As part of a challenge for 2024, I've decided to see how many QRSS signals I could capture on the 28 MHz band during the year. On the 3rd of June, I added M0GBZ and G0FTD to the tally during a short skip Sporadic-E opening at about 16:00 UTC. 

The map below shows the location of the stations shown in the screen grab above.

TF3HZ in Iceland is a relatively easy catch at 1576kms and I got a screengrab of his signal back in January. The stations near London in the east of England are about 560 to 650kms from my location and require the skip distance for the Sporadic-E opening to be shorter than usual.

Getting good screen captures for both M0GBZ and G0FTD is quite difficult for me. It's not really the distance as it's June and there are plenty of short skip openings on 28 MHz. The problem is that the signals from G0PKT and G0MBA are so much stronger.

This is my usual screen grab during a short skip opening...

My sound card in the PC seems to get overloaded by the signals from G0MBA and G0PKT and I get a screen of false signals. If I adjust the audio levels to a low enough level to get rid of these false signals, M0GBZ and G0FTD disappear.

What happened on the 3rd of June is that there was a very small footprint for the Sporadic-E signal.

This is a nice example of just how small and localised Sporadic-E openings can be. You can hear big signals from a particular station and someone a short distance away hears little or nothing.

This gets even more pronounced for higher frequencies like 50 MHz, 70 MHz or even 144 MHz.

QRSS... It also shows how QRSS (slow morse code) signals allow you to 'see' the propagation moving. With modes like WSPR or FT8, you either get a decode or you don't. 

With QRSS, you can see the propagation moving in real time. Several times during short skip openings, I have seen QRSS signals disappear in the space of a minute as the Sporadic-E footprint moves.

In summary... That brings the QRSS tally so far for 2024 up to 23-callsigns & 10 DXCC.

We have an incredible view of the Aurora this evening here in Suffolk. Here’s a few photos my wife and I have taken in the last hour.

More soon …

Like many amateur operators, I have far too many handie talkies (HTs). I’ve cycled through many, and sold or given away many that I was done with. Some of those I wish I hadn’t sold (like the Kenwood TH-D74), but others I was glad to be rid of. I thought I would take a few paragraphs to talk about what I use day to day, and what I like and don’t like about these radios. I should note that I won’t discuss the HTs that I use in wildland fire communications as that is an entirely different purpose and topic.

On a regular basis and in addition to analog FM, I use DMR and Yaesu C4FM. To a lesser extent, I use P25 on amateur networks. Rarely do I ever use D-STAR any more, and then only via DVswitch and the mobile app on the phone.

I like using DMR. I’ve always liked the networks (specifically Brandmeister) and the architecture. I know, the digital audio is totally different than the richness of analog, but it’s still fun. And DMR was where I really learned about bridging and how I got into XLX reflectors.

For DMR, I mainly use the Anytone 878UV Plus II. I also use a Radioddity GD77 with the OpenGD77 firmware, and a Motorola XPR7550e. Of these three, I think the 878 is probably the best everyday choice. Yes, the 878 has its weird quirks, and the CPS (Customer Programming Software) is pretty bad, but the radio is fairly solid and easy to operate. And it sounds very good, both on receive and transmit. I also like the form factor and feel in the hand when operating. The OpenGD77 firmware is probably the most ham-friendly DMR firmware in existence, and is a pleasure to operate. But the hardware (Radioddity GD77) isn’t nearly as nice as the Anytone. I do like this radio as well, and keep one in the shed and use it while I’m out working in the yard. These radios as so inexpensive that you can have a couple and not worry about beating them up. In addition, both the 878 and the GD77 work very well with the Mobilinkd TNC4 for packet.

I don’t use the Motorola XPR7550e as much. It is a good solid radio, but is lacking a lot of the ham friendly features (like direct TG entry and persistence). I use it mostly on the Rocky Mountain Ham Radio region-wide DMR network where I am usually parked on one repeater/TG (Talkgroup) or roaming on a single TG.

For Yaesu C4FM (commonly referred to as “Fusion”), I use the FT-5DR. I also have an older FT-2DR, but it is relegated to my PDN (Personal Digital Node). The FT-5DR is a decent radio, and has a lot of APRS features. But to me, it feels pretty cheap. Indeed, mine has develoepd the dreaded case crack (or “mold line” as Yaesu likes to call it). It also goes through batteries very quickly. I always carry 2 extra batteries for this radio. I think my main gripes about this radio are the audio quality and the form factor. It does not sound very good, probably owing to the tiny size and small speaker. And it feels uncomfortable to hold an operate. I mostly use Yaesu C4FM because it is becoming more and more popular in our area, but I will admit that I am a bit of a reluctant user.

In my opinion, the Kenwood TH-D74 was the best APRS HT that I have ever owned. I should not have sold that. Kenwood’s APRS implementation and UI are much better than Yaesu’s, and the receiver in the Kenwood radios is much, much better than the Yaesu. I just wish Kenwood hadn’t gone with D-STAR as their digital mode of choice.

