Activation Report

Last weekend wasn’t great for being out and activating, so it’s going to be a quick post today. On Friday, 08-Mar-2024 I took the day off and got a little time to head out to West Branch SP – K-1999 for an activation. The weather was outstanding. Sunny, in the 50s, and only a light breeze. There were many boats on the water as everyone seemed to decide that it was the day to take off. And they weren’t wrong given that Saturday was rainy all day and Sunday saw 2″ of snow drop on us. Friday was what we got.

My dad asked about the mount that I have for the AX1 so I figured I’d put a picture of it here to use as a future reference. It’s a cool antenna mount that fits picnic tables as well as the cargo cage on my Jeep. It’s solid and does its thing.

The bands were not great. It was noisy and there was a lot of fading. I worked 40-meters for a bit and then switched over to 20. It wasn’t easy going on either band. I still managed to get from Arizona to Nova Scotia despite the less than great conditions.

The gear was the usual: IC-705, mAT-705 tuner, Begali Traveler, and the AX1 antenna. Quick setup, quick tear-down, and great performance.

QSO Map

Here’s what the QSO Map looked like.

Final

Quick report today to keep myself honest and track progress. I’ve been out every weekend this year so far except one to activate. Funny to look back and think that a goal for 2023 was one activation a month. Now it feels like if I’m not doing one a week I’m going to lose my mind! I guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun.

This Activation Was Quick

Look, not every trip to the park is a walk in the park. Something like that. Sometimes, it’s really cold, really windy, there are whitecaps on the reservoir and everything is miserable. The siren song of POTA and the therapeutic benefits are all still in tact during times like these, but it doesn’t make for the most fun of activations. Though it does test an operator!

I went to West Branch SP – K-1999 and set up very quickly. I had the IC-705 with me as always and I went with the AX1 because when I use it with the picnic table mount, it is extremely stable even in high wind. And there was considerable wind. It was coming in with gusts up to 25 mph. Not the best weather for an activation.

The temperatures were in the mid-20s F. With the wind, I would assume it was in effect close to 0dF or so. Certainly cold enough that my fingers weren’t happy to be exposed for any period of time. But with my gear deployed, I got to work.

I started on 40-meters and the Ohio team came out in force. I knocked out 9 contacts on 40 before things dried up. I consider 10 minutes with no contacts in that weather time to move on. So I pulled the 40-meter coil and moved to 20-meters. The Radio Mastodon crew came out to support me and I grabbed contacts with WJ3FF and N0ZB. Always good to have people out there to grab you when you’re freezing at the park.

Is That It?

Yeah. This was definitely a simple Get Outside And Activate day. I felt better for it, but also very cold. Sometimes, it’s just fun to get outside and do our thing.

QSO Map

Here’s what the QSO Map had to say.

Final

Thanks for reading and hopefully I have more exciting activations this week!

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!

About one weekend every month, my house empties out for the weekend. My wife, who is an Assistant Scoutmaster, and our two kids go off on a camping adventure. I stay home to take care of the dogs. That is my story and I will stick to it ThankYouVeryMuch! In any case, I usually take advantage of this quiet time to grab a nap, mess around with my silly projects, and get outside to play some radio. That was The Big Plan for this given weekend and I thought that I’d get a good amount of time in on the air. Sometimes, things don’t quite work out that way.

First off, it was the ARRL CW Sweepstakes contest. For non-contesters like me, contest weekends are less fun. They seem to bring out the worst in what are normally very friendly ham bands. The contest in question didn’t start until the afternoon, so I figured I’d spring out of bed (yeah, right!) and get to the park early-ish. For the most part, that’s just what I did.

Maybe I’m in a park rut or maybe I just really enjoy the solitude that I get at West Branch State Park – K-1999. That picnic table on the point is in a very quiet place. With the shelters gone not a lot of traffic wanders by other than the disc golf crew and they’re Good People.

