Many thanks to Sam (WN5C) who shares the following guest post:

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Notes from a homebrew POTA adventure

Sam (WN5C)

I recently wrote about the homebrew transceiver I built to operate on a month-long trip through the American Southwest. Upon arriving back in Oklahoma here’s the final outcome: 27 days, 40 parks, and 669 QSOs. I honestly can’t believe that the rig went the distance, or that I made so many contacts on 2 watts or less!

The priority of this trip wasn’t radio, though. I’m an archaeologist and I’m starting a new research project that marries my historical interests with my love of two-way communication. In short, I’m studying the effects of how communication technology aided the American colonization and transformation of the western United States around the turn of the twentieth century. This means I walked and mapped single-wire telephone lines strung up in pine trees in northern New Mexico (used to connect fire lookouts with Forest Service ranger stations), a fascinating story of dramatic changes in land management. I also visited heliograph (sun-mirror signaling) stations established in southeastern Arizona by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1886 to assist in apprehending Geronimo.

I look forward to relocating and studying the artifacts from more of these heliograph sites (mostly on remote peaks) to reconstruct this communication network and understand the lives of both the soldiers and the Apache, and how this novel surveillance system altered the battlefield. Based on the artifacts I’ve seen so far there are many cans of Army-issued proto-Spam and beer bottles surrounding the signaling station where American Morse Code would have been sent and received via flashes of sunlight. The original Field Day?

But back to radio. I covered a lot of ground and activated parks in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Kansas.

At some locations I was camping so I was able to do multiple long activations and work the lower bands well into the evening. These were some of my favorite moments of the trip, being the only spot on the POTA app and leisurely working with no time or weather-based worries. It also gave me a chance to hear callsigns I was unfamiliar with, essentially exploring a new area of the country.

For other times, due to time constraints or weather (thunderstorms or that it was unbearably hot), I got my 10 contacts and moved on. Sometimes I packed the equipment for a long hike, often carried it from the car to a picnic table, and a few times deployed my antenna and operated from my vehicle.

Every activation was memorable in its own way. I worked folks from 44 states, five Canadian provinces, and an unforgettable contact from Italy.

The radio held up surprisingly well. Aside from it looking like a Dalí painting as the 3D printed box continued to deform in the heat, and some hot glue remelting, the electronic components worked as they should. I look forward to printing a stronger case and making some upgrades going into the fall. I do now have a real respect for the engineering that goes into designing field radios, especially those that are thrown into a pack!

After I began feeling less anxious about the homebrew radio (it kept turning on!) I could start focusing on the trip itself: an amazing POTA adventure with an often-uncooperative sun. Here’s a few themes I noted.

Patience

When I started doing portable QRP radio a couple of years ago the sunspots weren’t as numerous as now, but neither was there a significant solar flare every day. On most outings I could reliably operate 5 watts on 20 meters and log a contact a minute. It was so good that I could get cheeky and use very compromised antennas.

This trip humbled me. My schedule was ambitious, as I was thinking if I camped in a location for a week I could Kilo, or that on a long drive I could activate a bunch of parks before arriving at my destination. But, as the Thunderbird Mk1 outputs about 1.5-2 watts, there was no way to brute force through the will of the sun.

Even with a full-sized 20-meter vertical, boy did I struggle. My trip started ominously with the X-class flare and blackout on May 29th (when FT8 went dark) and only on rare occasions did I have some amazing runs or pileups from then on. Regularly I worked an hour or more for my 10 contacts. I quickly realized my folly for not installing a CW message function which would have made waiting for the band to open back up a little less monotonous (one of the planned upgrades).

I camped for the majority of the month, and for anyone who has had a similar experience you’ll probably agree on how much more attuned one gets to the natural environment when spending all your time outdoors. You notice little things like microvariation in the weather, the changes in moon phase, how animals schedule their days. This was the first time I felt oddly connected to something I couldn’t see but could hear, the ever-changing dance of the sun and the ionosphere. I had no control of this of course, so I just had to take a deep breath and enjoy the show.

But when those contacts arrived they felt good! Especially when I didn’t have cell service and had to rely on the Reverse Beacon Network to spot me. As I was traveling to new locations with strange band conditions, I didn’t know who would call me back and so anticipation was high. There were 669 little stories, only some of which I know. Justin KW6SEA contacted me with 500 mW on an attic dipole (very cool!). Rodolfo I4RHP from Bologna, Italy persistently kept calling as I was working after hours at the Tombstone Courthouse until I copied his call, I wonder if he likes westerns? Mike AL7KC kept finding me from North Pole, Alaska which seemed like a big deal every time (best 239 reports ever). And my elmer Perry N5PJ kept checking in every time he could hear me.

I’m not really into the gamification of radio, but I am competitive and set goals for myself. Sure, I would have liked more parks and contacts, but this trip taught me to relax, look up from the notebook and paddle, and enjoy where I’m playing radio.

Simplicity

I have a lovely neighbor who espouses a philosophy of “finding enough.” Simply put, it’s about separating needs from extraneous wants and being happy with what you have, a way of simplifying one’s life. I’m not very good at this but I think about it a lot.

Sometimes radio and technology in general feels like the antithesis to this philosophy, something new and exciting and necessary is always around the corner. But in building and operating a very simple radio I started to think about what is necessary to be successful and happy in QRP portables ops.

Of course, finding enough is a personal thing and will be different for everyone. But I realized I really don’t require much. Part of the fun about operating a homebrew radio is working within its limitations. I felt this limitation keenly with my power output which I solved with being patient. My receiver could be a bit more frustrating as its direct conversion and receives both sidebands. This leads to a headache when trying to work Field Day (on my last evening I worked 10 contacts to be part of the event and had my fill). Receiving both sidebands can also be a pain when someone is working higher than you and in no fault of their own is coming in as clear as day on your frequency. That just means I needed to be flexible in finding an open and quiet place on the band, or filtering out a QSO with my brain.

I was worried that I didn’t have time before the trip to install all the “bells and whistles” I wanted, for example the keyer speed potentiometer wasn’t functional and instead I just set it to 19 WPM. And you know what? It worked just fine! If someone is slower I just sent with Farnsworth spacing, it’s how everyone learns anyways nowadays. It’s another thing that would be nice to have, but wasn’t truly necessary. On the other hand, I always thought CW message functionality were a bit of a gimmick and didn’t include it, but this trip taught me that messages absolutely are essential.

I also thought about the bands I worked, as I built the radio to include six (40, 30, 20, 17, 15, and 10 meters). While I enjoyed working 40 and 30 meters in the evening the higher bands didn’t get the use I thought they would. In fact, in this point of the solar cycle 20 meters is the perfect all-around band, and I would have been happy with just that if I had to simplify further. A 20-meter monoband transceiver is my next project, something small that can be tossed in a bag and work the world.

For me, using simple radios has two advantages. The first is that I feel more connected with the bands, and with how operators worked back in the day. The other is that I can really appreciate other more advanced technology I have. Even though it’s primitive my Kenwood TS-520 base station feels like the future when I use it, a fun exercise in setting expectations.

Community

Spending a month away from my family and friends, much of it by myself, took adjustment and was often difficult. But getting on the radio for a few hours a day tied me into a community which I don’t think I appreciated until I needed it. This cracked me up because I’ve never been a ragchewer and quite like short exchanges. Even so, the joy I received from someone at home giving me a “559 OK” or someone I just met say “GM SAM” felt like a real connection.

I find CW POTA to be a welcoming and supportive group of good people. On those hot afternoons when the ionosphere was unsettled I came to rely on the POTA regulars who helped me finish an activation, and were obviously straining their ears to make it happen. And it works the other way as well. I received a few emails on my trip from newcomers to CW who let me know that our exchange was their first ever CW QSO, and I made sure to follow it up with encouragement to keep going.

And the community is large! Even though I knew my signal was weak I sometimes wondered why operators weren’t calling me back. It was illustrative when my friend Bill KF7OHM visited me at Colorado National Monument with his FT-891. The bands were in mediocre shape and he cranked the radio up to 50 watts to finish his SSB activation. For fun I tried a few CW CQs using his call (didn’t want to cheat my summer of QRP) and at 50 watts I felt like a god. The pileups! I know it’s only 2 S-units but sometimes decibels matter, and hunters are always out there. Maybe I should build an amp…

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I truly appreciate the support from many of you who have reached out during and after my trip, and to all those who called me back as I sent countless CQs into the ether. I look forward to continuing to hear you on the air. Best 72, Sam