Finally, I use P25 a bit over a hotspot on amateur radio. For that I use a UHF Motorola XTS2500. I said I wouldn’t talk about wildland fire radios in this post, but I did it anyway. I also use this radio on fires, as it is one of the NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) approved radios. This is a very solid older radio with great audio. The CPS is a real bear to deal with (read: it is horrible and not ham friendly), but the radio is awesome. On fires, I use it with a very large AA batttery clamshell that holds 12 batteries, but around the house I use an old rechargeable battery.

Anyway, as you can see I like HTs Maybe in a future post I will discuss some others, and talk about what we use in wildland fire.

The Deep Thoughts

Documentary films are my favorite form of visual entertainment. There is nothing better than settling in to watch a deep dive on something like a particular ecosystem or concept or literary movement. Naturally, I’ve seen most of Ken Burns’ oeuvre and it would follow that I have watched The National Parks documentary. It’s a wonderful and beautiful film in his iconic style. As with all things, it’s not perfect. The thing that grabbed me as I watched it was the number of times people called out that the National Parks are the country’s “best idea.” They used that phrase and variants over and over. All I could think was, “Yeah. I get it. What else ya got?” Years later, I think of that differently.

For me, having a place where anyone can go and sit in the sun is important. Even if it’s sunny and 27 dF. The world is still beautiful below freezing and the silence afforded to those of us who will go out and sit in it is worth more than all the gold in the world. However, the silence is only as golden as the geese will allow. And we’ll come back to that.

I guess what I’m saying is that these places are where we can have shared memories. They’re the scenes of childhood adventures and where we go as adults to maybe take a step back from the heavier responsibilities that come with age. They are truly a force for good in a world that can feel far too fast paced. That’s what draws me outside even in an Ohio winter.

Friday

I managed to pull off a four day weekend as Presidents Day is a day off at my place of business. I took Friday off and it was just what the doctor ordered. The doctor in this case is me. And I’m not a doctor even on TV.

I keep going to West Branch SP – K-1999 because I’m getting closer and closer to my kilo and because it’s the time of year when that park is empty. On this particular Friday, I didn’t see much at all in terms of human presence. It was in the 20s in terms of temperatures and the wind wasn’t too bad, but I did slide the table around so I could sit in the sun and still have my back to the wind.

Most of the bands were either in poor condition or no one was listening. I got to 20-meters and things took off for me. I pulled in about 31 contacts. For the setup, I was using the IC-705 with the AX1. It was a good day for being outside, but the wind did start to pick up a bit. When that happens, things get a little weird and I tend to pack it in if I’m using a vertical. It was a really good day in the park!

QSO Map

Here’s what the QSO Map looked like.

Sunday

But wait! What about Saturday?! Saturday was garbage. High winds gusting up to 30+ mph and temperatures in the teens. That did not sound like any fun. So I stayed inside and listened to my son’s band “jam” in the basement while my daughter had 4 friends over running around upstairs. It was a busy day in our house.

That was Saturday. Sunday it was quieter. After getting everyone where they needed to be, I went back out to K-1999 and set up. This time I used my Chameleon whip and hybrid micro. The wind was still pretty bad and this probably wasn’t the right time to mess around with a vertical of that height, but I clamped it to the table and got on the air while I boiled some water for coffee. I was pretty alone in the park because only an idiot would be out in those temperatures with that wind.

Did I mention that the wind was bad? I had to get up multiple times to save the antenna. It was just wild. It was also the ARRL DX CW contest. Not a great day to be a POTA activator. I squeaked out 13 contacts before calling it quits. No one was hunting and the wind was just too beastly for my antenna. It wasn’t a bad day, just miserably windy. I did survive with a completed activation. That’s called a win!

QSO Map

Here’s what the QSO Map looked like.

Monday

What a difference 24 hours can make. Monday morning was sunny without even a trace of wind. The temperatures were forecast to hit the 40s. That sounded like a winning combination, so I went back out to the park. I set up the Chameleon again to see if I could redeem that setup.

I boiled up some water for coffee and got on the air. Right away, I noticed how wonderfully quiet it was without the wind. The water was flat – something I’ve not seen in a long, long time. I bounced around to several different bands without a lot of success. But by the end of the day, I pulled in 28 contacts. Not too shabby!

The Geese

Over on Mastodon I mentioned that the geese at the park were causing a great deal of QRM. I was corrected and told that it should be QRN by Matt W1CDN. Well, I went and looked. Sure enough QRN is natural interference and QRM is human generated interference. Now, in my mind, I had always mapped QRM to intentional interference rather than natural interference like static or atmospheric conditions. There were, naturally, a lot of jokes about the geese and if they were perhaps bionic or altered in some way.

I am taking the line that geese are more aware than we may give them credit for being and that they are, in fact, creating these disturbances intentionally. I will rest my entire argument on intent. However, a poll was created and geese were determined to be QRN despite their designation as CANADIAN.

Next time, I will have to get a video. This was an enormous group of geese and they were congregated in the water near my position. And they were LOUD. Some of them were at the same pitch as my sidetone and as such were making it difficult to copy. Being as I was the only human I could see, I did have words with them. They didn’t seem to feel like moving off, so I made do.

Geese. Just… Geese.

QSO Map

Here’s what the QSO Map looked like.

Final

Getting outside in the winter is important. The cabin fever is real and it’s always good to get some sun during the darker months. The wind will forever be my enemy as it tries to topply my antennas and blow out the flame on my Jetboil, but it’s a small price to pay in irritation for the joys of getting outside and playing radio.

Thanks for reading and 72!

On Being Invisible

Late last week, I was made aware of some concerns that the POTA team were having relayed to them by various official agencies about the poor behavior of activators in parks and on public land. This led to a great post by Thomas K4SWL and some good discussion over in the ham radio corner of Mastodon.

This kind of discussion is right up my alley because, as I’ve discussed before, I am all about being as inconspicuous as possible when I’m out activating a park. In many ways, that simple fact has driven the gear I carry and the modes I use when I’m out and about. It also plays into site selection. I figured I would talk about that a bit and tie it back to the two activations that I did this weekend.

Picking An Activation Site

I’m a creature of habit. When I decide on a park as a place I’m going to spend some time, I immediately try to find the most out of the way place to set up my station. This is more difficult in some places than in others. When I’m working out at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, there are several places near trailheads where picnic tables are isolated and leave a lot of room for people to enjoy the park with a bit of space. There are other places where the only tables are in very conspicuous spots and near a lot of foot traffic. I tend to gravitate to the former and leave the latter alone unless there are no other options. When I know I’m going to be in the line of sight of traffic, I handle my station appropriately by ensuring that no one could step on or get tangled up in a counterpoise and that I’m not using wires in trees which can cause all forms of grief near a trailhead.

When I’m activating West Branch SP – K-1999 this isn’t too difficult. The spot that I go to most weeks is in a field that is being reclaimed by nature per the parks department’s plan. There are a couple of tables here that I might use, but I take the one that is off on the point near the water. The general feeling out in this part of the park is one of desolation. I feel like the last person on earth out here except for the disc golfers who wander by at a good distance – 500 yards out or more.

What Gear To Use

I have come to appreciate and adore the efficiency of a wire antenna in a tree. I keep a random wire antenna and a 40-20-10 in my bag with a weight and throw line. It’s an elegant solution and it always works.

But…

There are a number of parks where putting lines into trees is not welcome. It’s also true that it can be distracting to have line in trees and wires dangling. If one is going to take this approach, there is a lot more to the site management portion of the activation. It’s up to the operator to ensure the safety of the other park patrons. This means that a wire in a tree might not be a great solution. I wouldn’t even consider it in more heavily travelled parks.

Masts are great for deploying wire antennas. I like to take a mast with me when I ride my bike to the park as I have a couple of clamps that will hold the mast to my bike and that removes the requirements for guying out the mast and making more of a mess. At that point, I’m really just managing the antenna and the feedline. I got pretty good at that deployment strategy last summer.

But…

Masts do draw attention to themselves. It’s difficult to minimize that. Sometimes, it’s easier to deploy a whip with a ground spike. I have a Chameleon setup that works every time. I always use it when we go camping because it’s low-profile when setup behind our camper and I can keep it close to the camper itself so that I don’t have a feedline out there waiting for one of the dogs to get wound up in it.

But…

Whips and spike mounted antennas still have radials to be managed. I find it’s easier to manage them because the antenna can be deployed out of the path of most other park visitors. That said, there are plenty of parks that do not allow for spikes to be driven into the ground. I keep a nifty clamp for my Chameleon whip on hand to attach it to a grill or picnic table to avoid breaking that rule.

All of that said…

Look, I broke down and got the Elecraft AX1 after watching a ton of videos where Thomas K4SWL went off and made more than enough contacts with really good distances with that little antenna. It’s almost impossible to see if you’re at a picnic table, it doesn’t require anything more than my cool table clamp or even the bipod to keep it upright, and it’s quick to setup and tear down. It doesn’t even feel like a compromise most times. I’m still getting coast to coast and Europe in there. There is a counterpoise, but it’s easily managed. Is this antenna for everyone? No. But boy does it work for me!

Modes

I’ve talked at length about how I don’t like doing phone at the park. Sitting at a picnic table and having what sounds a very dull phone conversation not unlike what one might expect in a call center isn’t something that I enjoy. I do OSPOTA every year and I will hunt with phone, but activating using phone isn’t my thing. What’s that mean?

I was very much a digital activator for most of my early POTA career. I have tuned my digital portable station to the point where there is very little left to optimize (in my opinion at this date). I can set up quickly and activate a park using FT8/FT4 or even RTTY. I’d love to get more digital modes into my repertoire and that’s something I’m working toward. Sure, I have to carry around my tablet and manage that, but it’s fun! It’s also QUIET.

The other mode that I’m finding is very low-profile is CW. It further reduces the footprint of my station and, through the judicious use of headphones, produces no impact on the park around me. The AX1 is fantastic on CW. QRP and CW go hand in hand. My key doesn’t make a sound that anyone can hear unless they are sitting right on rop of me in which case, I care a lot less about the noise.

We don’t talk about this enough: We need to respect the sonic space of a park.

