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