New Gear

I had a new piece of gear to play with. The AM1 Antenna Mount from ProAudio Engineering. It’s a clamp with a 2” wide opening that acts as a mount for the AX1 from Elecraft. I’ve been enjoying that antenna quite a bit – much to my surprise. The only problem I have had has been with the tripod I use and the wind. It just isn’t as stable as I need it to be. Perhaps others are simply more careful or less “Oafy” to borrow an adjective from my wife, but I found the tripod either being blown or knocked over too often. I don’t want to think about the stability of my antenna that much when operating, so when I saw the ad for this clamp in QRP Quarterly, I took a look. I’m glad I did.

The clamp is solid and did exactly what it said it would. It definitely fits the standard issue picnic table that is found in almost every park in the U.S. The only thing I found didn’t work out so well was the little knob that is supposed to act as a point of contact for the counterpoise. I found that it didn’t work out that way. I need to experiment with it more, but when my SWR was way too high I played around with it for a minute before attaching the counterpoise to the ground on the IC-705 and calling it even. That ALWAYS works. The only addition I can see making is that of a 90 degree BNC adapter. It seems like that would make things work a little better.

Tweaks and Adjustments

Speaking of little adjustments, I picked up a trick somewhere online for keeping the mAT-705 out of the way. A velcro strap run around the Peovi cage will keep the tuner quite firmly attached both for transport and for operation. It really has cleaned up my deployment. With a very short run of cable to the tuner and then out to the AX1 everything suddenly feels much more compact.

While we’re on about all of these small changes to the setup, the biggest “Well Duh” moment goes to bringing along the heavy metal base for my paddles. I’ve been doing some kind of awkward thing where I work the paddles with my middle finger and thumb so I can hold my pencil while I hold the key with my left hand and…what am I doing? I have this heavy base that the paddles attach to quite nicely. Why not just toss that in the bag? I’m not climbing a mountain in Ohio. I’m getting from the Jeep to the spot where I’ll operate. Or even riding a big. I won’t notice the weight and it adds to “Quality Of Life” during the operation. This decision led to a significant improvement.

The Activation

I got started on 20m because that is where I’ve been having the most success. I was rewarded. I started to pull in contacts fairly steadily, but things were fading in and out with increased regularity. More and more I see park activations as being like fishing. Do I stick with this lure or change it up? Was that a fish surfacing over there or just something falling in the water? Should I have grabbed that other rod instead? What’s it like on the other side of the lake? And much like fishing, patience is rewarded. Sticking with what you’re doing for long enough to see if you’re REALLY on the wrong frequency or mode or if you’re just being impatient. It’s the beauty of POTA. Even when I’m sitting there calling CQ with no one coming back for 5 minutes or more, I’m still outside engaging in a wonderful and energizing hobby. It beats the heck out of sitting around at home!

By the end of it, I’d snagged 3 Park to Park contacts: one with N0ZT in MO and a two-fer with N1BS in RI. But the highlight was grabbing a contact with my buddy from the Mastodon world N0MQL. I’m glad you stuck with me, Operator! All in all, it was 15 contacts for the day and some nice, quiet time at the park in a pre-snow November. Not bad at all!

Here’s what the QSO Map looks like:

Fun With Data

Because the POTA site is full of tabular data, it lends itself to looking for patterns and other nonsense. After all, these are imaginary points in a game we play with and against ourselves. That said, the mind does what it does. I noted that all of my contacts in October were CW. That’s 100% of my activations for that month. It feels like quite a milestone! It was a total of 100 contacts even. That’s 10% of the way to a kilo for West Branch all in CW. Kinda neat! I can’t wait to see what November has in store.

72

The forecast for the week was just too good. It was warm and the sun was out. Friday was set to be in the 70s with mostly blue skies and light breezes and that’s exactly what it was. I took the day off and decided that, after getting a haircut, I’d head out to the park and play radio for a bit. It was to be a last hurrah for pleasant weather in 2023.

It seemed to me that a quick run out to West Branch State Park – K-1999 was in order. How could I not take the opportunity to spend the day at a quiet park in the great weather?

I got my end-fed into a tree pretty quickly. It wasn’t a single throw this time, but it got where it needed to be. The TR-45L sprung to life and 40m wasn’t in bad shape. I started to call CQ and had some quick contacts in a nice clump and that was how the activation went. There were rather long spaces between clusters of contacts. More than a few times, I got stepped on by someone who either wasn’t listening or simply didn’t hear me.