Is there anything more irritating when you’re camping than to hear the music of the site next to you? Is there anything less fun than being on a hike and unable to pass a group with a Bluetooth speaker that is cranking out song after song that gets in the way of you hearing the breeze in the trees or the river and the birds? Personally, I would rather sit next to a crying baby on a Trans-Atlantic flight than listen to the oldies coming out of a tinny speaker hanging from the fannypack of a speed-walking grandmother.

What’s that mean? It means that I want to have a little empathy for other park visitors and make sure that the sound of my radio goes into a pair of headphones rather than into the sonic space we’re sharing. No one wants to hear the beeping of my rig or the voices coming to me from the west coast. I’m very mindful of that. Keeping myself unheard is very important to me.

My Personal Practice

As you can see in the above photos, I’ve been frequenting a park that could be the set of a post-apocalyptic thriller. In fact, on Sunday, the only humans I saw at the park were this fisherman:

and two people paddling kayaks in February in Northeast Ohio. Yeah. The water is liquid, gotta be in the boat. I have to imagine that they’re pretty chilly sitting on the water like that.

I’ve talked with one ranger in my entire time visiting this park. I’m including my childhood in that. He was out emptying trash and I asked him a couple of questions about the facilities that were being torn down. Good chat. He asked what I was doing and nodded along. OSPOTA has been around a long time and the parks department is well aware of us. It’s a good relationship.

In short, I go where it’s not crowded and use as little gear as possible, in the most compact way it can be deployed. Those are the guidelines. How does it work in practice?

Saturday Activation (10-Feb-2024)

I got to the park Saturday morning and set up. It was a dramatic and overcast day. There was a touch of wind – more than I’d normally like – but it was warm enough that I didn’t need gloves for most of the time I was out there.

40-meters was respectable and treating me well. I got most of my activation done there and then switched over to 30-meters. I managed to grab two contacts there and then…rain. Unpredicted rain. Cold, miserable, throw-the-radio-in-the-pack rain. I got everything packed up and headed out. I didn’t feel like setting up in the Jeep, so I went home and grabbed a nap.

QSO Map

The reach wasn’t all that impressive, but I got the contacts I needed. Not too shabby for 5 watts.

Sunday Activation (11-Feb-2024)

Superbowl Sunday is a great day to go to the park. There’s no one there. As I said above, there was not a single car anywhere in sight. Nor were there dog walkers or people fishing along the shore. It was me and the boats.

I got on the air and went from 40-meters which was maybe not as chatty as the day before and jumped right over to 20-meters. That was zipping along as one would expect. There was plenty of fading and QSB as the hour progressed and I got some fun comments in the POTA.app spotting log.

But the upside was getting my Mastodon buddy WJ3FF in the log with a more proper contact than our last go:

Remember gang, always read the POTA spots if you can. There’s fun stuff in there.

QSO Map

A little more distance than the day before.

Final

There is no doubt that when we’re out in the parks activating, we are representatives of the entire ham radio community. Not just POTA, but all hams. Poor behavior on the part of a single operator will sour other park patrons and park staff to our presence as a whole. The last thing anyone should want to do is wreck a great hobby for others. Being polite and respectful are table stakes here. If anything, we should go above and beyond the basic expectations of park goers and do what we can to leave the place better than we found it.

Thanks for reading and 72!

Radio Goals for 2024

Laying out radio goals last year seemed to work really well. It provided a place for me to look as I moved through the year to compare what I said I wanted to do with what I was doing. It all seemed to track pretty well. I got deeper into CW, stuck with POTA, moved from Digital Modes in my activations to CW, and did OSPOTA as predicted. What should the goals be for this year?

Antenna

My QTH has an attic dipole antenna. It’s…marginal. From where my house sits, it’s difficult to come up with a really great solution to the antenna problem. My conclusion is that I’m going to set up a veritcal beside the house and try to get a little more serious about radio from home. This solar cycle isn’t going to last forever so I should make the most of it. Besides, I’ve always wanted to dig 100 little trenches for radials. Maybe.

POTA

I would really like to hit a Kilo at West Branch State Park in 2024. That seems like something that could happen in short order. I’m already an Oasis Activator for that park and I’m over the 500 QSO mark. That’s one fish that should jump into the boat.

Getting a new state or two in the log would be great as well. Along with that would come hitting the 30 Parks Activated award. I have access to a number of parks nearby that I’ve yet to visit as well as some in Western Pennsylvania that I could get to from here rather easily. Lots of options!

Given that going to the park is almost a weekly certainty for me, I wouldn’t say that there’s much else to a POTA goal other than to keep it up. I have a lot of fun with it, so I will get outdoors and watch my silly numbers roll on the POTA site.

More CW

The 100 Days of CW never really ended. I’m still practicing regularly. My facility for POTA exchanges is solid at close to 20 wpm. That said, a free-form QSO or rag chew is out of my league mostly due to the fact that my ability to head copy is about 4 characters at a time before I start to lose them. If by the end of the year I can hold a QSO without a POTA style formulaic exchange, I will consider myself a success. I think I will give some of the slow speed nets a try as well. The K1USN SST looks good.

Olivia

Playing with keyboard modes like Olivia has been on my list for a while. I think I stayed clear of it because Fldigi always feels so clunky to me. That’s not very charitable as it’s a really robust and capable piece of software, but that’s been my take. Given the interest of some fellow operators from the online world, I think I’ll dig in here. Maybe even put together a weekly net based around the mode.

