be better than going out and doing a park. This year I selected a park that I hadn’t been to since December of last year, K-4310 Mead State Wildlife Area.

Mead State Wildlife Area

The Mead State Wildlife Area consists of 33,000 acres of lowland, marsh, and small lakes straddling the edges of Marathon, Wood, and Portage counties in central Wisconsin. The Mead is best known as being a bird estuary and countless numbers of migratory birds and native birds can be spotted there year round. The history of this land goes back almost 9,000 years ago when the first Paleo-Indians hunted there, but its history gets really interesting at about the turn of the 20th century.

In the early 1900’s logging was still king in northern Wisconsin and the Wisconsin river, of which the Little Eau Claire river that flows through the Mead is a tributary. Harnessing the river and moving logs down to the mills in Wausau, Stevens Point, and Wisconsin Rapids was important. It was believed that if these lowlands could be dredged and the and water channeled, that there would not only be abundant farm lands but also limitless water for transporting logs. By 1920, George Mead, the president of the Consolidated paper mill in Wisconsin Rapids bought 20,000 acres of land and proceeded to dredge. Unfortunately, the land wasn’t that good for farming and logging pretty much bottomed out by the early 1930’s as the forests in Northern Wisconsin were almost completely cut over.

Having this land on the books wasn’t good for the mill and a growing environmental movement in the 1940s and 50s led George’s son Stanton Mead to donate the land to the State to create a nature preserve and wildlife area. Over the years the Mead State Wildlife Area has grown to over 33,000 acres and hosts a diverse amount of flora and bird species. The scars of the dredging operation and still visible and offer an excellent habit for countless animals.

Setup

I’ve done the Mead twice before, both times I’ve set up near the visitors center. This year, since there wasn’t any snow on the ground yet, and the temperatures were a unseasonable 40 degrees, I decided to try out one of the many parking spots along the lIttle Eau Claire River. I found a beautiful spot along the river that was a couple miles north of the visitor center on County Highway S.

I’ve been testing the Chameleon Multi Configuration Coil (MCC) which is part of their PRV or Portable Resonant Vertical kit and wanted to use this activation to see how it performed when I added the Chameleon 17 foot stainless whip. The winds were calm to I used their carbon fiber tripod as the base, screwed on the MCC, added the whip to the top and extended it to the full 17 feet. For ground radials, instead of using the four radials provided by Chameleon, I deployed 8 16 foot wires (in two bundles of four with spring clips on the end). This is my standard package when I use radials instead of the ground screen. At 17 feet, the whip was a little long for the 20 meter band, so checking it with the analyzer, I collapsed one section about halfway (approximately 12 inches) until I had a match of about 1.3:1. I fed the antenna with 50 feet of coax attached to my FT-891 running 50 watts. I was ready to get on the air on 20 meters.

The Activation

I kind of figured that being the holidays, the bands would be busy and that activating on 20 meters, I would have some massive pileups. I was not wrong. My goal for the activation, since I had about three hours before needed to leave for home, was to get on 20 and work the pile up for as long as I could. Phone service was marginal but I had one bar of LTE, so I found an open frequency at 14.257 MHz, spotted myself and was off to the races.

The band being busy was an understatement, it took me less than 2 minutes to have a solid pileup going and it only got worse. It was so deep, that I would take periodic breaks just to do park to park and QRP stations. In doing so, I would then log 4-6 park to park stations in a row. I kept at it, though. I wanted to see how long this pileup could last and what it would take to work them all.

Signal reports were excellent, most stations were a true 59 or better. 20 meters had been running short as of late, but this day that didn’t seem to be the case. I got good propagation on the band, favoring the east coast, but a fair amount of lower midwest and Rocky Mountain stations.

After 257 contacts things had really started to slow down. My last contacts were a park to park in Michigan, KE8UTX and KB8QJF where at two parks, we did the round robin with the microphone and got a hearty ‘Merry Christmas’ at once from the both of them as we signed 73. That was a pretty fitting place to stop.

Stretching my legs for a few minutes, I felt like I couldn’t just stop at 257, I was so close to 300 that I needed to hit that mark. Since running 20 meters with the full whip didn’t give the coil much of a workout, I decided to switch to the 40 meter band. I fully extended the whip, and raised the coil until I got an SWR that was around 1.7:1. Not bad, not perfect, but good enough.

It was already after 20:00 UTC, so I knew that 40 meters above 7200KHz was going to be full of international broadcasters. Fortunately I found an open spot at 7187 KHz and set up camp there. It didn’t take long to get a pile up going, although the 40 meter pile up wasn’t as massive as the 20 meter one. It was good enough, though for me to work 38 stations in about 30 minutes with one of the last ones being Shane KD9NJJ over near St Croix Falls, WI. 40 meters was starting to go long and I probably could’ve worked many of the 20 meter stations I worked earlier if I stayed another hour. But sunset was near, so I stopped at 20:50 UTC with 300 contacts in the log.

Conclusion

This was a big activation, there is no doubt about that. I think this may have been my largest single session contact log ever. I’ve done a few QSO parties were I got more contacts, but nothing like this. The combination of good band conditions, a holiday weekend, and favorable antenna setup all worked together to generate this massive log.

The Chameleon PRV kit worked very well. I like their MCC coil, it is a solid product and it really seems to perform. Some people complain about the the price, but with Chameleon, you get what you pay for. I not terribly fond of their non-resonant antennas, but I think they really have something good going with their resonant coil. I still prefer using the 213 inch whip for the higher bands and Wolf River Sporty Forty for 40 meters, but I may put this antenna in the rotation for a change of pace. I certainly like this coil much better than the Gabil antenna that I seem to still struggle with (I can’t get a good match on 20m with the Gabil to save my life). I’ll have to asses if the MCC’s size is compact enough to be my QRP vertical kit.

I need to get back to the Mead more often, it’s only a 30 minute drive and the scenery is awesome. I tend to avoid it during the summer months due to bugs, but it is a bird watching mecca. I guarantee I will be back soon.

K-4310 Mead Wildlife Area 20 meter contacts, December 24, 2023

K-4310 Mead Wildlife Area 40 meter contacts, December 24, 2023

Contact maps courtesy of qsomap.com

PRV POTA heavy antenna kit courtesy of Chameleon Antennas.

If you go

Mead Wildlife Area
201517 County Rd S
Milladore, WI 54454
(Mead visitor center address)

There are countless parking areas in the Mead suitable for activations. Cell service can be marginal to non existent in most of them. Check your provider’s map for service availability.

The post Activation Log: Christmas Eve with the Chameleon PRV appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.

Gabil’s GRA-7350TC is a compact vertical antenna that is designed for portable operations. The antenna itself is relatively lightweight and consists of three componants: a 102 inch telescoping whip, an adjustable section with internal loading coil, and an additional coil for the 80 meter band. You can also add an option compact portable tripod to complete the set. I previously used the Gabil system last fall and was not terribly impressed by it’s performance. Either the antenna was being lackluster or the bands weren’t in my favor.

I decided to give the antenna another shot. I like how the GRC-7350tc is compact and my hope is that it will be a foundational element of my growing QRP kit. As I’ve been used to running the full 1/4 wave whip on 20 meters and above, I think my expectations have been set pretty high in how the Gabil is to perform. But I gave it another shot.

November 24, 2023, the day after Thanksgiving, is known as black Friday to the rest of the world, but being self employed, the boss (me) gave me the afternoon off. I used the time to give the Gabil another test and to activate one of our newer POTA entities: K-9806 Mountain-Bay State Trail.

Mountain Bay State Trail

The Mountain-Bay State Trail runs for 83 miles from the western terminus at Weston, Wisconsin eastward to Green Bay. As it’s name implies, it is to connect Rib Mountain in the center of the state to the Green Bay near Lake Michigan. This corridor is an old Chicago and Northwestern rail line, which makes for a easy and beautiful ride. I like to set up at a trailhead in Hatley, Wisconsin in the Marathon County Public Library’s Hatley branch parking lot. At this point the Mountain-Bay intersects with the Ice Age National Scenic Trail (POTA K-4238) for a twofer.