That’s really the only piece of frustration with QRP operation. There’s always someone out there who doesn’t hear you and will post up on the same frequency. I never assume malice when I can assume that they don’t hear me. Most of the time, I will pack up and move on, but on that particular day, people were dropping in on top of me during pile-ups and that made for a different kind of challenge.

I was in the field for about two hours, though not all of that was radio. It was quiet and pretty and conducive to walking around and enjoying the breeze. When I was on the air, contacts weren’t flowing like a contest, but I ended up with 26 of them. Not a bad day considering I was moving around the bands a lot more than I would normally do.

It was an impressive spread in terms of locations for contacts. Running less than the full 5 watts that the TR-45L can muster, I managed to get to Maine, Washington State, Texas, and Florida – among others.

Here’s what the QSO Map looked like.

The forecast held. Saturday, it was much cooler and cloudier. Sunday was that cold rain that chills one to the bone. I didn’t venture out after doing some yard chores, so Friday was the only radio activity for me. No complaints. It was a great way to spend a beautiful late fall day.

Bachelor Weekend!

This past weekend was one where my son and I were living the bachelor life as the ladies were off camping. Given that my son is a big time sleep in kind of guy, I took the opportunity to go to West Branch State Park – K-1999 for an activation. Why West Branch? The temperature was in the low 50s and the winds were blowing. I didn’t have all day, so a 3-4 hour excursion to Cuyahoga Valley National Park by bicycle didn’t seem like a great idea given other commitments. So why not West Branch again? Why not indeed!

When I arrived, the park was nearly empty. In fact, from what I saw, it was just me and a group of Disc Golfers. Those are some hardcore dudes. They will Disc Golf even after the snow flies. I have respect for that, but I also think that it’s weird. Yes, the guy who hurls low-power radio waves at the ionosphere is gonna give side eye to some dudes throwing frisbees into chain nets?

Maybe not.

In any case, the place was looking abandoned. Since they tore down all of the structures, pulled the grills, and removed almost all of the picnic tables, the park on the side nearest the beach has a very abandoned feel to it. Even moreso now that we’re into my favorite time of year when the temperatures drop and the parks empty out.

I settled in at the picnic table near the water as I did last week. The plan for the day was to use my EFHW hanging from a nearby tree. My newly acquired 8 oz. throw weight was on my line and ready to hit a really great tree branch. Instead, I launched it into orbit and got a branch that was much higher than intended and even better than the original position. Who knew that moving from 10 oz. to 8 would make such an enormous difference? I maneuvered the antenna up to the branch and then noted that I didn’t have a tent stake in my antenna bag to tether the other end of the antenna. This was most unfortunate, but wouldn’t have been a great solution anyway. The ground in that area is very hard and it took a rubber mallet to get the ground stake for the vertical in the weekend before. However, the clamp mount for my Chameleon kit was in my backpack and I was able to clamp that to the table and have a very nice position for the antenna. Not too shabby!

The entire setup took less than 10 minutes from getting to the picnic table to powered up and on the air. The bands seemed to be in really good conidition. I started on 20m which, looking back on it, might have been a bit silly. This was the California QSO weekend. The CW area of 20m was packed. I found a sliver of the band and held it. I was on the air for about 40 minutes and pulled in 15 contacts. Given that I was competing with a popular QSO party, I take that as a complete win!

There are some things about CW operation that didn’t make sense until I was doing it. Before, when I was listening to the bands and there was a pileup, it just sounded like a mad cacophony. All of these beeps happening at random and on top of one another. Even with as little experience as I have now, it’s far easier to hear the subtle differences in pitch and tone. Even the speed of the characters adds information to the signal which synthesizes itself into a unique voice. Reading about that in books is one thing. Hearing it and experiencing it for oneself is something else entirely. There were several times when there were competing stations and signals were fading in and out but I was able to lock in on one (usually the one where I got the first 2 characters or a number) and pull them out of the noise enough to make the contact.

