Over 80 POTA QSOs in “less than ideal” conditions…
Let’s talk about something that not a lot of people consider…what do you do when you get to a park and things are not like you imagined? Do you turn around and leave? Do you complain to park management? Do you setup and “get your ten” as fast as possible? What? Leave it in the comments what you do when you have problems like I did today?
POTA Park Conditions
Here is the setup, today I went to US-2169 (Cloudland Canyon State Park) to get on the air with my little Penntek TR-35 QRP radio and found some interesting things happening at the park today. As you can see below the weather was basically perfect for a POTA activation today. It is still early spring here so the top of the mountain is still not showing much signs, but the valley is getting ready…so to speak. Some trees are turning green and some of the dogwood trees are starting to bloom so we are getting started. The temperature was nice in the mid 60s today and it was sunny so it was really nice. I Did find the direct sun to be annoying to be honest as it kept causing a lot of glare on my computer which made it hard to see at times, but I powered through this first obstacle…
My POTA station for today consisting of the Penntek TR-35, the Begali Traveler CW Key and my Dell Inspiron computer for logging.
The next thing I ran into was the kids, there were so many kids in the park today, it must be some spring break or something as there were a lot of groups of children like you see in the photo above (in the background) and they were…well…being kids… This in itself isn’t a problem, but I failed to bring any sort of flagging tape to mark my coax with so I was constantly looking over my right shoulder to make sure no one was about to walk into it. Actually, I only had to do this for a little while as there was something else that happened a little later that basically ran the kids off for me… haha. The lawnmowers…
The POTA HF Radio System Setup - Reliance Antenna
Anyway, let’s look at the antenna setup today to see what made it work so well. I started with two throw lines today so I could elevate the whole antenna off the ground. You see, I was using the Reliance Antenna Bugout 40m EFHW again today and wanted to replicate what I had back in Florida.
Today saw me use the Reliance Antenna Bugout 40m EFHW antenna to great effect even with all the problems.
I threw a line about 15 feet up over a large limb on the nearby tree to create the first point and this is where the coax went up to the transformer. I didn’t use a tuner today so I stayed on 20 meters the entire time today.
POTA antenna installation showing the 1st elevated point of the antenna transformer from the operating position.
I ended up tying the antenna lift rope (it is actually a small cord but you get the point) to the grill right behind the table to the left in the above photo. I used a Velcro tie to attach the end of the coax to the “possibles” bag on the table as it is heavy and the coax is really light and I figured it would hold it just fine…which it did. Next came the haul line to lift the antenna into the distal tree with the high end about 30 feet up. I use a stainless steel throw weight that I made in the machine shop so I can send this thing into the stratosphere if I want…haha. The wide angle photo below shows where the antenna was in the trees. You can also see another family at the picnic table in the background… more kids… haha. The good thing about using two haul lines in that the entirety of the antenna is WAY above where anyone could even get close to it. I was also using QRP power so there was no danger of RF issues here. The height is also beneficial for propagation and we will see a little later that it did in fact help.
Now, this antenna doesn’t have a counter poise of any kind so it uses the coax shield for the counter poise. To keep the stray RF out of the radio, I use a special coax from ABR Industries that has a ferrite common mode choke in one end. I simply put this end on the radio side and this allows the antenna to access the coax shield for counter poise use and also it keeps the common mode currents out of the radio… At least that is what I hope is happening, the strategy seems to work so I am running with it.
Position of the 40m EFHW antenna today for my POTA activation. Well above the ground!
POTA Activation Highlights
So once the radio was all put together and powered up on the table, I connected the speakers from my custom built project. This is a power pack with a 3aH Bioenno battery in a project box with a power-pole receptacle and a set of speakers so the Penntek TR-35 can be used like a regular radio since it has no internal speaker. I like running it like this if the ambient noise level is low enough as it allows the people around me to hear the CW as well. This sometime sparks interest and people will come over and ask me about what I am doing. A perfect5 opportunity to share with someone about amateur radio.
I started listening around a little and found 14.061mhz was clear after listening for a while. I have found that I will hunt me a clear frequency then get out the logging computer, boot it up and get the software running and ready to use, then I will spot myself on the POTA app all prior to sending that first CQ call. If you do any of this after sending that first call, you had better finish before the radio memory buffer does… that is all I have to say about that…lol. Just like clock work, I got an answer on the very first call too! I worked about 15 or 20 stations in pretty short order and then the QRM started. Someone decided that a QRP operator in the QRP portion of 20 meters activating a POTA park with a valid callsign was completely unacceptable for some reason. At first (read that as “for the first 5 full minutes” I actually thought they were just either missing me and sending their call twice or couldn’t hear me or something. You see, I was working stations the whole time! haha. So I finally stopped and listened and this person was sending real CW so it was someone who went to the trouble to actually learn it. But here is what they were doing, they would send a random letter, wait 3 to 4 seconds and send another random letter and then wait some more then do it again. All it really did to my normal QSO pattern was have me simply send everything twice as the spacing they were using allowed for this perfectly. Then I would send a CQ out of my keyer memory as the Penntek TR-35 has 2 keyer memories built into it. As soon as the CQ would start I could hear them in between my characters trying to jam me, so I would simply hit the keyer a second time and let it send the WHOLE message again and by then they either realized I was using a memory keyer or got tired of competing with a machine and would stop…till I would send a signal report. LOL. Remember what I just said about the cadence and my tactic to combat it? Well, I think they finally gave up at around QSO number 50 or so.
POTA station consisting of the Penntek TR-35, homebrew “S” meter, homebrew powerpack with speaker, Begali Traveler CW key and Relianca Antenna wtih ABR Industries Coax
Murphy’s Law at Work during a POTA Activation
That’s right, I made about 30 contacts while the QRMing op was actively trying to sabotage my activation. lol. So while this was going on, there was another “storm” brewing in the background… the lawnmowers had arrived…
State park grounds keepers doing lawn maintenance.
They had been in the distance, but at this point they were starting to get closer and closer… At this point I am starting to think that these guys have been hired by the guy messing with me on the air! It was like they had been signaled or something. Just about the time the QRM vanishes, they show up!ll, to start with they were mowing over on the far side of the area so it was mildly annoying but not a real problem for my operating…but then…
State park employee doing lawn maintenance while I activate POTA at US-2169 Cloudland Canyon State Park.
You guessed it, they felt it imperative to cut the dead leaves in the picnic area RIGHT BESIDE ME!!! Do you see any grass in that site?? I sure didn’t, but he sure was mowing it! Good grief, this is starting to get out of hand at this point and the sound of the engines was so loud that I had to resort to ear bud headphones to be able to hear. This did mitigate almost all of the noise from the mowers but it didn’t do anything for the dust cloud they were stirring up. Good grief.
David - WK4DS resorting to headphones due to high noise in the local environment during POTA at Cloudland Canyon State Park
By this point I had almost 80 QSOs in the log so I set a goal of getting 80 counted QSOs to go towards my goal of 10,000 which meant accounting for the dupes in my log, of which there were many today. You see I had been there for several hours at this point and some stations had wandered by me a couple of times. I know I worked one station 3 times today, but so is life sometimes. I no longer tell people I have them in the log, I automatically assume one of two things have happened.
The first one is that I could have gotten someone else’s call wrong and therefore I now have the legitimate call on the hook at that moment. (very possible with my poor hearing at times) The second is that they simply don’t realize I have them in the log. So I work them again and log it again and simply let HAMRS record it as a dupe and move on with life. It doesn’t hurt anything to log them again, other than the time it takes, so I simply complete the QSO as if it was the first time. No harm, no foul.
CW and North America came in clutch for this POTA Activator today!
Today saw me work over 80 calls and of those exactly ZERO were outside of North America. I worked a couple of Canadians but other than that, the rest were US operators only. Not a single DX station at all. It could be one or more of several factors I guess. I did put over 80 calls in the log for today and that is a great day despite all the various things that attempted to stop me. haha. In the end, it was still a wonderful day and I had a great time with my tiny little Penntek TR-35, my Begali Traveler CW Paddle and the Reliance EFHW 40 meter antenna. What a great little setup! Portable, light weight and best of all, it works! What do the old timers say? “Five watts and a wire…” Yeah, it will absolutely work if you will go when the bands are open and just try…
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72 - WK4DS (David)