A Long Weekend

I had the opportunity to take Friday off, so I did. And with a day off and no commitments until much later, I headed out to The Octagon at Cuyahoga Valley National Park – US-0020. I just couldn’t think of a better way to spend a few hours in the quiet before a weekend of things and stuff.

A brief diversion? The summer has arrived, so my Jeep has its summer outfit on. This is a rag top with no windows save the front windshield and its safari doors. Look, I’m not made of sugar and I live in a place that is grey and cold for a decent chunk of the year. When I get the chance to enjoy the wind in my face, I take it. That does come with some risks. When it rains, well, I get wet. And to be absolutely clear, I expect it and embrace it!

The forecast for the day did NOT include rain. I tossed my clamp-on umbrella into the Jeep simply to keep the sun off as that can heat up the radio and get in my face. It’s a nice thing to take along for contingencies. Ya know, sun or…rain.

Halfway to the park, the skies opened up and it rained cats and dogs for about 25 minutes. I pulled over and looked at the weather radar. It was going to pass quickly enough so I kept going. Arriving at the park, I was met with some “jokes” from others in the parking lot. I smiled and grabbed my gear. They’d come back sweaty and gross while I was just freshly showered!

Getting to the picnic tables did show me that I had some obstacles. The table was wet and so was the bench. No worries! I brought my tarp (always do!) and I set up the umbrella to keep the water that was falling out of the trees off of my gear. I deployed the AX1 and hooked up the IC-705. I was ready to go!

Solar Goodness

Friday was great for solar weather. The conditions were good on 40 and 20 and I was able to grab enough contacts to call it an activation in relatively short order. It was so much nicer than the prior activations when the local star was blowing its top and making things difficult. It was great to pull in the contacts!

For a bit of extra fun, I tossed my Surface Go 2 into the bag and grabbed some FT8 while I was at it. It’s been quite a while since I did any digital work during a POTA activity.

QSO Map

With it turning from rain to clear skies I’d been on the air long enough and was feeling refreshed. Here’s what the QSO Map looks like.

Fun While It Lasted

Saturday rolled around and it turned out that we had a graduation party to attend and a few errands to run. What would normally have been a trip to CVNP on a bicycle turned into a quick drive out to play a little radio while the things that needed doing and didn’t involve me were done. I was very pleased to get two opportunities to get into the field in one weekend.

The wonderful solar conditions from Friday DID NOT flow into Saturday. The earth was spinning into all of the fun that comes from yet another CME. This was causing all kinds of problems. The bands would open for a bit and then go silent. As usual, I parked my IC-705 on a portion of the band where I could see the FT8 signals on the waterfall and watched them ebb and flow as I tried to nab enough CW contacts for an activation.

It didn’t work out that way. I managed to get 7 CW contacts in an hour. That’s not great. But I did bring along my computer and flipped over to FT8 to pick up an additional 4 contacts and validate the activation. I don’t know that I would have made it without moving to a digital mode.

The IC-705

It is not a secret that I am a huge fanboy for the IC-705. The switch from operating CW to FT8 was as simple as turning on my little WiFi router that I carry for these occasions and launching wvfiew and WSJT-X on my computer. That’s it. It took maybe 2 minutes and I was on the air and calling CQ on FT8. It’s brilliant and frictionless. Sure, I’ve been using it for years now and have figured out a workflow that makes things very smooth, but wow is this rig a dream for multi-mode portable. Which, again, is not a surprise as that’s kind of its purpose. It’s just amazing to me that it feels so simple when everything else (like the sun) is making things complicated.

QSO Map

Here’s what the activation looks like.

Final

As we get closer and closer to the solar maximum of Cycle 25 the conditions are going to get weird. I’ve decided that when I head out to do an activation I’m going to toss the computer into the bag just in case. More modes make a successful activation more likely. While activating isn’t the goal – being outside and playing radio is – it’s still nice to check it off as DONE. It also keeps me fresh on my digital operating skills. It’s probably time to play a bit more with fldigi so I can get some other modes in the log. Time for some more experimentation!

It might also be time to take the Hardrock-50 into the field with The Big Battery. We’ll see what happens if and when the mood strikes!

Thanks for reading and 72!

Some Time Off

This past week was Thanksgiving in the U.S. and I decided to take off Monday – Wednesday to pair up with the holidays that were already on the calendar for Thursday and Friday. It made for a good, long stretch out of the office. It also provided the opportunity to get out and activate my two favorite parks for a total of 4 CW activations during my time off. The weather was, well, not stellar for the bulk of the week. It was mostly overcast and cold or raining cats and dogs on the days that I didn’t get out to a park. Of course, there was the actual holiday with family and fun. In the midst of all of that, I got outside and got radio active. Here’s how it went.

K-0020 – 19-Nov-2023

Sledding Hills

There is a very nice set of sledding hills inside of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. My wife had never been there and she wanted something a little more challenging for a hike with the puppy. We decided that we’d give that a go and I’d find someplace to set up.

There is a very large fire barrel of sorts that it behind a windbreak. The intention is to give sledders a place to warm up and hang out when they need a break. With no snow on the ground and it being a Sunday, I simply grabbed one of the picnic tables that were stored inside of the windbreak. I put my back to the wind and into the sun and got set up.

This activation was done with the IC-705 setup using the AX1 clamped to the picnic table. As always, I was a little startled by how well the AX1 performed. 20 meters was on fire. I managed to bag Azores and an operator in France. I love it when the wild callsigns pop in! I walked away from that outing with 35 contacts that stretched from the aforementioned France out west to Colorado. Not bad for 5 watts!

Here’s what the QSO Map looks like:

K-0020 – 20-Nov-2023

Deep Lock Quarry

The very next day was a lot colder and darker. We decided to hit a different trailhead at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The wind was high, so I took my Serious Business winter coat to keep me warm. It was the same setup as the day before. However, the bands weren’t as on fire as they’d been and, well, it was Monday morning-ish. Maybe not the best time to try to pull off an activation. It took me over an hour to get 18 contacts. I did get another wild callsign coming out of England! It was in the noise, but we stuck with it and made the contact. CW is kind of miraculous that way.

By the end of the activation, my hands were cold and the bands were quieting down. All in all, it was a quiet and very peaceful activation. The price paid for solitude at the park was cold fingers. When real winter drops in, I will be well-practiced in writing with gloves.

Here’s what the QSO Map looks like:

K-1999 – 24-Nov-2023

X6100 Fail or Operator Error?

I have a trip coming up for work that will take me back to Texas. Given that I will have a little time to myself on the day that I arrive, I would be sillier than normal if I didn’t take a radio along to activate a park that my family and I really enjoyed when we lived out that way. With that in mind, I figured that the best rig for me to travel with would be my Xiegu X6100. This rig and I have a very strange relationship. It’s a very unfair one because I can’t help but stare at the things that it’s not and that isn’t right or productive. But that’s what I do. So we go in circles with me playing with it and then not wanting to take it into the field except as a backup when we’re camping. With the upcoming trip it seemed like the time to take it off of the shelf and get it into the field.

My original plans for this rig were 100% digital operation. They did eventually get CAT control and audio over WiFi using wfview but the rig heats up so much that running FT8 for extended periods makes me uncomfortable. It also picks up a ton of noise when connected to my tablet over USB. So I’ve stuck to using it primarily for phone operations. It does that very well! But for this activation, I was going 100% CW.

I got set up at my favorite picnic table on the point by the water at West Branch SP – K-1999 and deployed the AX1. The first big issue was that I fumbled around the settings. It took me about 15 minutes to get the rig up and running on CW with the AX1 tuned to a good SWR. 90% of this was because my hands were cold and the wind was blowing hard and the other 10% came down to the fact that I’m not fluent with the rig and its settings. Maybe those percentages should be flipped. It doesn’t really matter. When the wind started getting even more intense, I decided to move to the Jeep and operate from there. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but it would have to work.

My frustration had me toss the X6100 in the backpack and grab the IC-705 as I brought it along Just In Case. I’m glad I did.

The clamp mount for the AX1 fits perfectly on the cargo cage bars I have on my Jeep. With the counterpoise deployed and the window open just a crack I was able to sit in the passenger seat comfortably with the IC-705 clamped to the Oh No! bar and my handy clipboard on my lap. It is a much better and more comfortable position than when trying to do ANYTHING with my tablet in the Jeep. Another point for CW, I suppose!

I wound out that activation with 15 contacts. The only real Aw Shucks moment was getting a contact with an operator in Illinois that the QSO Map system was convinced lived in Hawaii. He does operate from Hawaii, but that’s not where he was sitting when we made our contact, sadly for my POTA 50 States Hunt.

Here’s what the QSO Map looks like:

K-1999 – 26-Nov-2023

X6100 Success!

With the trip for work looming, I was at loose ends on what to do in terms of which radio to take with me. I was honestly thinking about taking the TR-45L. It has all of its parts in a single lunchbox form factor and wouldn’t take up too much space. The IC-705 was out because the tuner introduces some variables and I didn’t feel like tossing a resonant antenna in a tree was going to be a solid plan for any activations that might present themselves. So I did the thing that I often have to do to make things work and that’s just take the bare essentials and go for it. No backups. No failsafes. I put the X6100, a key, a coax cable, and my AX1 kit into a bag and headed out to West Branch SP – K-1999.

I set up by the marina this time. It was too cold and windy to sit outside and there was the threat of rain. I clamped the AX1 to the Jeep again and tossed out the counterpoise. I fired up the X6100 and made a tweak or two. It turns out that I don’t like a really loud sidetone when I’m sending. I know when I screw up. I don’t need it to be as loud as the inbound signal. Maybe I’m picky? In any case, I tweaked the settings and got to calling CQ.

I had folks coming back to me fairly quickly. I reeled in 17 contacts in just under 30 minutes on 20m! Even got a park to park in there with a Canadian club, VE3CWM at Diefenbunker National Historic Site – VE-5083. Not bad at all!

This particular day happened to be part two of a very large CW contest. I should have started on 30 or 17 meters to stay clear of that traffic, but I didn’t. That’s on me. I certainly won’t do that again. I was cruising along and collecting contacts when a station dropped in on top of me running who knows how much power and started blasting CQ. No QRL? Probably didn’t even listen to the frequency first. That’s not illegal, but it is impolite. Maybe that’s the thing I get to grouse about as a grouchy ham when I get on the repeater next time. Doesn’t matter. I got 17 contacts, activated the park, and proved to myself that the X6100 would be ready to go with me on my trip.

A couple of observations for the X6100 included it getting very warm (as expected) and seeing it drain most of its battery in 30 minutes. That means I should take along a 3Ah spare just to be safe. The battery life was a bit of a surprise for me, but every other time I’ve used it for long periods has been with a large external battery. I will pay attention to that in the future and take more notes.

Here’s what the QSO Map looks like:

A Fantastic Week!

Time playing radio outside is time well spent. I had a really great vacation with my family hanging out around the house, enjoying the holiday, and getting out to play radio on top of it all. I also got my first taste of really cold weather for the year. I almost can’t wait for it to be cold enough for snow. At least then, it’s less likely that things will get wet. I’ll take snow over rain any day of the week. I also learned that operating CW from the Jeep isn’t so bad. I’ll tuck that nugget of knowledge away as an option for when things get too gross.

Thanks for reading and 72 to all!