Packet Radio

There has been a resurgence in packet radio of late – at least in the online sphere in which I participate. Hearing about people setting up BBSes and pulling together networks makes me want to get involved. I’ve not logged in to a packet station outside of Winlink transactions before, so perhaps this is one that makes the list.

More Of The Good Stuff

I think the most important part is that I will keep doing the stuff I like the most and poke at things that are interesting and new to me. OSPOTA will still be a thing and I’ve got the club newsletter to work on. Plenty of radio fun to keep me engaged and busy. The fun will be seeing what comes up along the way.

2023: The Year In Radio

2023 was a really, really great year for me with Ham Radio. I was able to get on the air and spend time investing in the hobby. It was a continual source of rejuvenation and energy for me. In short, it was exactly what a hobby should be.

Parks On The Air!

The were a few areas that stood out and drove my participation this year. The biggest was, of course, Parks On The Air or POTA. I spent a lot of time in the parks and the vast majority of my contacts for 2023 were made from within park boundaries of some kind. I also managed to work radio into weekend cycling as well as family camping trips. Radio pairs nicely with trips into the field. It’s a natural thing to do and a fantastic extension of the hobby that opens up new areas to explore.

The thing that comes along part and parcel with POTA are the fun activities that they create. I think of them as little targets to engage with once in a while or statistics that might tell me where I’m spending my time and perhaps having the most fun.

Probably the weirdest POTA challenge I went for this year was the Warthog Rove. Taking a day off to hit 5 parks in rapid succession was a really good idea. I got to visit a few parks that I had never seen and thus expand my operating footprint a bit. It’s interesting to look back now and see that those were all Digital Mode activations with FT8. My thoughts on activations have changed a lot in the course of one year. I will have to do this rove again in 2024 to see it through a different lens.

Another big item was to score a Kilo at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. That’s been home base for many of my activations. That fact is in no small part due to my weekend cycling adventures with my wife. They always seem to dump us out at the park. Huh. Funny, that. Getting 1000 contacts there was a neat milestone for me. I’m almost up to 60 activations there. I’m not sure I’ll ever be “Done” with that place. It’s been too important to me over my lifetime. Again, it’s a wonderful place to spend time and play radio.

I also crossed the 400 mark for parks hunted. I’m not much of a hunter these days outside of Park To Park contacts or when friends online jump out and announce that they’re at a park, but the numbers keep ticking up. Again, it’s a fun thing to note from time to time.

Activations also occurred at new to me parks in Michigan and Kentucky while on family trips and Texas while I was traveling for business. POTA, like Elvis, is everywhere.

CW Progress

2023 was going to be the year that I really buckled down to learn The Code and got on the air with CW. It is perhaps surprising to me that I really knocked this one out of the park (so to speak)! The real start of the path for me was the introduction of the #cw100days tag on the Ham Radio side of Mastodon.

If you don’t know what Mastodon is, drop it in a search engine and go from there. It’s a federated social media platform. The Ham Radio community there is a blessing. It’s a diverse and inclusive group that wants nothing more than to have fun with radio.

When that hashtag started off, I was in. Daily check-ins with other members kept us all honest and the supportive comments meant the world. It was a direct result of the positive comments from other operators that inspired me to plug in the key and try it. The results had me smiling from ear to ear for quite a while. It was a definite turning point for me that eventually led to my first 100% CW Activation.

To be clear, I am not flying along and doing head copy at 20 wpm or more. I’m plugging away at about 15 wpm and scribbling in my notebook as I go. I can do a simple POTA exchange with enough skill to get the job done, but I’m not doing a big ol’ ragchew. That’s part of the goal for 2024. I will say that I am very pleased with my progress and I proudly note that every activation since 01-Oct has been CW only!

Club Activities

My local club is the Portage County Amateur Radio Service also knows as PCARS. I like the club and the membership. It’s a bunch of interesting hams who are into a wide array of radio interests. The club hosts multiple Special Interest Groups or SIGs and does a good job of pulling the community together for Big Fun. The club call is K8BF and the BF is, well, Big Fun, right?

The first thing I did this year to boost my participation was to get certified as a VE. Back in February, I did my first VE session and got a taste of what it’s like to mint some new hams. I’ve been to a couple of other sessions since. It feels good to be a part of that process.

Another fun event is Freeze Your Acorns Off. It’s the annual QRP contest hosted at Fred Fuller Park in Kent. It should be noted that this is not a POTA entity (bummer!). Operators from PCARS set up from within the park and run 5 watts or less trying to make Phone or Digital contacts. This year, my Dad (AC8NT) and I placed Third. We’re gonna do better this year! It’s a lot of fun to be outside in February in Ohio…kinda. But there’s good food in the shelter and lots of Hawaiian shirts to thumb our noses at the weather. This year, the contest is in March, so maybe it will be warmer?

The other event that I really got into was Ohio State Parks on the Air. This contest dates back to 2008 (which is before the big National Parks on the Air event that ARRL started that led to POTA as we know it today). It’s phone only and runs for 6 hours. It’s a blast! I placed somewhere in the middle this year, but had a great time doing it. The contest is run by PCARS members and as such the club has an interest in it. I will definitely be out there again next year.

My biggest contribution to the club is just starting. With the end of 2023 comes a change to the editorship of The Radiogram, the PCARS award winning monthly newsletter. The new editor is, well, me. I’m starting with the January 2024 issue and I’m looking forward to it. It’s a way to contribute in an asynchronous fashion which is good because it’s very hard for me to get to club events and all with the competing priorities within my family. We already have a lot of “Divide And Conquor” going on here. It feels good to do something for the club.

Other Things And Stuff

I picked up a few new pieces of gear this year. Probably the most impactful was the Elecraft AX1 antenna. It has totally changed the way I deploy in the field. Maybe I’ll write something about it someday, but I don’t know what I could say other than, “Wow. That’s a good portable antenna!”

My Dad AC8NT and I made the run down to Hamvention this year and it was a lot of fun! We got milkshakes and Young’s Dairy and bought some QRP Labs kits from our buddy Hans. It was worth the drive.

This year, I even grabbed a new rig for grins and have had a great time getting to know the TR-45L. It will see more air time in the new year for sure.

The addition of little bits and pieces that have maximized my enjoyment with radio were definitely noticed, though I will not enumerate them here.

What’s It Mean?

2023 was great! It started off with a challenge and some new ideas of how to help out the ham radio community and has ended up with a number of accomplishments that I didn’t expect. My engagement with the hobby is changing and that’s good. There are so many threads to tug on and interesting things to chase that I can only see 2024 being even more fun!

So with that, I’m back to the field. Thanks for reading and 72!

How Did That Happen?

There were a lot of things stacked against doing an activation on the 27th. First and foremost, it’s my wife’s birthday so she sets the tone for the day. Having a birthday after Christmas isn’t fun. Most people are just celebrated out by that point and no one wants to eat any more sweets. So usually, I make a riff on a steak salad she loves and bake something like bannana bread. It works. And I had acquired the goods for the dinner and even baked the bread while she was doing some things in the morning.

In the afternoon, she said she wanted to take the dog for a hike at Cuyahoga Valley National Park – K-0020 despite the mud and potential for yet more rain. She was the one who offered that it would be a quick hike and if I wanted to go along and radio it up, I could.

Who doesn’t take that deal? Someone who isn’t me!

Water, Water and More Water

There was a lot of rain the night before and that morning. It’s not like I go anywhere without my little tarp and foam seat cover anyway, but I was really glad that I had this as a part of my kit this round because not having them would have meant setting up in the back of my wife’s car and I’ve said many times that I don’t like working from a vehicle. I got the IC-705 set up with the AX1 and got to the sending of dits and dahs.

All told, it was 18 CW contacts. Not too bad. The bands weren’t in really great condition from where I was sitting, but I did get my activation and some extras to spare by the time I got the text telling me my wife was about to be in the parking lot. Timing is everything!

QSO Map

So here’s what the map had to say:

And Again? Is This A Habit?

I rarely post the day that I do an activation but I’m not working this week so I have a bit more time for fun stuff. And speaking of fun stuff, I got out to West Branch SP – K-1999 for an activation while everyone else was otherwise engaged. I am not complaining.

An Aside: The Activator’s Lifestyle

There was a period of time when every day I would sit at my desk before work got going and fire up WSJT-X to get some FT8 contacts. There was one operator who was at a park that wasn’t all that far away. He would start on 80-meters and walk his way up the bands. I would catch him and then move to the next band and listen, hoping that I could catch him again. I made over 100 contacts with him over that period of time. In September of 2022, he stopped. I can see on his POTA profile page that he’s still hunting, but he hasn’t activated since that day in September. A couple of things come to mind.

First, what a way to spend your summer! Up early and at a park almost every day with your radio. Making contacts. Filling that logbook. Maybe observing the shifts in the band conditions over time. Making note of the weather. Who knows what one might do when the routine involves going to a park and setting up a small computer next to a radio.

When I imagine that for myself, I think about having a nice thermos of coffee and a notebook to jot down those stray thoughts and observations. But most of all, it’s a sense of going to a place with purpose and living in a moment. Each contact is a moment. Each log entry is a captured experience. How wonderful is that? Gives me strong incentive to retire.

The other thing that it brings up is that sense of knowing these other operators. I’ve never met this person and I only know what I’ve seen on QRZ or POTA. That said, when you establish a regular series of contacts with someone, there’s a sense that they are now a part of your world. Given the obviously older age group at play in ham radio, it’s not hard to imagine that someone will become a Silent Key and you’d never know it if you didn’t poke around a little. It’s a strange web of connections we make through these contacts. Strange and beautiful.

More Boats

No, really. There were two of them out there on the reservoir today. I snapped a picture of the boat that is always there when I show up. I get the feeling that it might be hard to believe without photographic evidence.

More Contacts!

I got my EFHW into The New Tree and didn’t love the SWR I was getting. I was also struggling with my throwline today. Everything worked out in the end, but it took longer to deploy my antenna than I’d like. That is to say, more than 2 minutes.

