What is my POTA Amateur Radio activation kit as of July 2022?

So my kit has always evolved, but I am trying to fine tune it to either make it lighter or easier/faster to setup or breakdown. Those are my main concerns as I am also only a daylight operator at this time so there is nothing about lights or such in my kit currently.

I think the first part to discuss should always be the RADIO! So my current setup consists on an ICOM IC-705 with matching antenna tuner. This rig will do all sorts of stuff that I have not tapped into before, it is even capable of VHF and UHF! It literally is an all purpose radio. I have only used it with SSB and CW so far though and really like the memory keyer functions a lot. They are super easy to program and easy to use. I am planning on setting up a simple RTTY system as it will natively decoder built in and a simple winkeyer will encode CW to RTTY and let me use that mode without a computer. All the better… LOL

Next item to discuss is the antenna tuner. I just bit the bullet and bought the ICOM AH-705 remote tuner too while I was at Gigaparts… Can we say buying frenzy? 😂 Well, I am glad I did, it has performed flawlessly the entire time without issue and the cool thing about it and the radio is that they both have their own battery systems in them. This means you don’t even have to bring a remote power source if you don’t want to and still operate up to 5 watts. I have done this twice now, once because I was in a hurry and didn’t want to spend time building out the external power system and the second time was when the external battery went dead from me not charging it. The tuner is simple to use as it is designed to connect either a BNC coax or use the included adapter and connect the wire antenna directly to the tuner, which is what I have been doing up to this point. It also ships with the cabling to connect it to the 705 but the power cable is not included, they do give you the connector so you can build a cable yourself, which is exactly what I did, complete with powerpoles and a fuse holder… lol.

The next item in the system in the battery. The current cell is an 8AH LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) and is the size of the batteries that are in UPS power supplies and kids power wheel toys and such. I started out using the sealed lead acid battery, and quickly realized that the newer battery was half the weight but with the same energy…maybe more… So I upgraded soon after putting the kit together. Best idea ever! I made up a pigtail with two power poles on it and it stays on the battery all the time. Another thing that is great about QRP is the wire sizes are so much smaller too. I am using 16ga wire for the power cords because that is plenty for my 10 watts of transmitter power and my tuner.

Next is the Antenna, I use a EFHW (End Fed Half Wave) wire antenna system that I bought called Radio Wavz RW705, it is a wire antenna kit with a whole bunch of widgets to help get the antenna setup. I also bought a small spool of 2mm arborist throw line and made a throw weight for it out of some stainless steel I had in the machineshop. I end up using the throw line as the distal end support line most of the time. This kit is great as it has a 33’, 66’ and two ten foot counter poise wires so if space is tight you can run the 33’ radiator and it works pretty well. I like running the longer wire with the 33’ wire for the counter poise though as it just seems to pull in the weaker signals better.

Right now, I have 3 QRP portable style radios, the IC705 and Elecraft K1/4 with internal ATU and a Factory built WA3RNC TR-35 that I have yet to use… Soon, very soon though. I really like the form factor of the TR-35 as it is really compact. I will probably be rotating those three radios through my pack as time goes on so they will all get some use. To be honest though, the IC705 will spoil you with all the features and the wonderful receiver in it. The touch screen is cool too but I dont have to have it, it does make things easier and some things harder… Anyway, on to the next items.

I dont log in the field with software at this time, I am not that dexterious to be hjonest, so I use good old pen and paper. Batteries dont go dead in a notebook… I carry three pens normally, two at a minimium. I have had one choke on an outing already so that solidified that part. I also have redundant antenna adapters for the tuner in case I drop one in a storm drain or some such. I also have a flash light a roll of red electrical tape, this serves two jobs, one I put it on the low part of the antenna when I am at a picnic table so people can see the wire if the happen to wander into the area and it is also electrical tape! I have a powerwerx voltmeter and the PD4 powerpole distribution block

I carry the handmic to the 705 and the N6ARA tiny paddle, I bought a eBay dual lever key and it has failed twice on me so far, I am currently looking for a spare key so if I break the N6ARA key I can still operate. It will probably be some sort of small straight key to be honest. I like CW more as it seems to work better in QRP scenarios. I will try to get voice contacts from time to time, but they are hard to do with 10 watts.

All of this is carried in a surplus camera backpack style bag from Thinktank Photo. They are my favorite company for travel camera bags as they seem to just last forever and are designed really well, even for ham radio!

Thanks and 73! de WK4DS

Back to K-2169! I get the luck of the draw and the bands cooperate!