This is the third time I activated the trail, you can read about my initial activation of the park here.

Setup

It is getting chilly so I’ve switched to operating out of the vehicle. My preferred setup is to put the Yaesu FT-881 on the dashboard of the vehicle and sit in the passenger seat so I’m not encumbered by the steering wheel of the car. For an antenna I’ll be running the Gabil GRC-7350TC vertical. The library is closed today so I have a practically empty parking lot to work with. The antenna was set up about 15 feet away from the car on the edge of the parking lot. Instead of using the window screen ground, I used 8 16 foot ground radial wires. The manufacturer recommend 4 10 meter wires, but I’ve had better luck with more, shorter radials, so I put my proven radial bundles to work. First up, the 15 meter band.

Tuning the Gabil is a bit finicky. Moving the coil slider up and down, you can easily miss your mark, so it takes very small movements once you are in the ballpark to find the perfect spot. On the 15 meter band I was able to get the SWR down to about 1.44:1, which was good enough for me. I’m not one to fiddle until it’s perfect, so if it is in the neighborhood of good, I’m fine with that.

Activation

The solar forecast for that day called for active conditions, I believe there was a solar storm predicted for later in the weekend but Friday had good numbers with the SFI over 170 and the A of 8 and the K of 2. As I started out on 15 meters, the conditions were slow with a lot of fading, but things kind of settled out and I consistently received good signal reports. I had a good, long run on 15 meters, about 110 contacts. No DX but plenty of Canadien stations. Since the band was hot, I decided to move up to 10 meters.

With conditions like this, we need to spend more time seeking out contacts on 10 meters. I had a bit of concern with tuning the antenna as an 102 inch whip is close to a 1/4 wave on 10 meters, so I anticipated that I wouldn’t need to use much coil. And sure enough, I was hardly at the -1- setting on the laser engraved scale. I got the SWR to about 1.5:1. Nothing special, but good enough. Calling on 10 meters, I racked up 15 contacts in about a half hour. Not like the run on 15 meters, but still respectable.

Since I was doing well, I decided to give 12 meters a try. Futzing with the coil, I got a match and we soon rolling. I picked up 8 contacts in about 8 minutes, including two stations: VE1BQC and KR5EEE that I worked earlier in the day on 15 meters. I also got an interloper that waltzed through my frequency and let me know ‘contesting’ isn’t allowed on the WARC bands. Fortunately POTA isn’t a contest so I didn’t give him the time of day.

To finish things up, I dropped down to 40 meters. I had activated the Mountain-Bay trail two week prior and had a long 200 contact run on 20 meters, so I felt like this time I could skip that band and concentrate on some of the others. Getting a match on 40 meters was a little more difficult. It could be partly because the coil has a higher Q on that band, or maybe my shorter radials are to blame, but I could only get it to about 2:1. That’s a bit on the edge for my tastes, but 2:1 match is only an 11% power loss and as long as the radio doesn’t complain too much, I’ll go with it.

Let’s just say that the losses weren’t much of an issue as I had no problem, at 3:00 in the afternoon local time (21:00z) in attracting a crowd. I ran for 15 minutes and got 25 stations with mostly good signal reports. I was at about 7207 KHz, so by this time the international broadcasters were starting to filter in. Which was fine as the sun was getting low in the sky. So I packed it up.

Conclusion

All in all, I netted 157 contacts on the Mountain-Bay State Trail that afternoon. Not too bad of a haul on an antenna that I initially panned in my review. Using the Gabil GRC-7350TC again, I have have thoughts on its performance. First off, the antenna works better on the upper bands than the lower ones. I hit the time of day right with my 40 meter activation, later in the afternoon as the sun was starting to set. The broadcasters hadn’t totally overrun the band and being a holiday weekend, there were people looking for me. 15 meters and above, I can really see this antenna excelling.

Second, a good ground network reallly is key for this antenna. You are at a compromise with the lack of radiator, so a substantial radial pattern will really make a difference. A greater number of shorter radials will actually increase your gain on the upper bands than fewer, longer, radials will. This article by Rudy Severns, N6LF, explains why that is the case. I’m going to have to experiment using the window screen with this antenna. The Gabil tripod is non-conductive so jumper wires are necessary to get good continuity with ground mesh. But I will give it a shot and report my results.

I’m not ready to dismiss the Gabil antenna, but won’t quite throw my full-throated support to it. I think it fills a portable operation niche and will take it places where my 1/4 vertical and large metal tripod are too cumbersome to travel.

K-9806 Mountain Bay State Trail 15m contacts with GRC-7350tc antenna

K-9806 Mountain Bay State Trail 10m contacts with GRC-7350tc antenna

K-9806 Mountain Bay State Trail 40m contacts with GRC-7350tc antenna

Map visualization of contacts courtesy of qsomap.com

If you go

Mountain Bay State Trail passes through the communities of Wausau, Weston, Hatley, Norrie, Eland, Bowler, Shawano, Bonduel, Pulaski, Anston, Howard, Green Bay. A State Trail Pass needed for bicycle and horseback riding

Hatley, WI Trailhead
Marathon County Public Library, Hatley Branch
435 Curtis Ave
Hatley, WI 54440
Open weekdays and Saturday, hours vary

The post Activation Log: The Gabil antenna, maybe it’s not so bad appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.

The Activation Log is a new series that reports on my Parks on the Air (POTA) activations. These are write-ups that share additional content, thoughts, and images of portable operations that may or may not make it into a video.

(November 5, 2023) The Fox Cities Amateur Radio Club’s fall swapfest always has been a good time for me. It may be a smaller one, but often is quite productive in finding some ham radio goodies. Plus attending gives us a chance to do some shopping in Appleton, Wisconsin and get lunch at our favorite soul food restaurant, the Cozzy Corner.

If you want to know more about what we found at the hamfest, be sure to check out the video where I talk about all those goodies, especially the new rig that I picked up.

But during lunch of fried chicken and mac and cheese, our conversation turned to activating a park on the way home. It’s about a 90 minute drive home and we had a variety of routes to choose from. But the consensus was to pick a spot that I hadn’t activated before. Looking at the map, we settled on POTA K-8218, Hortonville Bog State Natural Area.

Hortonville Bog State Natural Area

In Wisconsin, there is a difference between state natural areas and state wildlife areas. Wildlife areas are easier to describe, they are formed expressly for the purpose of managing wildlife. This often means maintaining a habitat that promotes their growth. Hunting, fishing, and trapping are all permitted uses and wildlife areas boast of some of the best hunting lands in the state.

Natural areas are a bit different. They are set up to protect an often fragile ecosystem. Natural areas are often isolated, have no facilities, and may or may not have a developed trail system. Hunting and trapping may be allowed on a case by case basis, but it depends on the area and its purpose. Sometimes a natural area will be located within a wildlife area or a state park, offering you a two-fer. Its designation means that this is a special place.

Hortonville Bog fits that description of a special place. Located between Hortonville and New London, Wisconsin, the natural area described by the DNR as: “One of the best bogs in southern Wisconsin and contains an open ericaceous bog with a very deep sphagnum layer. . . . Surrounding the bog is an advancing ring of tamarack and black spruce in all age and size classes. To the south is a wet-mesic forest dominated by tamarack and white cedar.” I wish we had more time to explore the bog, but it was getting later in the afternoon and we still had a bit of driving ahead of us.

I have this area planned to be a part of a large exploration and Parks on the Air activation, so stay tuned for that.

Setup

Setup was pretty straightforward at the park. The parking area is smallish, but offered plenty of room for a vertical antenna. The weather was about 50 degrees, so I felt comfortable operating out of the back end of the vehicle. This allowed Chris to remain in the passenger seat (otherwise I’d have to move her so I could set the radio on the dash and the logging computer on my lap). I had a folding chair with me, so in the back I went.

I set up my vertical antenna consisting of the window screen ground network, heavy flag base, jaw clamp, and 213 inch vertical antenna. I adjusted the antenna for the 20 meter band and connected it to the FT-891. Transmit power was set to 50 watts. I figured that I would run for about 20-30 minutes and see what got.

