Here is the setup. I wanted to activate my local park after work and had a couple of hours to do so. I had a long day at work and then had some other stuff to do after that, but wanted to goto a park. We worked out the small stuff that needed doing right quick. This makes me think I don’t have time to get in an activation before dark, but Teresa assured me that I had time…how did she know??? LOL. I load up and ride over and find the frisbee golfers are few in number today so parking was easy. I grab my favorite spot at K-2169 and put up the 17m hamstick and get started… I was not ready for what was about to happen…
Here is the operating position for the afternoon. The cab of the truck works quite well of POTA. I figured out how to setup the Icom IC-705 so that it is out of the way, yet easy to work with by propping it on the bag that is sitting in the other seat. This works fine for solo ops, but will be a problem if someone goes with me.
I finally tried installing more than one set of radials at once this time and it worked! The SWR on 40 meters was pretty high at 2.3:1 but it worked fine as evidenced by the pages of QSOs I logged with it like this. I have done a lot of research and 2:1 SWR isn’t really a problem as much as some would think, it does loose efficiency, but not that much. So little that I ran this high SWR for over an hour and the radio was barely warm and it worked wonderfully well. I still need to make a set of dedicated 40 meter radials and a set of 15 meter radials now that I have the 15 meter stick…
So I get in a good spot and deploy the antenna system and this time I go ahead and rig the radials for 17, 20 & 40 meters (20 and 40 share radials) so all I needed to do was change radiators to change bands. The idea is that the rf will find the right antenna and radials and ignore the others and it does.
Side note: I am making a part to allow for 4 hamsticks to be mounted at once on the base so I will soon be able to just change bands on the radio without having to go outside of the truck. This system has proven itself viable for portable operations like this.
By the end of the activation, I had the place to myself. Well there was a herd of deer just out of camera shot that I saw when I left…
I started on 17 meters with the hopes of getting enough to have an official activation just on 17. It took me a few minutes to get going so to speak, but once it did, I had a constant stream of contacts. Finally it died down a little so then I switched over to 20 meters because this is where the “scores” can REALLY change, to borrow a line from some gameshow I used to watch. I think it was Jeopardy… but anyway, QSY to 20 meters…
Well, 20 meters DID NOT DISAPPOINT!!!! Holy Mackerel you guys brought your A game!!! I even worked a contact in France while on this band! I finally caught a lull after some kind of crazy nonstop run on 20 meters (something like over 40 contacts on 20 meters alone) and decided to QSY to 40 meters.
Here is where I didn’t really expect to get all that many calls as 40 meters is more localized for me with the hamstick antennas. I get the closer states more than anything else. Well, this didn’t seem to matter either as the calls started coming in! I worked something like 46 calls in a little over an hour on 40 meters before there was a lull so I could go QRT and pack it up. What a day!
The sheer density of the QSO map should say it all. Just crazy to me at how many people answered my little call that day. Some of these call signs have more than one contact too since they called me on multiple bands like KJ7DT did.
That is a lot of QSOs in one day for me! Thanks y’all!
Check out the log for this day, I have several ops that I worked on two bands as well. I love these kinds of days but to be honest, they are a little overwhelming when you are accustomed to making 15 to 20 QSOs in an outing…still it was awesome.
Just looking at the logbook shows that the bands were on fire and the ops knew it and got on! I have never had so much fun with a 5 watt radio that I can remember. I have only had one other outing where I got over 100 QSOs in one day so this is really special for me. Thank you all for replying to me and allowing me to have such a great day!
72
David - WK4DS