My First CW POTA Activation
by Joshua (N5FY)
As I often do, I hunted yet another CW POTA activator during my lunch break while working from home.
I have been learning CW for most of the year. Early on, I realized that with a bit of practice sending, and after listening to recordings of POTA activations, like those from Thomas, I could reliably send the proper exchange needed to hunt a POTA activator.
If you can give your call sign, signal report, and state abbreviation, you can make the contact. I started early on with just the basics and then added some of the common “extras” like GM for good morning, TU for Thank You and then 73. Not only is this great practice for getting on the air sending CW, it’s also very rewarding while learning CW. The exchange is short, standard, and easy to follow with a bit of practice.
Once I finished my upgrade to Extra I focused all my spare time, not much though truth be told, on practicing CW.
At some point this summer I set the goal to Activate POTA/SOTA during the W4G SOTA campout this fall. This really wasn’t an aggressive goal, one I figured was attainable but also one that I could hold myself accountable to even knowing I had a very busy summer ahead of me.
During one of the LICW Club classes I heard again that their goal is to get Hams on the air to make a QSO. I thought to myself, yes, that is great, and I want to do more, but I know I have made many QSOs in CW on the air, albeit very short and simple ones. So, I was curious how many.
I jumped on the POTA site and looked up my statistics. I was surprised at how may hundred I had, and yet at the same time, I was a bit disappointed. It’s not that I wanted to have made more CW contacts, it’s that I realized that they were ALL from hunting and not a single one was from calling CQ.
So, I changed my goal.
I know that Hams, especially CW operators, are a great bunch of people and they want to see new CW operators succeed, so there is lots of patience when you call CQ. So, I decided to move up my timeline. This was on a Thursday, and Saturday was a likely candidate for a POTA outing, why not–?
Saturday was my birthday, and I knew I could get away with some personal free time in the morning where I could dive in and call CQ POTA DE N5FY. The next day, Friday, I firmed it up, I would head out in the morning, bring the new to me KX2 and see what happens.
Surprisingly, I was much less nervous than I expected, I had told myself that it wouldn’t help anyways to be nervous so just do it and see what happens. I made it to my local park, to the picnic table I frequent, then setup a No Transformer 2-Wire antenna with the KX2. One press of the ATU button and I had a 1:1 match on 40m band.
Of course, I have great timing. I could not believe the stations on the air on 40m. I never did look but there must have been a contest. I moved up and down about 20kHz and there were stations everywhere! I called “QRL?” on 2 different frequencies and had a reply before I landed on open frequency where I could call CQ.
I had not scheduled the activation; I knew I had a bit of cell phone coverage at this park, so I set the CQ POTA message to calling while I posted a spot.
After two calls, I had my first call back. It was time!
I could have freaked out here, but I was too focused on decoding to even be nervous! Of course, I had to send a partial call and a “?” once or twice to get the full call right. Of course, I made some keying errors. But the caller had patience and worked me and we made the QSO. Now I was really excited!
I called CQ and someone sent me back dits and dahs, and I decoded what they were sending! Boy, this was fun! I continued to call CQ POTA, and tried my best to decode the replies, several pileups, and lots of “?” sent by me. But I was making contacts and having a blast!
After a couple of silent CQ calls later, I switched to 20m. And, again, started to get replies back as well as a couple small pileups. In the end, there were a couple call signs that I could not look up, l had a letter or two wrong, but with almost 20 in the log I knew I had an activation and boy was I happy!
Looking back on the activation, and after talking to another Ham, it occurred to me why I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I might be.
You see, when you are the Activator, when you call CQ, the ball is in your court, you invite people to call back and they are there for you. I almost get more nervous hunting as I don’t want to slow down an activator or run over another caller. But when you are the one calling CQ, it’s your game!
Of course there were several hiccups along the way. For one, it got HOT sitting in the sun. I ended up deploying my hiking chair on the table as a sunshade and pulled a portable fan out of the car. Even the action camera overheated while recording the activation. I couldn’t get the KXPD2 paddle to key the KX2 on 20m when I first got setup. And of course, I had lots of sending errors (although fewer than I expected to have) and sent a A LOT of “?” asking for a repeat.
That said, I am very glad to have jumped in and will continue to activate CW going forward as I continue to build my CW skills. For me, confidence in the ability to Activate on CW is great motivation for practicing, which again, is my biggest learning. If I want to be a good operator, I need to put in the effort, and going out to play radio is one extremely fun way to practice!
73 Joshua N5FY
Joshua – Sincere congratulations! Now, know that CW activating is addictive. REALLY addictive!