With my tarp spread out to keep my radio dry, I called CQ and the contacts started flowing. I was pulling about a contact a minute the entire time I was there. It was a great day for the bands and I was getting plenty of attention on 20-meters. I even made contacts with 3 friends from the Mastodon radio world. Always great to have more of those folks in the log!

I noticed something today that I’d not been conscious of before. When it’s cold out – and it was in the lower 40s while I was activating – my left hand gets cold but my right hand, my sending hand, never does. There’s got to be some kind of psychological mechanism at play there but I’m not going to spend any time on it.

QSO Map

Getting an Alaskan station in the log (even when he gives you a 129 RST) is always exciting. I do love it when the map includes that section of the continent.

Final

Maybe I can keep this streak alive. I don’t go back to work until the 2nd of January. I wonder how many more trips out to the park I can make. Stay tuned to find out..

72 and thanks for reading!

Peace and Quiet in Deceptive Weather

Saturday, December 09 was not what was promised by all of my various weather apps. On a day when the sun was supposed to make an appearance and it was supposed to be dry, there was a touch of rain in the pre-dawn morning and no sign of the mysterious yellow orb that was seen regularly only a couple of months ago. Despite the mid-50dF temperatures and a stiff breeze, I went out to West Branch SP – K-1999 to grab an activation.

This park at this time of year is a fun one for me if I’m going alone because there’s simply no one else there. It feels like a little slice of solitude on most weekends in winter and I do look forward to that. My only regret is that there’s no really safe way to cycle to this park. Too much divided highway and scary stuff between home and there. So I drive.

The solitude I enjoy was only interrupted by the most entertaining of people. There was a boat out in the reservoir with a gentleman fishing away. In December. In Ohio. I love those guys. They know what’s what and how to have a good time. The other was a boat in a duck hunting outfit complete with decoys. I don’t think I’ve seen a duck of any sort at this park since it got cold. All I could do was watch them for a bit and wish them luck in my head. Before I left, they packed up and moved on to something else. I know nothing of hunting waterfowl, but I would think that one goes to hunt them where they can be found. Otherwise, it’s just sitting in a boat with some coffee and a buddy and…well…that doesn’t sound so awful, does it?

A Couple of Changes

It was my usual spot. I get a commanding view of the reservoir and its characters. The table is new and solid and has fun graffiti on it. I’ll have to get some good pictures of that sometime. In any case, I did try a couple of new things this time around. The first was to put the AX1 straight into the mAT-705plus with an elbow BNC connector. This takes additional coax out of the equation as well as any strange tripods or mounts. This particular BNC connector has neat feature. Once attached, it stiffens up and doesn’t bend without significant force. I have no idea where I got this thing, but if I did, I’d buy a dozen more because that is a nifty feature.

Oh. If you look carefully at the picture of my setup, you’ll see one of those nifty Nite-ize twisty things holding the AX1 to the handle of the cage on the IC-705. The wind did get bad enough to start messing with the antenna, so I just wrapped that around the AX1 and the problem was solved. I’m sure if I ran it through modeling software I’d see that this destroys the efficiency of something, but I’m not going to do that. Those little twisties are rubber coated so in my head that’s good enough.

The other adjustment was to take the AX1 counterpoises and attach them to an alligator clip so that it more easily grabs onto the ground on the IC-705 and makes deployment much simpler. I can attach the clip while wearing gloves. Thumb screws or the screw on the IC-705 ground require bare hands and even tools. Not great for December.

It’s silly little quarter turns of the screw that improve my setup and teardown. With these two tweaks, my setup was really about 2-3 minutes. Teardown was slightly longer because I have to wind up the wires. This means that I’m getting on the air faster and that’s what it’s all about.

I hooked up my paddles and got to work. It was a bit earlier than I normally activate, but I was getting contacts pretty quickly. I even noticed some repeat hunters. That’s always a treat!

A Visitor?

With more than enough contacts to activate the park in the bag, I kept going. I was having a really good time. As I tapped away, I noticed a truck pull in and park next to my Jeep. A gentleman got out and put on a vest. I assumed he was park staff. As I finished up a contact, he stood at a respectful distance from my table. I sent my 72 and he smiled.

“You’re doing POTA, right?”

“You bet I am! Any day outside with a radio, right?”

We got to talking. He’s a ham who has traveled quite a bit but grew up in the area. He’s just getting into POTA and started picking at CW this year. His plan is to join the LICW Club and make a real go of it in 2024. I told him the best thing he can do is get on the air as soon as possible. It was a good chat. We traded notes on our stations and he asked a lot of questions about my portable setup. After a bit, he bid me farewell and headed back to his truck. I got back to activating and picked up a good number of contacts before calling it quits. I didn’t log his callsign for an “Eyeball QSO” and I do regret that.

An Aside: Am I Going Too Far?

When I was learning to play the guitar, I had some very inexpensive instruments of questionable quality. When learning something, it’s a common line of thinking that one should spend as little as possible to avoid sinking money into something that might not take. That makes sense, but as a guitar teacher, I quickly saw that an instrument of lesser quality makes it harder to learn. This is a way of saying that there is a lower threshold for someone who is learning something in terms of quality which may or may not influence price. I stress again that this is for those who are learning. Prince was famous for picking up the cheapest guitars from pawn shops and the like and doing full concerts on them. That’s because he was an amazing player and any instrument would work because he had exceptional skills. Pro tip: We’re not Prince. Get the best you can with the dollars you have.