Well, it has been a week since I activated a park so I had a few hours this afternoon and a charged battery, lets POTA!!! So I grab my bag and head over to Cloudland Canyon State Park and my usual spot has people in it and they looked like they were going to stay a while so I went to my second location of choice and it was all clear! Got the antenna up on the first throw this time! The sloper was facing 55 degrees NE to the high end without a single branch near it! I strung out the 20 meter wire for a counterpoise and hooked them to the tuner, antenna done! Cranked up the radio right at 20:00 UTC and I started calling CQ on 12 meters for nearly 15 minutes with zero replies! So I moved down to 15 then to 17 where I pounced on XE1XR in Mexico to start things off right. Not hearing much else, I go to 20 meters and literally find every HAM that has ever turned on a radio! Yeah, 20 was open… so I found me a spot and started calling CQ. I didn’t have good internet today for some reason so I sent my friend KV9L a text and got him to spot me, but then the reverse beacon took over after that I think because in 19 minutes I had garnered 15 QSOs and making this trip a valid activation! Well I didn’t stop there as I still had plenty of time to play radio so i kept calling and you guys kept answering. I logged KG5CIK at 20:51 UTC and moved to 30 meters for a minute to see what I could do there. I ended up with 6 QSOs on 30 meters then hit 17 again but no one was there and then finally back to 20 to finish out the day. Got a couple of park to park QSOs this time as well as K9IS whom I log almost every trip out and CU3AA in the Azores! I am always amazed at what just a few watts of rf can do! That was a good trip for me today, ended up with 37 QSOs in just at 2 hours time. That has to be some sort of record for me, I am sure of it. lol…

Compass I use is from my iPhone and it works pretty well as it also has a bunch of other data from the location as well. This is the direction the high end of my sloper was facing with it hanging at close to a 30, maybe 35 degree angle. Compare that to the QSO map for propagation reference info. I like this simple kind of research, alot of it is not documented, but I think it is enough to give me an idea of what I can do with the antenna when I string it up.

I overlayed the compass onto the qso map to see what it was doing and the results are kinda cool to see visually.

Using this tiny little travel key takes some practice as it is not super easy for me to master, it works really well but it is very small and I am used to large heavy bench keys that sit by themselves and do not require two hands to operate, this is what I am talking about. The key itself performs VERY well. I really like the little guy.

If you will notice, my logbook contains only CW contacts today, this is because of two things, for one, I love using CW. For some reason I have always enjoyed using this mode on the air, even though I am not very good at it… and number two, nobody could hear my calls on SSB today. I think it takes a little more than 10 watts to bust through a pileup… lol. I do get some SSB from time to time and plan to try some RTTY and FT8 as well in the future…once I learn how.

Thanks for your time and 73

de WK4DS

Got something magical in the mail today from my POTA radio time!

When you embark down the road of ham radio you learn a lot of history as part of the journey.. A little piece of that history is QSL cards. QSL cards are super interesting to me as I am pretty sure it is one of the only times that a person involved in an activity will go to the trouble of documenting and sharing that documentation with the other involved party to confirm it happened. A QSL card is usually nothing more then a post card with the contact data on it, sometimes mailed like a post card sometimes in an envelope. Then there are “nicer” cards that will have photos on them, but the ones I REALLY like have personal hand written notes on them. Those are the best to me. If you are active in radio very much on HF at all, you will end up with at least a few of these in your mailbox. The usual courtesy for me is to reply to all cards I get in the mail, I once actively sent cards to all my contacts that I made, but I no longer do that due to the costs involved, but I will always reply to one sent to me…always.

I find it charming to keep this tradition alive, but it can get complicated too, before you throw your card in the mail, be sure to check to see how the other op handles their QSL cards, there are several ways to do it , just so your aware. Most of these are done to help either save time or money and sometimes the DX station will have rules as well as sending a “green-stamp” to offset return postage or an SASE to help them with the expense of sending those exotic cards over seas.

Since I have been out of radio for sometime, I am honestly needing new cards. I think I will go with photo cards this time and not add any special logos so they will translate to all types of radio like voice modes and even digital.

Customizing your QSL cards doesn’t have to be a once and done thing either, I have routinely made custom QSL cards in the past by just doing some photo editing and then printing photos and writing the QSL info on the back. I would always mail these in envelopes as I didn’t want the post office sorting machines abrading the photos. But this is just one way to make the card, you can literally write a letter if you wanted to… The rules are not set in stone here.

I always enjoyed getting these kind of “shack” info letters, it was always interesting for me to see what the other op was using when we made contact. Sometimes it would be a 10,000$ power house machine and sometimes it would be a homebuilt rockbound radio that cost 25$.

Yes, we had a QSO and he was transmitting with 250 milliwatts! The note about the contact is below.