Congratulations, Joshua! You’re off to a great start.
Joshua-
Congratulations on that great first Activation! You’re on your way.
Getting comfortable with CW is a great goal, and you’re getting there. It took me a mere 50 years to reach ‘contest speeds’ but that’s not necessary. I run about 20 wpm in the Field, but I get callers struggling with a straight key at times. I can’t readily slow the keyer down, but I space the characters out (‘Farnsworth sending’) for them so I’m easier to copy. I’m delighted to work them- I was there once.
Keep up the good work, and hope we can connect on the air at some point! 73- Dave, K1SWL
Joshua… Sometimes the biggest challenge is our own mindset.
This path of CW, is full of surprises, and we only need venture farther down it’s winding way.
Good gear, like the KX2, can help decode. Filter out the QRM, and send CQ’s… Careful listening, tons of practice, and you don’t hear letters, you hear ‘RR’, ‘CQ’, TU’, GM’, ‘de’ and the other prosigns, the limited vocabulary of an exchange, You’ll hear the sequence and know whats coming next. The RST, the 72… and soon, confidence will sear the code in your mind.
Keep activating, and hunting. 72 de W7UDT ID
FB on your first activation and welcome to the party!
If you’re like many here, you’ll find activating parks and summits on CW to be a compelling pursuit, some might say it’s addictive.
Also, if you continue you will probably find you have a group of “regulars” that contact you on most of your outings. That’s fun too.
73 de W6CSN
Joshua, you remind me that, like you, I almost didn’t have time to be nervous during the activation. I was too busy copying callsigns! 🙂
Absolutely fabulous job with your activation.
Well done and congratulations! Thank you for sharing your story.
72,
Thomas
K4SWL
Joshua, congratulations !
I have been operating CW for over 40 years and I was still very nervous the first time I did a POTA activation as I had never really been on the receiving end of a pileup. It gets easier with practice.
I hope that your experience encourages others to do the same.
Cheers
Michael VE3WMB
Great, Joshua,
I made my first CW activation yesterday. I had a novice license when we had to use CW only, which is something that you just don’t forget. I am comfortable with the CW, but had to send several ditditdahdahditdits, too. I hadn’t worked a CW “pileup” for many years. It took a while to get used to picking out parts of a call sign. Sounds as though you did well.
Thomas’ videos helped me with knowing what to expect, to know the anticipated exchange.
I only made 21 QSOs in about an hour, then the band seemed to fade a bit. Or maybe there were no other people to work. I only had a 20 meter antenna – 15 and 10 were quiet. I had no tuner with me to make 40 work. I’ll look for you, Joshua, for a P2P QSO.
Good job Joshua! Just in time for the W4SOTA campout, too. Looking forward to seeing you there.
Great report on your first CW park activation. You did a really first class job. Like you, all my POTA activity has been as a Hunter. I long to change that as there are a good number of parks and peaks around here in my part of Western Colorado but just haven’t yet convinced myself to get out there or up there and do it.
Thanks for the motivating post, Joshua! It’s time for me to be the hunted instead of the hunter.
73 Don KJ4MZ VA
Joshua,
Your report is inspiration for me to keep studying and give it a try. Thomas’s videos on this site are also very helpful in understanding the exchange.
Congratulations!
Great, Joshua,
I made my first CW activation yesterday. I had a novice license when we had to use CW only, which is something that you just don’t forget. I am comfortable with the CW, but had to send several ditditdahdahditdits, too. I hadn’t worked a CW “pileup” for many years. It took a while to get used to picking out parts of a call sign. Sounds as though you did well.
Thomas’ videos helped me with knowing what to expect, to know the anticipated exchange.
I only made 21 QSOs in about an hour, then the band seemed to fade a bit. Or maybe there were no other people to work. I only had a 20 meter antenna – 15 and 10 were quiet. I had no tuner with me to make 40 work. I’ll look for you, Joshua, for a P2P QSO.
Next day did it again, starting on 15 meters. Worked a bunch of contacts, including having Thomas, K4SWL stop by. He was stepped on multiple times while I was trying to pull his call out in the cross country/continent contact. Made multiple errors in the QSO, but is was completed. I looked for him on the spot page to see if he would be around for a contact. Instead, he called me – Yeah. Worked JA1VVH as the second highlight of the activation. Started on 15 this day, moved to 30 and then when the sun decided to be aggressive, moved to 20 for a bit. First time on 30 for an activation.
This is fun. Keep at it. I am learning a lot, not just about CW operation. Listen/watch Thomas’ videos when I need reassurance that I am making sense with my operation, then putting my own spin on the contacts.