Now, there is always an exception to the Spend Less Rule. Someone coming to a hobby later in life with, perhaps, a little more discretionary income might spend a little more than they should on an instrument. I have a clear memory of a gentleman sending back a gorgeous Taylor acoustic guitar because the binding wasn’t the color he expected. The instrument played like a dream! I could in no way afford that at the time and I still can’t shake why someone would order it, look at it, and toss it aside because the turquoise didn’t turquoise hard enough.

They were referred to back then as “Dentists.” I mean no disparagement to the practitioners of the Dental Arts. You have my highest respect as well as the honor of being the source of my only really serious anxiety in life. Anyway…

Another side to this is that there are some pieces of hardware that encourage us to pick them up and play them. There are guitars that never go into cases because they need to be played. They demand to be touched and thus cause the caretaker of the instrument to practice more and enjoy that practice – regardless of their skill level. It is, of course, impossible to predict where these instruments or pieces of hardware might come from, but once they’re found, there is no denying it.

I’ve only been practicing CW for around a year. Not even a full year in a serious capacity. And yet, I bought myself a Begali Traveler Light as a mixed Birthday/Xmas gift. This thing? It’s incredible. It takes the lightest touch. As a typical newbie operator (and maybe this is where my musical training helps a bit?) I can send FAR faster than I can copy. Sending at 35 wpm or more with this thing is a breeze. I keep myself to 15 wpm max in the field because I don’t want to be That Guy who sends in a blur and then can’t copy at the same pace. On top of the performance, it’s built like a tank. There is real weight here and it keeps it from sliding around on the table. Did I mention that it’s gorgeous? I picked the blue one with red paddles that have holes in them. Why the ones with holes? For the same reason you pick a guitar with flames or skulls on it: it plays better! Or it looks cool. One or the other. I’m sure there are reasons Begali offers this style of paddle and I’m equally sure that I didn’t select it for those reasons.

I can’t help but feel like I’m overdoing it, but it’s so much fun. The IC-705, AX1, and this key make such a wonderful combination that I’m not sure that I will be in the field with much else. Well, the TR-45L is going to get plenty of air time, but that feels more like a summer rig. I’ll have to write up the whole Theory of Aesthetics in Portable Radio Operations sometime. I have a lot of thoughts.

I will console myself with the fact that my last couple hundred QSOs in the field were all CW so it’s unlikely that this is a phase. I will grow to appreciate this key in the way it was meant to be over time. Right now, I just love it even if I don’t deserve it.

The Activation

When all was said and done, I had 30 contacts in the log. At that point, the wind was becoming a real concern. It was really, really chilly and my logbook was blowing away when I didn’t have my hand on it. It was time to pack it in. After the upload and analysis, it turned out that I had 5 Park to Park contacts because one of them was a 2-fer. I love it when that happens. That means I hit my 150 Park To Park milestone. This activation is number 19 for K-1999 for me, so one more and I get another piece of paper! Or a PDF. Something.

Here’s what the QSO Map looked like:

It was a great time and a good chat with another ham. The duck hunters were frustrated (maybe) but the guy fishing outstayed me. Maybe I will see them again next week.

Thanks for reading and 72!

My last couple of activations have been at West Branch State Park – K-1999. I mentioned back in January of this year that one week there were restrooms and picnic shelters and the next weekend they were all gone. As someone who frequents a park, it began to kind of eat at me. There had to be a reason.

The thing that sprung to mind as I spent more time out in the former picnic area this year was that they were perhaps allowing the area to re-wild itself. It didn’t seem likely that they were going to rebuild the restroom facilities given that they’d torn them out completely and it was as though they were never there. But there were still paths mowed around the – now very odd looking – parking area and out to the picnic table where I set up most of the time. Then again, what do I know about how State Parks operate? I looked online, but I couldn’t seem to find any mention of it or a plan for the park.

There was really only one thing to do and that was find some contact information and reach out to the park. I found the Park Manager’s email address and sent a query. The response was quick and wonderful.

I was told that the plan was to work within the new approach that Ohio DNR is taking with parks and the balance of facilities to wild land. The shelters that looked OK to me apparently weren’t in great shape and the restrooms were problematic. Given the usage patterns of the park and a desire to create more wild spaces, the plan is now to allow those areas to grow in with native plants and perhaps some trees. The areas will, of course, still be open to people who want to hike around and even picnic in the area, but they are going to concentrate funding around the marina and boat ramps. That all makes perfect sense to me! The park has always been about the reservoir and that’s where most people spend their time.

The selfish part of me also knows that with the shelters gone, there will be fewer people hanging out in those areas making it a more relaxing place for me to operate.

It was a relief to hear that my insticts were right and that the park is going to let things grow. Pollinators will be happy and so will the local bird population. It will be interesting to see the space fill in over the next couple of years.

Now, if it doesn’t rain, maybe I can get out there on the weekend and do an activation!