So I hope if your new to amateur radio that you will consider sending some cards out and going the extra mile and personalizing them as well. Have some fun with it! That is what it is all about anyway!

Tough conditions, dead batteries and a lot of amateur radio fun.

This is a tale of a guy who thinks he is going to get a “quick” POTA activation and then go grab some photos as well… It didn’t go like that…at all.

You see I thought I had this whole Parks On The Air thing dialed in and have even built a little “kit” to activate parks with that I can just grab and go. I am repurposing an old camera bag (a story for another day) and it organizes the QRP rig perfectly for activations. Soooooo, this is how it goes on that fateful day. I have a few hours in the afternoon on June 8th 2022 and tell the wife I am gonna “run” over to Cloudland Canyon state park and get a quick activation and then be back in time for supper with the kids later. I grab said POTA bag, hop in the truck and head over to my spot to activate K-2169.

Well, I should have heeded the warning when I got there I guess as my favorite location on top of the hill was occupied with a group of teens on a day trip from a local school. I circle through the parking lot really slowly surveying the area and decided to park for a bit and see if I could figure something else out when I catch a break! They start packing up to leave!!! So I wait patiently for them to vacate the location I want to use and once clear, I move the truck and grab my gear.

Setup was frustrating this time as I had to throw my line 7 times to get a good location like I wanted (turned out later that really didnt seem to matter, haha). I FINALLY get the line up in the tree and then hook up the radio and we are off to the races! Well, I was off to the races, seems nobody could hear me. It took several minutes of calling CQ to get my first contact. Normally once I get one, then I will end up with at least an activation (10 contacts) within about the next ten minutes. Not this time, it took a full ten minutes to get the next QSO in the log! So then I figure I would go hunting some other parks and I did get one then another! NO! It was a SOTA op that is didnt hear well… lol. Well after that I got my hopes up again as I got a run of 5 in about 25 minutes. As I would be just about to give up and try something else, I would get another one and it would keep me in place a little longer. So I am an hour in and only have 8 contacts at this point, I need 10 for a technical activation, so I REALLY want to get two more before having to shut down the operation. It was at this point that I realized why I was getting the 339 reports…THE REMOTE BATTERY WAS DEAD!!! I’m thinking at this point. Really doofus, your brought a dead battery to an activation??? Well, yeah, I did… So I am now running on the battery that comes with the 705 which will only produce 5 watts output. I can hear stations but they cant hear me… I head over to 30 meters and bag N3VO for the 9th QSO in the log, it is basically time to break down the rig, but I need one more contact to have an activation, so I go back to 20 meters and switch to SSB, after trying to get through 4 pile ups without no success, I score a park to park on my last QSO of the day and get my 10th contact securing an official activation. This one was close, but I made it, I quickly broke the rig down and headed home…

So if you think you cant make it work, there is almost always a way to do it, even if you have a dead battery and the bands are terrible for QRP and you have to switch modes, you just might get it done.

73

WK4DS

First Post about my radio activities and discovering POTA

Ok, brief history lesson. I got my first license way back in 2002 as KG4WBH and quickly found out that I had a love for the CW operating mode. I never turned my cards in but I have WAS in a shoebox under my bed…lol. I have thought about putting them in a frame, but I keep procrastinating.

Fast forward to today, I have been inactive for a bunch of years and then ran into a new friend in my photography hobby who is also licensed (KV9L) and he told me about this new thing call POTA… To be honest, I have never really been the contesting type as I never really enjoyed fighting a pileup just to have the DX station get tired and go QRT before I could get through, you see I have also never owned an amplifier either so I have had 200 watts max (TS950 SD) to work with. I also learned at some point, who Ten Tec was and fell in love with their radios. Currently use an Omni 6+ as my base station and am looking for a nice backup machine as well… I have had a couple of Jupiters over the years and love them too, great little machines.

Anyway back to today, I am going to start writing about my activations and such on here and sharing them to social media from here. I have been tracking some technical information as well as sharing my contact maps and a few photos of the locations when I do an activation. There is only about 8 or 9 so far so I have done and wanted to build an archive of them that was on my site and not on a social media site. I am an avid night shift hunter as well so you might just hear the old Omni replying back from Georgia if your out in the evening…

My POTA activation station is a little different. It consists of a ICOM 705 with matching antenna tuner and a battery power pack with a wire antenna. I normally use an ICOM 705 or an Elecraft K1, I am mainly using the 705 though as it works really well and is simple to use. The K1 is also a great little radio though and will be making appearances soon on my activations to come.

Well that’s it for this one, thanks for tagging along today, hope to hear you on the radio!

73

WK4DS