It was a successful activation and a lot of fun!

Here’s what the QSO Map looks like:

And then there was Sunday…

The ladies returned from camp early. The weather took a nasty turn and there is a point where, as a Scout leader, one must make the call: are we building character or being miserable for no reason? Given the scenario, the adult leaders made the right call and bugged out which put the ladies home at about 9:30 PM on Saturday night. That meant, when Sunday morning rolled around, no one was motivated for anything other than to make a quick run with dad for donuts and then get straight back to a PJ Day.

With everyone more or less decided that it was going to be a slack day, I tossed my gear in the Jeep and went back to West Branch. The truth is, I had so much fun Saturday that given a little free time on Sunday it seemed foolish not to head out to the park. Here in NE Ohio we’re running into that time where daylight becomes quite precious and we need to take advantage of every minute.

Sunday would prove to be quite different from Saturday. The same winds that forced the Scouts to pack it in were still in effect. There were 30 mph sustained winds and gusts into the 40s. What worked on Saturday with my EFHW was not going to work on Sunday. Sunday was going to have to be a vertical whip kind of day. The big bummer was that with the winds as high as they were, keeping log paper settled enough to write and even hearing signals over the wind was a challenge. Much to my chagrin, I would have to work from inside the Jeep.

Remember: Everything about ham radio involves compromising something.

I set up the antenna in the grass at the nose of the Jeep and ran the feedline through the window on the passenger side. I keep the lighting mount that I use with the IC-705 in the Jeep console. Pulling it out and getting the radio in place was easy enough. One thing I noticed right away was that not having a tablet or laptop to wrestle made working from inside the vehicle (which I truly hate) much more comfortable.

I tuned up and got to it. 40m was dead. I heard one other station as I spun up and down the band. That was weird. On 20m, things were livlier. It was one of those days where people didn’t hear me and just set up shop on top of me. I don’t blame them as 5 watts isn’t much, but it’s still frustrating to have to bounce all over the place. Like the day before, I was on the air for about 40 minutes and snagged 13 contacts. One of the notable ones being the station in Quebec that exploded out of the noise like a cannon! I had the volume up on the 705 and all of the suddem – BAM – this station was RIGHT THERE. I’ve never been startled like that while playing radio.

Looking at the map for the activation, it was quite a wild spread of stations.

Back to back activations made for a great weekend. I don’t imagine that I’ll squeeze in too many more like that in the weeks to come. It’s always possible and I will keep my eyes open for any chance I can get to head out to the parks. I still want to get in as many bicycle activations as I can before the snow flies and things get weird. How many will that be? No one can say. I do know for certain that snow and freezing temperatures won’t keep me from heading out to the parks with my radio, but at the same time, I’m going to enjoy every day I get before winter sets in.

73!

A Perfect Day To Activate

The First of October was a truly beautiful Sunday. The sky was clear and it was in the mid-60dF range. There was a light breeze and I didn’t care what the solar weather was looking like because it was a day I had to be outside. My family was running in a dozen different directions, so I grabbed my gear and headed out to West Branch State Park – K-1999.

I’ve been going to West Branch since I was a kid. There is a beach there and my mom and the neighbor would grab a pile of boys from the neighborhood, a lunch, a blanket, and take us out to go play in the water. For us, it was a trip to the beach! Having travelled a bit more and seen a few things, it’s still a great trip to the beach if you make it with friends and Laura’s chocolate covered Rice Krispie treats. I’ll take it over The Gulf Coast any day of the week.

It was a quiet day for the most part. The trees were lighting up with color and that usually means that the number of people in the parks shrinks a bit. Aside from a few less than polite folks tearing up the reservoir with their boat and music loud enough you could hear them all over the water, it was a really pleasant afternoon to be there.

The Setup

I set up my gear.

Something to notice on the picnic table. It’s what’s not there that matters. The computer. I made the decision that this was going to be an all or nothing CW activation. It’s part of keeping things interesting. With nothing but my paddles and rig I got ready to activate.

The State Of The Park

As I was setting up, a nice woman who had been wandering around the nearby field with a camera stopped by. She asked, “Do you frequent West Branch?”

