by Thomas (K4SWL)

On Tuesday, May 20, 2025, I was on the final stretch of my journey home after spending a full week on the road for FDIM and Hamvention.

The previous day—Monday—I had driven from Dayton, Ohio, to Hickory, North Carolina, so I could be with my father during his surgery. Thankfully, the operation was a complete success and wrapped up late that afternoon. I spent the evening with him and opted to stay overnight in a hotel in Hickory so I could check on him again early the next morning.

By Tuesday morning, he was doing well, and the doctors gave me the all-clear. So, I packed up and began the final leg of my trip back to the QTH.

Instead of heading straight home, though, I wanted to fit in a bit more POTA. Due to my father’s surgery, I had left Dayton a day early, missing a planned activation day with my Ham Radio Workbench friends.

The weather was wonderful, and I was curious to see if Tuttle Educational State Forest had reopened yet. The park had been closed since late September 2024 due to storm damage from Hurricane Helene. A quick call to the Tuttle office confirmed they were indeed open that Tuesday morning!

Tuttle Educational State Forest (US-4861)

If you’ve been a reader here for a while, you’ll know that Tuttle is one of my favorite POTA sites in the region. I’d really missed popping by for activations, so it felt like a bit of a homecoming when I pulled into the site entrance.

The first thing I noticed was the excellent progress on their new educational building. Thankfully, no trees had fallen on it during Helene.

There were still a number of roped-off areas in the park—spots the staff hadn’t yet cleared of tree debris.

I parked my car with one goal in mind: to film a true pedestrian mobile activation.

QRP POTA in Motion

Exactly one year ago to the day, I activated a park in Ohio completely pedestrian mobile—walking the entire time. It was a blast, even though band conditions were truly horrendous.

I wrote about that activation in this field report.

The only downside? I wasn’t able to take you along for the ride because I had no way to mount a camera and record the activation.

Several months ago, I purchased a clip-on camera mount for this very purpose. I first tested it while activating a park in western NC this past February, but the resulting footage was almost unwatchable—my arms and hands blocked the view the entire time. I realized I’d need to mount the camera much higher (near my shoulder) to make the video useful and enjoyable.

This activation at Tuttle gave me the perfect opportunity to properly test my new pedestrian mobile setup.

The funny thing is, setting up the KH1 for a pedestrian mobile activation is super, super easy—it literally takes about 20 seconds.

But if you’re making a video? That’s another story.

First, I pull the audio directly from the KH1 by connecting its headphone output to my Sony digital recorder. I then plug my earphones into the recorder. The audio cable from the radio to the recorder is long enough that I can comfortably walk with the recorder in my pocket.

Next, I mount the camera on my shirt and do a quick check to make sure it’s capturing video properly (which isn’t easy—the camera’s so close to my head that I can’t see the screen!).

Finally, I take a few extra moments to make audio and video cues to help me synchronize everything in post-production.

All told, it took me an additional 10 minutes to get the camera and audio gear set up and verified. Time well spent, though—I’ve always wanted to film an activation in motion!

Horrible Propagation

Propagation in and around Hamvention (and even today as I write this) has been pretty unstable.

It was so bad two days prior that some of our friends had to complete their POTA activation by working a number of us Park-To-Park using dummy loads. If that doesn’t make a lot of sense, I suggest you check out this (funny) video my friend Vince (VE6LK) made of the whole thing.

So, did it make sense to attempt a POTA activation in these conditions, pedestrian mobile, using a 5-watt handheld radio and a 4-foot whip antenna? Probably not, but I didn’t care. As Farragut put it, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

Gear

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Radio and Antenna System

• Elecraft KH1 Edgewood Package
  • Included 4′ whip antenna and 13′ detachable counterpoise
  • Zebra Mini Mechanical Pencil (preferred over the included Zebra pen)
  • Pelican Micro M40 mine is the modified version from Tufteln
  • Panasonic ErgoFit Wired Earbuds
  • Tufteln Antenna Angle Adapter

Camera and Audio Gear

• DJI OSMO 4 action camera with Magnetic Clip-On Mount
• Sony ICD-FX312 Digital Recorder ($20 thrift store find)

On The Air

While Tuttle has a really nice single-track trail network, I did not hike these for this pedestrian mobile activation for a couple of reasons (reasons I’d suggest you pay close attention to if you decide to walk and operate at the same time).

First off, it’s a bad idea to try to operate radio on a track that is uneven with rocks and tree roots along the entire route. It’s a recipe for tripping, twisting an ankle, and (even worse) falling flat on your face while holding a $1,000+ radio.

Secondly, the whip antenna needs clearance; otherwise, it’ll hit branches. Tuttle’s paths have low-hanging branches in many parts, so I would also need to pay careful attention to this while hiking and operating the radio. I’m well aware that I’m not nearly coordinated enough to do this!

Instead, I opted to walk Tuttle’s access road that crossed the entire length of the park. The road is gravel, even, and there are no low-hanging branches or limbs. Perfect for this type of activation!

In short, this activation was a lot of fun. At first, I thought I’d never be able to log a total of ten contacts after I started calling CQ POTA.

It took me over 35 minutes to log my first five contacts, starting on 20 meters, moving to 30 meters, then to 17 meters.

Next, I moved back down to 20 meters and, all of a sudden, the bands cooperated momentarily: I worked 13 additional contacts in 14 minutes. Woo hoo!

After 20 meters quickly died back down, I moved to 17 meters for the final portion of my walk, knowing it would be slow. Still, I managed to work two more stations.

All in all, the pedestrian mobile activation was a great success despite the flaky propagation. I owe it all to that 14-minute window of workable propagation on 20 meters.

Looking at the QSO Map below, you’d never know I was operating 5 watts pedestrian mobile. I even worked my buddy Mike (N7CCD) in Washington State some 2044 miles away!

QSO Map

Here’s what this five-watt pedestrian mobile activation looked like when plotted out on a QSO Map. Click on the map image to enlarge.

With distances:

Activation Video

Here’s my real-time, real-life video of the entire activation.  As with all of my videos, I don’t edit out any parts of the on-air activation time. In addition, I have YouTube monetization turned off, although that doesn’t stop them from inserting ads before and after my videos.

Note that Patreon supporters can watch and even download this video 100% ad-free through Vimeo on my Patreon page:

Click here to view on YouTube.

Serious fun!

After a full day of driving, it was so nice to be able to combine a leisurely walk with playing radio.

Out of curiosity, I had my Gaia GPS app record the walk on a map.

It looks like I logged a total of 2.74 miles over one hour and twenty minutes!

I’ll admit that walking around with my KH1 calling CQ POTA in beacon mode really helped the time pass during those lulls in propagation!

I will certainly do this again!

Thank you!

Thank you for joining me during this walking POTA activation!

I hope you enjoyed the field report and my activation video as much as I enjoyed creating them!

Of course, I’d also like to send a special thanks to those of you who have been supporting the site and channel through Patreon, and the Coffee Fund. While not a requirement, as my content will always be free, I really appreciate the support.

As I mentioned before, the Patreon platform connected to Vimeo makes it possible for me to share videos that are not only 100% ad-free but also downloadable for offline viewing. The Vimeo account also serves as a third backup for my video files.

Thanks for spending part of your day with me!

Cheers & 72,
Thomas (K4SWL)

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