• Feather Flag Base: https://amzn.to/3MdepHE
• Wolf River Coils: https://www.wolfrivercoils.com/
• MFJ-1979 whip: https://amzn.to/3B9cehF
• Chameleon SS-17 Whip: https://chameleonantenna.com/shop-here/ols/products/cha-ss17
• Jaw Mount Antenna Clamp: https://amzn.to/3VL5Ir6
• SO-239 stud mount for jaw clamp: https://amzn.to/3VT1KwG

The Activation

As of late, 20 meters has been crazy. Getting on that band is like opening the flood gates. No sooner had I set up and found a clear frequency, I was off to the races. It always starts the same way. A single contact, usually a park to park cruising the band, and when you call QRZ a full on pile-up has gathered. This activation was no exception. The first person, N2OCK, got me started, then Don, WV1W, with his park to park, and after that it was pile-up city. I ran a pretty impressive rate, often netting 2-3 contacts a minute. Logging the first contact at 20:03 and ending at 20:32 UTC with Scott K1NEO, another regular or mine, I had managed to put 60 contacts in the log, 15 of them park to park.

Conclusion

Band conditions were pretty decent, there wasn’t much short skip on 20 meters that day. But I think the rapid rate can be attributed this not being a seldom activated park (over 3,500 QSOs and counting) but the growing level of activity in the Parks on the Air program. Being at the peak of the solar cycle doesn’t hurt either. I’m to the point were if I want to avoid the pile up, I’m going to need to run QRP, and even at that I will have multiple stations calling me. But at least that makes getting me in their logs more of a challenge.

And speaking of QRP, dialing the power down can be a big equalizer. A large amplifier is handy in breaking the pileup, but it becomes less important in picking out those weaker stations. If you want to be a better hunting and get those QRP stations, work at improving your antenna system. In this regard that old adage of “if you can hear them, you can work them.” rings true.

With the addition of my new QRP rig (Yaesu FT-817nd) that I picked up at the hamfest. (watch the video above if you want to learn more about it), I’ll be doing a lot more low power activity. Partly for the challenge, but also to help equalize things between barefoot and QRO hunters.

Contact map processing courtesy of qsomap.com

If you go

Hortonville Bog State Natural Area
1/2 mile north on Allcan Rd from County Hwy S
Outagamie County, Wisconsin
No vehicle admission required

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The Activation Log is a new series that reports on my Parks on the Air (POTA) activations. These are write-ups that share additional content, thoughts, and images of portable operations that may or may not make it into a video.

October 18, 2023 – It’s been a long time coming. For the last two years, Parks on the Air hunters and activators in the US have been waiting for the moratorium to lift and new parks to be added to the list. Since 2021, POTA had paused the addition of new United States parks in order to concentrate on the development of the International program. But as time went on, the vast majority of parks had been activated at least once and people were clamoring for new entities.

In September, POTA administrators announced that they would open up the addition of new parks on December 1st. But, almost by surprise, they moved up the opening to Wednesday, October 18. Knowing that the Wisconsin mapping coordinator had a list of parks ready to drop into the system, I wanted to have a head start and be the first person to activate a new park that was local to me: POTA K-9806 The Mountain-Bay State Trail.

Mountain Bay Trail

The Mountain-Bay Trail is a part of the vast network of bicycle trails in the State of Wisconsin that have been built from abandoned rail corridors. The trail runs from Weston Wisconsin to Green Bay and the 83 mile trail gets its name from linking Rib Mountain on the west to The Green Bay to the east. The Chicago Northwestern railroad ran along this path until the Union Pacific purchased the assets and interests of the CNW in 1995 and closed the line. The tracks were pulled up and in the early 2000’s the Mountain Bay Trail opened.

The trail is not strictly confined to bicycle use, in the winter months snowmobiles run on the Marathon county segment and the nearby Shawano county segment sees equestrian use. Brown county’s segment which ends at the Village of Howard, near Green Bay, traditionally sees bicycle use. I’ve ridden the Marathon County segment, but haven’t ventured further east. Riding the entirety of the trail is on my bucket list. A possible bike mobile activation may be in store for next summer.

Setup

I choose a particular spot to activate the trail, the trailhead located at the Hatley branch of the Marathon County public library. This is the spot were the Ice Age National Scenic Trail intersects with the Mountain Bay trail, giving me the Two-fer. The IAT actually runs for several miles on the Mountain Bay, there is a 2nd intersection to the west where the two trails merge, but here at the library has better parking. From the point the IAT leaves the Mountain Bay as it heads south along the county highway to the next segment.

Weather was overcast with light sprinkles, so I would be confined to the vehicle. This was going to be a quick activation to get a few dozen in the log, so I set up the vertical ¼ wave whip with the window screen ground plane. I then ran my coax into the car and set the FT-891 on the dash of the car. This is my typical winter activation setup. Since it was raining, I decided to use the window screen instead of the Farady cloth.

Activation

This was going to be a digital only activation. I had to review some documents for an upcoming city council meeting, so I ran FT8 in the background while doing my other work. Band conditions on 20 meters were pretty good, and I was getting good copy and responses. After about 30 contacts, I was done with my work and decided to step it up with a bit of lightning round: FT4. For me, FT4 usually tends to peter out about about 6 or so contacts as everyone has been worked, but surprisingly, I was about to sustain a nice run of 26 contacts on the mode. More than a few of the stations I contacted FT78 made the second contact on FT4, which was really nice.

All in all, I got 56 contacts in the log, all on 20 meters, and all with a combination of FT8 and FT4. Band conditions were good and I managed three DX contacts, two of which from FT4. I’ll be back to this spot in the future and will be sure to get some phone operation in.

Conclusion

I’m sure I will be back to the Mountain Bay State Trail. Being that it is less than a 20 minute drive, I can set up in the library parking lot, and it’s a twofer with the Ice Age Trail makes this spot a no-brainer. It’s certainly a good spot for a quick weekday activation. The trail is beautiful too, so expect a bicycle activation next summmer (There’s another intersection on the trail that I want to share with you, but I’m saving that for a video).

If you go

Mountain Bay State Trail passes through the communities of Wausau, Weston, Hatley, Norrie, Eland, Bowler, Shawano, Bonduel, Pulaski, Anston, Howard, Green Bay. A State Trail Pass needed for bicycle and horseback riding

Hatley, WI Trailhead
Marathon County Public Library, Hatley Branch
435 Curtis Ave
Hatley, WI 54440
Open weekdays and Saturday, hours vary

The post Activation Log: A New Park appeared first on KB9VBR Antennas.

The Activation Log is a new series that reports on my Parks on the Air (POTA) activations. These are write-ups that share additional content, thoughts, and images of portable operations that may or may not make it into a video.

(September 9, 2023) Our fall camping season kicks off with spending the weekend in a fairground. The Jefferson County, WI fairgrounds to be exact. Christine, the avid fiber artist and weaver that she is wanted to the full experience of the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. Since the festival offered cheap camping in the fairgrounds, we opted to stay on site and make it the base camp for our weekend adventures.

And an adventure it was. While we spent most of our time checking out the festival (I grew up on a farm and we raised sheep, so the livestock held my interest), Chris was big into the large trade show and market and hobnobbing with other artists. But we did take a bit of time to go off site and check out nearby Aztalan State Park.

Aztalan State Park

Located conveniently off of I-94 and just a few minutes drive from Lake Mills, Wisconsin, Aztalan State Park is Wisconsin’s premier archeological site and a national historic landmark. The park is the site of an ancient Mississippian settlement that flourished around 900 CE. While this is probably one of the more far flung of the Cahokian settlements, Yet due to its proximity to water transportation, the residents of Aztalan had long distance trading relationships with other settlements as far north as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico.

The community was characterized by small houses built of clay, reeds, grass, and bark. Residences were arranged around a central plaza and ceremonial mounds. A wood stockade protected the village. The area was rich in resources and Aztalan grew and flourished.

But by 1200 – 1300 CE, the community complete vanished, with little to no record of where they went. It is best surmised that as the settlement grew, the demands on the local agriculture became too much and the community collapsed.

The settlement was ‘rediscovered’ in 1835 by Timothy Johnson. The mounds, being intact and a semblence of stockade still remaining, historian and naturalist Increase Lapham in 1850 urged the State to preserve the ruins.

Work on the preservation continued into the early 20th century with archealogical excavations and utimately the formation of Aztalan State Park in 1952 with the purchase of the 120 acre site.

Despite what we know, much of Aztalan is mystery and only gives us the smallest glimpse into the life of the region’s earliest inhabitants.

Activation Setup

Aztalan State Park is relatively small with two hiking trails that encompass the settlement and three day use areas. We set up in the middle day use area near a pavilion and vault toilets. The historical society maintains a little building that serves as a welcome and interpretive center, but it was closed today. There were a few trees that could be pressed into antenna supports, but I opted to use the self supported vertical antenna for the activation.

My vertical setup consists of a 213 inch collapsible whip that I adjust to 1/4 wavelength. I use the Wolf River Sporty Forty coil along with the whip if I want to drop to 40 meters. The base is a heavy flag stand and for a ground network I’m using a 36×84 inch piece of bright aluminum window screen material. The window screen is an effective ground network and I’ve had great results with it.

50 feet of RG-8X coax feeds the transceiver, a Yaesu FT-891, which I run on 50 watts phone and 20 watts digital. For the digital modes I use the Digirig interface linked to my inexpensive Windows laptop. Logging is done on Hamrs.

Weather was good, sunny skies with a high in the 70’s which is absolutely gorgeous September weather. The two of us commandeered a picnic table, Chris sitting on one end and me on the other while we worked the park.

On the Air

The airwaves were awash of Ohio stations. This was the weekend for the Ohio State Parks on the Air event, so just about every ham from the Buckeye state was outside, on the air, activating their parks. I figured I’d avoid the noise for a bit and see what 15 meters had to offer. Band conditions looked promising, so I set up shop up there.

In 15 minutes of calling CQ on 15 meters, I got two contacts. Maybe the band wasn’t as good as I expected, or maybe everyone was down lower chasing Ohio. None the less, I got the hint and dropped down to the 20 meter band. 20 meters is aways good for a pileup and I has a pretty good run going on the band, netting 51 contacts in 35 minutes. At that point I was ready to tone it down and save my voice, so I switched to data for a while.

People ask, why don’t more activators use FT4? It’s faster than FT8, and a bit quieter, so can churn out more contacts. Yes, it is certainly faster. Fast enough that you can’t let your eyes stray from the screen, otherwise you are missing QSOs. I decided to give the mode a try, just to see who’s out there. I got 8 contacts in rapid succession, but things dried up. You can certainly work them faster, but once you work everyone hanging out on the frequency, what’s next?’

So I moved down to FT8 on 20 meters. I grabbed 12 contacts in 25 minutes, which is an average pace for me. It’s more relaxing and Chris and I can carry on a conversation. But eventually that dried up, and our time was nearing an end at the park, so I decided to finish things off with a little 40 meter phone.

The 40 meter band was noisy that day, with a solid S5-S7 noise level. Instead of calling CQ on this band, I opted to hunt and pounce and grabbed seven stations, all but one of them Ohio Park to Park contacts. The last contact was a person at Potawatomie State Park in Wisconsin, which incidentally is near another of those far flung Cahokian settlements, but that may be another story.

Conclusion

A few hours in the park, including the time spent wandering around the mounds, netted me 80 contacts: 60 on phone and 20 on digital. The bands were in decent shape, despite 40 meters being a tad noisy. Some of that noise may be due to the location, though. Still, 20 and 15 meters were good, and I just wish I could pick up more contacts on 15. But as we head into fall and winter, the upper bands will really start to deliver again, so this afternoon was a nice taste of what to expect in the coming months.

Aztalan State Park, K-1437, Phone Contacts

Aztalan State Park, K-1437, Data Contacts

Now it’s back to the show and relax with a couple of cold ones.

How to get There

Aztalan State Park
N6200 Cty Hwy Q
Lake Mills, WI 53551
A vehicle admission sticker is required, walk or bike in for free.

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