“I’ve been coming here since I was a kid. But now I come every few months, maybe.”

She gestured around the field. “What happened to everything?”

She was asking about the facilities that used to be where we were standing. I told her my story from back in January. How things had gone from existing to gone in a week.

We both shrugged. I told her that the facilities were in good repair to my eye, especially the rest room which no one could prove was there at this point. I also mentioned that I could find no mention of the impending demolition or any plans to rebuild. I haven’t gone so far as to call the park, but there was no public notice of a change to the facilities that I could find.

She thanked me for my time and went back to photographing the trees and grasses that are reclaiming the picnic field and bringing a very different kind of beauty to the place. Note: not once did she ask what I was doing or any questions about my gear. Matters of the park facilities are certainly more important.

The Activation

With my gear ready to go, I put on my headset and started calling CQ. It didn’t take long to get contacts rolling in. I was excited! People were moving at about 12-18 wpm and I was keeping up. I don’t think I sent too many ?s and there were more than a few calls that I got on the first try. I scribbled along and caught most of what I needed to catch. In the end, I did have one busted call. I feel awful about it, but I did repeat it several times.

Somewhere in there, I hit a really beautiful state of flow. I was sending and receiving. Someone came and sat on the park bench about 10 yards away and I had no idea. I was really deep into the process. It was refreshing. It felt good. It was a sensation that I’d been hoping for when it came to my hobby.

As an aside, I will say again that the entire reason that I chose to chase ham radio as a hobby was to get away from screens. I wanted something that would take me away from the computer and get me back into an activity that was more tangible. Back in 2017, that wasn’t really working out as I lived in a valley lined by powerlines in a hyper-urban area near Philly during a really rough time in the solar cycle. With compromises and bad conditions aplenty, I turned to FT8 just like everyone else because any contact is better than no contact, right? It wasn’t what I’d thought it would be, but it was still fun.

Discovering POTA brought something else to the table: getting outside. Although I kept taking the computer into the field, I was working toward something else. POTA took me to QRP which led me to CW. Finding Thomas K4SWL’s blog QRPer gave me some measure of hope that someone new to the world of CW could do an activation. And Jim N4JAW’s blog HamOnABike made it all look so fun. How could I not take a stab at CW? Another great twist? The wonderful Mastodon community around ham radio introduced #CW100Days and really fueled my progress in 2023. My skill and confidence grew and I was able to make a couple of odd contacts during my otherwise digital activations.

But now I’ve done it. I can check off another 2023 Ham Radio Goal: POTA CW Activation.

Here’s what the QSO Map looks like:

Now What?

This is the beginning of a shift in how I do my POTA activations. I plan to do mostly CW activations for a bit as I build speed and confidence. I’m never going to be a contester, but getting closer to 20 wpm sounds like a reasonable goal. If anything, it will help my hunt with more confidence. Might also get me to the point where I don’t fear a rag-chew situation. Which I do fear today.

Driving home from the park I felt refreshed. That’s how we’re supposed to feel after we do something that we enjoy. I’m not saying it’s the first time ham radio has done that for me, but it was a very intense feeling of achievement. There’s more where that came from.

We had a chance to make a quick ride out to the park, so we took it. Here in NE Ohio, we’re going to be running short on nice days for good cycling, so we’re going to grab all of them that we can.

This was a nice one because the weather was cooler. A bit windy as well, but sunny. This activation was completely unremarkable. That’s a sign that I need to mix things up. I think I have about 40 contacts left on my kilo for this park. After I hit that, I’m going to try something else. I don’t know what that is, but I have some ideas. It will involve getting other rigs on the air and focusing on CW contacts. There are some other digital modes that I want to try as well. Some that take a little more time than FT8. But again, I need to start mixing things up and get back to having some adventure with my activations / portable operations.

Location: The Octagon at Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Band Conditions: 20m was open and so was 40m.

Weather: Sunny, clear, 60s dF.

Solar Conditions: Didn’t note that data.

15 Contacts on FT8. 20m and 40m.

QSO Map: