Because I receive so many tips from readers here on QRPer, I wanted way to share them in a concise newsletter format. To that end, welcome to QRPer Notes, a collection of links to interesting stories and tips making waves in the world of radio!
Foldable feet for small radios
Many thanks to Randall (K8UFM) who shares the following tip:
Thomas,
I found these on Amazon and they work great for small radios.
PONICOR 2PCS Zinc Alloy Mini Foldable Laptop Stand, Portable Computer Keyboard Riser with 2 Adjustable Angles, Self-Adhesive Invisible Notebook Stand and Keyboard Lift for Desk (Black)
This is Tom WW8D in Salem Va. I sure do enjoy your videos on youtube. I received a new KH1 yesterday and I just wanted to tell you that I have a clear waterproof case like the one you but its a slight bigger fromHarbor Freight. Its an Apache 550 and everything fits perfect in it.
I purchased the Apache 550 a few days prior to Helene hitting our area. I intend to make a post or video soon showing how this apache case compares size-wise with my Pelican cases. It is, in general, a much larger case than the M40 I currently use with the KH1. See photo below.
Video: Demystifying SWR
Many thanks to Vince (VE6LK) who writes:
Here is an EXCELLENT video explaining return loss, why lossy coax hides SWR issues and many other things:
Editor note – Please enjoy this guest post from Jeff Bourgeois VE7EFF.
Sometimes the elements just aren’t in my favor. I knew activating Echo Lake Provincial Park CA-3459 would be a propagation challenge. This POTA Park has never been fully activated before. Last year one operator attempted it and was only able to log four contacts. Today, I not only had mountains to contend with, but apparently significant solar storms in action as well.
What initially made this activation so challenging is that Echo Lake is located on a valley floor and that it is surrounded by mountains on almost all sides. I picked this particular spot to operate because it is the only location in the park that has a small window of opening to the South or South-South-East. I was hoping I could hit enough stations in the USA to make a successful activation of 10 contacts.
Echo Lakes is about a 2-hour drive NE from my home in Kelowna, BC, and about 45 minutes ESE of Lumby, BC. The last half-hour or so is on gravel roads. Now that we have arrived, my wife Alexis, VE7LXE, helps with unloading the gear,
This photo shows my narrow window of opportunity for southerly HF propagation. Mountains on the left, mountains on the right, and mountains behind me.
As you can see below, the eastern direction is mostly blocked by a mountain and SE is the direction where I typically have the best success of traversing the USA. I generally can’t rely on NVIS propagation; there just aren’t enough Canadian POTA chasers within NVIS range for me to make a successful activation.
Today, I’m using my recently acquired Chameleon CHA Porta-Mount to support the 34’ (really only ~ 32’) carbon fiber telescopic mast.
Once again, I’m also testing my homebrew coaxial sleeve dipole, now cut for the 17m band. I constructed it with RG-8X coax and terminated with a Fair Rite #31, 2.5” core as the RF block choke. My KX3 antenna tuner will take care of any SWR issues on all bands that I operate on.
Because I’m using a carbon fiber telescopic mast, I’ve previously noted that the mast has “significant” detuning effect on the antenna. Thus, I operate it as a slanted coaxial sleeve dipole. This moves the antenna away from much of the mast influence. The slant should also help with raising the propagation angle to hopefully clear the mountain tops (but not enough to make it NVIS).
The weather report was supposed to be mostly sunny. However, it turned out to be just the opposite and was cloudy, threatening to rain, and somewhat cold. It’s colder outside than I care for and the fact that it is threatening to rain, I decide to operate from inside my 2016 Subaru Forester. I only operate from inside my car when it isn’t viable to operate outside. