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

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

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

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

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

Setup

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

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

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

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

The Activation

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

Map visualization of contacts courtesy of qsomap.com

If you go

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

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

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

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

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

Setup

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

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

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

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

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

The Activation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

K-1473 Rib Mountain State Park 20 meter Digital Contacts

Map visualization of contacts courtesy of qsomap.com

If you go

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

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