WK4DS Amateur Radio Blog
Ft Pulaski POTA Activation & Noise
When I went to Tybee Island Georgia recently, I had no idea that I would be within minutes of a POTA park! Ft Pulaski National Monument is park number US-0930 is right outside of town and I was able to get a couple of hours free to ride over and setup a radio to see if I could get my 10 within the window of time I had.
When I went to Tybee Island Georgia recently, I had no idea that I would be within minutes of a POTA park! Ft Pulaski National Monument is park number US-0930 is right outside of town and I was able to get a couple of hours free to ride over and setup a radio to see if I could get my 10 within the window of time I had.
Military POTA park - US-0930 Ft. Pulaski National Monument
When I arrived at the park entrance, I was greeted with a pay station manned by a park employee. The actual fort is across a bridge once you pay the fee…but…there is a loop hole here. You see, the entirety if the park covers way more land than just where the fort is located…way more. The marshland all around the area is also inside the park boundaries. Well, it just so happens that there is about 7 parking spaces OUTSIDE the park entrance! These are for people that want to walk on the footpath that runs along side the road heading out to Tybee Island. The foot path is actually the old railroad bed, but the national park service does a great job of keeping in up for people to ride bicycles and walk on. So I parked in this area for two reasons. One, it is free to park here…and two, it is way faster to setup since I didn’t have to mess with paying to get into the park and then driving to the other side of the bridge to search for a good spot to setup the antenna.
Setting up a temporary POTA radio station
Today I used the 18’ whip and just simply hopped on 20 meters to start with to make sure I got my minimum of ten QSOs in the log before I ran out of time. I had really high hopes for this location too since I am VERY near the ocean here. We all know salt water adds several dB to your signal! haha. See those power lines and that pole in the background? Hold that thought.
I ran the radio into the cab as usual since I needed the power from the truck to run the radio today. I also didn’t plan on running anything other than the TenTec Scout 555 radio today as I was not sure how long it would take to get the activation in the bag, so I figured I would stick to something I knew would get the job done…CW. It was at this point that i also realized that since I had not planned to activate a park on this short trip that I didn’t bother to bring my logging computer either… dumb, real dumb… I was back top the old reliable paper logbook for this one. I keep a composition notebook in the truck just for this occasion and a couple of pens just in case I forget to bring one of those as well. So I was good to go for logging.
Here is something that a lot of people don’t consider. How to keep the hot sun from baking you alive in your car while activating. I simply put up my window shade and rolled down the windows to let the breeze into the truck and it made it very tolerable. The TenTec Scout 555 amateur transceiver has become one of my all time favorite POTA radios at this point. The simple nature of the design, the excellent CW operation and the novelty of the band modules makes it a lot of fun for me to use.
Below you can see how I transport the radio and some of the band modules that I keep in the case with it. At some point I am going to finish adding the one or two missing from the set as I have quite a few in the house so I just need to do it. Also notice the one special one in the case. That 60 meter band module is special. It is the only one on earth that I am aware of at this point. To learn more about it follow this link to see the blog post series where I build this module out of an 80 meter donor module. I keep this radio in a quality hard case to protect it from dust and impact damage as well as water as you can see the water seal on the lid in the photo as well. I also print “field manuals” for all my radios and keep them in the case. TenTec owners manuals have everything you need to keep the radio going, up to an including alignment procedures and a full set of schematic diagrams. Also in the case is the CW memory keyer and under the radio is assorted cables for connecting the keyer and the power cable as well. Another thing of note is the PL259 to BNC adapter that I keep on the radio. This standardizes all my coax cables for POTA to BNC cables only. I don’t run more than 50 watts on my radios so I can use BNC connectors without problems and these work really well. They are fast to connect and break down and work really well. The only down sides I can find are they lack water proofing, and are fragile to some degree as compared to PL259 connectors.
My CW key for today was the Begali Traveler portable CW key. This dual lever paddle key is one of my favorite keys and stays in the truck at all times now. MY N3ZN key that Tony built stays in the camper and I am working on getting that station up and running soon with an EFHW for 80 meters on it. I am hoping that I will be able to get 40, 20, 15 and 10 without much issue as well with that antenna. I have the transformer built, I just need to hang the wire at this point…anyway, enough with that rabbit hole and back to the activation!
Properly cased TenTec Scout 555 ham radio with hard case.
Solving power line noise on your TenTec Scout 555 ham radio!
The next few photos tell a tale about the power lines you saw earlier in the story. You see, when I powered up the radio, there was this terrible power line noise one the whole band, It was strong too… I was deflated to think that I had went to all this trouble only to be shut down with a bad power line connection nearby… I don’t have an external RF gain control on the radio at all, it is internally controlled by the ALC circuit from what I can tell. So there is no way to remove this noise with RF Gain… The noise was a little over S6 creating a really high noise floor to work with. Then I remembered that this particular radio came equipped with the optional Noise Blanker module installed from the TenTec factory! I flipped the switch and magically the noise just…vanished…
The noise floor dropped a solid 2.5 S units and that made a HUGE difference in my ability to hear weaker stations trying to call me. People will say that an S unit is not a big deal, well it is a big deal when it is measuring band noise! Suddenly stations were coming out of the noise and I could hear them! This was the very first time I have EVER used a Noise Blanker and it actually did the job it was designed to do and help me hear stations on the air.
TenTec Scout 555 Radio with Noise Blanker turned off.
TenTec Scout 555 Radio with Noise Blanker turned on.
At the end of the day, I had worked 18 contacts, securing my activation and putting several old friends into my log as well. K9IS has been featured in the BLOG a couple of times now and I have many contacts with N1BS as well. It is always great to see callsigns in your log that you recognize. I did attempt 15 and 17 meters before I called it a wrap and packed up but worked exactly zero calls on those bands so I didn’t bother including the page where I just made some band notes and called it quits…lol. Anyway, this is a fun park once you get the noise blanker turned on and I highly recommend it.
Until next time,
73 - WK4DS
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