Pota

I made my first trip to US-1426, Swatara State Park for a quick activation. I stretched the 41-foot EFRW to a tree right from the car window, and made 13 FT8 contacts on 40m.

I activated US-9719 Susquehanna Riverlands. The tempurature was decent, though a little bit of a mist. I got lots of practice throwing very high in the tree. I used all my throw line to hoist my EFHW into the air. Some people lingered to watch while I struggled to get just the right branch.

I found a large section of coax was bad, so had to scramble a little to get enough cable. I worked 20M to get 2 CW park-to-park contacts and 28 more FT4 contacts

I went to Hawaii for the first couple weeks of November 2024.

I packed up all the POTA radio gear and headed out to fly to Hawaii. I carried all my radio gear and big battery in my carry-on backpack.

I added a few repeaters, and scanned 2M, but didn’t hear anyone on my UV-K6.

I started out operating FT8 at the resort with the EFRW (12.5M) strung between columns on the patio. I could reach stations in Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Oregon on 10m, 12m, 17m, and 20m. I had to turn up to 8W to get heard.

For parks, I operated 6 parks and 2 trails across 2 islands: beaches, lava fields, and volcanos.

On 2024-11-04, I activated US-0753, Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, with the EFHW for 40m strung across trees in the picnic area near the rocky coast. I accidentally split the day, since I wasn’t familiar with the timezone offset. Fortunately, I had enough contacts for an activation in each of the 2 days. Much of the west coast of the big island also counts as US-4565, Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail.

On 2024-11-08, I activated US-0037, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, with EFHW stretched from a shelter and picnic table to a nearby tree on West Rim Road in the park. I struggled for a bit from my start at 10am. Conditions got better near 2pm local time, and I finished up my activation while having lunch with Emily.

On 2024-11-10 I went to US-2214, Kekaha Kai State Park, after running around a bit to find a spot. I wanted to work fast, and there were no trees in the vast lava field, so I deployed the whip and coil bungied to the fishing pole and the grill of the car. That activation went pretty fast.

On 2024-11-13, I visited US-0739, Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park, which is also US-4565, Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail. It had closed an earlier day, so I couldn’t activate that day. It was good, because I hiked the mile or so to setup on the beach and toss the counterpoise for the vertical whip into the ocean.

On 2024-11-16, I walked across Waikiki to US-10923, Artillery District of Honolulu Historic Site. It was pretty early morning and slow. I strung the shorter EFRW (12.5M) from a table to a tree in an inverted V. I chatted a while with another traveling ham, and I didn’t manage to complete my activation. I ran out of time, and packed up.

My last activation was on 2024-11-17, at US-6425, Diamond Head State Preserve, I setup at a picnic table near the hiking trail, US-10913, Diamond Head Summit State Trail. The whole park is in the caldera of the volcano. The EFHW stretched from table to a tree. The antenna wire disconnected from the transformer, but it was close, so it received OK, but trying to transmit showed a high SWR where the antenna would never usually. It was super-windy as the sun set early over the mountain surrounding me.

I went camping and activating Pine Grove Furnace, US-1398, and Michaux Forest, US-5471. I stretched the EFHW over the parking lot, because I thought it wouldn’t be busy. I got 21 FT8 contacts and 2 CW contacts to other parks.

W3RRR Ham Fest

I passed the test for Amateur Extra: 40/50 correct. I needed 37 correct.

US-4567, Captain John Smith Trail

• POTA with Matthew, KC3WRY, at the boat launch under train tracks south of Marietta.
• FT8 on 20M
• 1 CW P2P contact on 20M. I didn’t fumble so much.
• I used the newly-printed and rebuilt EFHW winder and throw line. The velcro strap remains a problem for snagging the line.

I got in W1JMA’s log when they were activating US-7545. on 7047.5kHz. They looked me up in QRZ, so knew my name and location. I sent 599 and received 599. It was a super-minimal exchange, because I fumbled a lot.

I had to read a bit about how to correct errors, and I soon stumbled into AF3Z on 7036kHz, and I saw a funny series of attempted corrections: “a littr eee a littr eee a bit”

Later, I Got a second contact, KV4UD.

I used the EFHW for everything. I activated 4 park entities:

• Caledonia State Park after riding the Michaux GRVL ride.
• Michaux State Forest from the ATV trail parking on the ridge.
• Kings Gap Environmental Education Center late in the day, so I raced a little.
  • antenna up in about 8 minutes
  • 10 contacts within 26 minutes
  • on the road again 14 minutes later
• Pine Grove Furnace the next morning, where I ran out of battery, so I did the whole thing with 1W FT8. I practiced a bit and started putting out my call on CW to see if RBN would pick me up, but kept it to a shy 1W. It didn’t pick me up.

I ran some errands and wandered off to Susquehannock State Park, US-1425 to play. I started with SSB phone, and immediately heard Hawaii. The bands were busy with QSO Parties for Hawaii, Kansas, and Ohio, so I kept hunting people and easily got my 13 contacts. I never switched to the computer for digital modes!

In addition to the QSO parties, I caught a contact from Italy and K8MRD of Ham Radio Tube in a park in Texas. I bothered one last operator with a little CW, but I failed pretty badly. The radio was decoding for me, but my keying wasn’t up to the job.

I setup camp at Marietta Riverfront Park with the EFHW stretched from the pavilion to the nearby tree. I was expecting to get rained out, but it never came.

I got 23 FT8 contacts on 20m and 3 SSB contacts on 40m and 20m at 10W. I also spoke to a nuclear ship in Baltimore, and I heard some light house special event stations. It was so quiet there at the park compared to my desk full of computers that I thought the NR was stuck on.

W3FIS, Dr. Paul Ross, stopped by to activate, so we chatted a while after nearly 25 years since I last saw him when I was in college.

Ben and I grabbed dinner and headed to the Columbia Riverfront Park to activate US-4567, Capt John Smith Trail.

Since there were more people around, I setup the simple GRA-1900T next to our picnic table instead of throwing wires. 20m was very busy, so I was getting a bit lost in all the traffic. I moved to 40m and re-tuned to rack up my more local contacts. As the sun set, our reach got better on 40m. Of course, I accidentally crossed 0000UTC again into the next day, so it was 2 activations: one (incomplete) with 5 QSOs, and the other with 14 QSOs. I operated all digital, since it got dark, and we were looking to pack up soon.