Many thanks to Dale (N3HXZ) who writes:
“Thomas, Great response to your post [regarding the toughest CW paddles for field use]. What if we consider another idea: collecting the “Greatest Bloopers while Activating” shared by your readers?
I can think of several I did, but what takes the cake is a buddy of mine who forgot to attach his 50′ coax to the antenna. He worked for over an hour trying to make contacts with the coax just lying on the ground radiating. He ended up with three before he realized his setup error! But in those three contacts was Cristopher (F4WBN) from France.”
That’s funny, Dale! I remember not so long ago, I did something very similar. In my case, I forgot to attach the coax to my radio! I can’t remember if this was captured in an activation video or not.
One blooper, in particular, that stands out in my mind happened during the 2021 W4 SOTA campout.
While I didn’t make a video of that SOTA activation, I did document this mishap in a field report. Here’s the excerpt, starting from when our hiking party finally reached the summit of Standing Indian after a long, exhausting hike:
“By the time we reached the summit, it was about 14:30 local and I didn’t want to hang around for long. We had a decent hike back to the campground on a new-to-us trail.
My hiking friends (Christie and Patricia) wanted to hear me play a little Morse Code, so instead of taking the (much easier) VHF path to activating the summit, I pulled out the Discovery TX-500, Elecraft T1, and my Chameleon CHA TDL.
I’d packed the Chameleon Tactical Delta loop believing we’d be hitting a bald summit and I wanted to test the TDL on 20 meters to see if it could achieve a DX take-off angle.
The true summit, however, was not a bald so I had to set up the TDL among trees.
As I deployed all of my radio gear, I attracted a mini crowd of hikers: three more day hikers, and two AT tru-hikers. I was distracted and made a big error: I assembled the CHA TDL components, and tried to drive the steel spike into the ground while talking with a hiker. But turns out I wasn’t driving the spike into the ground at all, I was driving one of the telescoping antennas into the ground!
I pulled the telescoping antenna out of the ground and discovered the tip broke and the top three sections were damaged–I couldn’t extend them. I was forcing it into rocky ground after all.
Undeterred, I deployed the lop-sided TDL, hit “TUNE” on the T1 ATU and got a 1:1 match on 20 meters.
The 20 band was incredibly quiet. I thought for sure I wasn’t receiving a thing since one side of my loop was completely compromised.
I started calling CQ and within a minute EA2IF answered with a 559 report (bless you, Guru!).
Spain. With a broken antenna and 5 watts of power.
I worked four more stations in rapid succession all in the 1 region of the US, then I powered off the radio before I could hear anyone else calling me. I had achieved a valid activation and packed up quickly: we had more miles to log before sunset!
We hit the return trail…”
Reading through my field notes, though, I’d forgotten that my first contact was my friend Guru (EA2IF). Guru was an amazing member of the SOTA community and a friend to all. He passed away a couple years ago from cancer complications, and our community felt his loss in no small way. It brightened my day to remember that he was the first contact I made that day with my mangled antenna.
Good times. We miss you, Guru!
How about your field bloopers?
What is it they say — “misery loves company?” Let’s all share our mishaps and bloopers in the field!
Please comment!
It’s lame and mundane, but still it happens to me on a regular basis: Dead batteries in my Z-817 tuner.
Hello Thomas
One that stands out for me was several years ago while on family vacation. We traveled along the coast Of MI.
In Port Huron, I activated a lightship using the on board ship antenna and all was good.
I next moved to a lighthouse (Gratiot) to activate it with no joy….no contacts… Using a new carry along buddipole.
Our trip took us out to Mackinaw Island, for a few days stay.
Set up out on the balcony at a hilltop resort, still no joy, no contacts….
Further inspection revealed a rather large piece of plastic material used in the mfg of the antenna was covering one half of the buddipole connection point !
insulating it from radiating……..eerrrrgg !
I cleaned/scraped it away with a knife and wahlah ! joy !
many contacts..
My lesson learned, inspect those connections !
72/73
PS, your resent presentation to our club has inspired me to be more active and pursue POTA, SOTA, and portable ops.
I’m very grateful…
A number of years back I went for a hike and brought along my Small Wonder Labs SW40+ and my KD1JV ALT tuner to match an end-fed wire. This is a great little L-tuner in an Altoids tin that uses moveable headers to add and subtract inductance and it features an LED SWR indicator and a built-in resistive bridge to protect the PA during antenna tuning. The wire tuned up nicely draped over a branch and I started operating, noting that 40m seemed a bit quiet that day. I did manage to make 3 QSOs before I decided it was time to head home. As I was about to pack up I noticed that the TUNE/OPERATE switch on the ALT tuner was still in the TUNE position meaning most of my power was just heating up resisters. When I moved the switch to OPERATE the band sprang to life. My SW40+ puts out 2.5 watts max. My best guess was that I might have been getting a couple of hundred milliwatts of actual radiated power, but I still made contacts !
This was my accidental introduction to QRPp operating.
This is truly embarrassing, but at one of our club’s POTA activations last year, I set my radio (FT-891) up, connected the power supply, plugged the extension cable in to the electric in the pavilion, and flipped the switch on my power supply and nothing happened! After about 10 minutes of fuming and messing around with the extension cable, including plugging it into another outlet, I finally discovered I had forgotten to plug the power supply into the extension cable 🙁
I have had a couple of accidental QRP activations as well, when my FT-891 was new to me I found a setting called something like “SSB OUT LEVEL” and turned it up to 100 thinking it was transmit power. It was not until *two activations later* that I got suspicious about our low signal reports and found the proper setting, which I think was on 5W!
I’m not sure if that’s the most embarrassing mistake in the field – it’s got strong competition from the hour I spent wading through a salt marsh last weekend, looking for a path that didn’t exist…
I am publicly confessing that I am the operator that Dale, N3HXZ is referring to above.
My call sign is KJ3D. Forgetting to connect my coax feed line wasn’t the only bonehead antenna mistake I’ve made while doing a SOTA activation. In early December of 2024, I was activating alone during the first week of hunting season in rural Pennsylvania. The sounds of gunshots had my attention despite being clad in orange. After logging about 10 qso’s, when I went to disassemble the antenna, I realised that my Chameleon vertical was never extended. In both cases, the KX2 tuner tuned the coax beautifully! Jim, KJ3D
Hi Jim, and welcome to Antenna Anonymous. You’re in good company here. 😂
Thomas
K4SWL
My most embarassing field radio fail happened during the last POTA plaque event in July 2022. My club organized to get as many activator contacts as possible, and my friend Scott – AC3GB and I set out to do our part. We planned a 4.5 mile hike along the North Country Trail (US-4239) that would take us through PA Game Land 24 (US-8725) and Allegheny National Forest (US-0619), allowing us to collect 2-fer contacts from two activations along the way.
I prepared for the longer hike by moving my KX2 into a larger pack that would fit extra LiFePO4 batteries, water, and emergency gear. We hiked about a mile up the trail to our first activation site, and moved away from each other to set up and activate. I connected up the radio, and a cold chill crept over me when I realized that I had forgotten to transfer the KX2 external power cord into the new pack. I had no way to connect power from the external batteries.
Fortunately, the internal battery was fully charged, so I backed the power level down to 5 watts, turned off the backlight, and extended the CQ repeat time for the CW message beacon. In the end, I completed both activations before my battery ran out. Part of the reminder not to make this mistake again was the joy of carrying several pounds of useless batteries for 4.5 miles along the trail.
Best 73 de Brian – K3ES
Mine happened just 2 weeks ago. Was headed to Florida for a week with my family for spring break and packed up a small qrp kit. TrUSDX, K6ARK mini microphone (I’m not a CW guy…yet), 20m PackTenna EFHW, earbuds, battery and battery cable, and collapsible mast with some tomato wire. While hiking in a state park near Destin, FL we found a perfect park bench near a bike rack. The bike rack was great for supporting the mast with the tomato wire and the table just the right distance as my length of coax. Got it all set up, attached the power cable with power pole ends to the battery and then plugg…hmmm. Where did I put that barrel plug to power pole connector to connect the battery to the radio? After a search, it was apparently in TN where I left it!
Well, it was a good practice set up and now I am in the process of creating a check list for trips!
Chris DuBois
KQ4AET
I got halfway home and realized I left my antenna set up at the park.
During 2020, I was doing a string of POTA roves for ARRL Field Day and at the second-to-last activation on Saturday local-time, I managed to drive off without grabbing my mast’s drive-on base. I discovered the loss at the next activation and I was able to retrieve the drive on-base first thing on Sunday morning local time.
Also, on more than one occasion, I’ve managed to connect my end-fed random wire radiator and counterpoise wires to the same jack on the unun–doh!
Eric, WD8RIF
https://wd8rif.com/radio.htm
Bloopers?
I was operating from my truck with the first version of an operating surface- a melamine board between the center console and door armrest. At some point, I went around to the passenger side and opened that door. The board and everything on it headed for the ground. Not least of which, the Vibroplex Iambic-D. It ‘bounced’ and parts flew off. Perhaps there’s a category for the *least* durable key paddle.
I managed to console myself with a Begali.
72- Dave
I set up for a new-to-me park POTA activation, as I had a couple times before and with the same gear I use “back-deck-portable” at home: Icom 705, PA500 amp/tuner, coax, antenna. But this time I was deploying a new-to-me Packtenna EFHW.
Connected everything up and … NOTHING. Checked all my connections – solid. Still nothing. Tried a short SSB CQ to see if it was maybe a tuning issue. Nope. Changed antennas to a previously-used Chameleon EFHW (with all of the take down and re-launch of the wire into trees). And … nothing. Deployed my trusty Chameleon MPAS 2.0 vertical and still … NOTHING. Frustrated and out of time, I drove home.
At some point that evening, something in my brain clicked and I pulled out my radio and amp to check my revelation … Yep, I had connected the radio’s RF out to the amp’s RF out, and the antenna coax to the amp’s RF in. It won’t work that way to receive or send! LOL!
– Bill, WØVZ
I normally only operate my KX2 in CW mode, but I thought I’d learn how to use SSB just in case. I turned the power way down, learned how to adjust the MIC gain, and eventually felt like that mode was usable in case I ever needed it. Then switched back to CW. My next POTA activation was a bear. It took me over an hour to get 10 contacts and most of the signal reports were marginal. I was just getting ready to quit when I noticed that the built-in power meter wasn’t moving when I transmitted. Yup. What a dope. I forgot to turn the power back up and I did the whole activation at whatever the lowest power setting is that the KX2 will do, probably something south of 100mW. The good news is that activations at that power level are possible. The bad news is people with failing memory shouldn’t fidget with the settings. 🙂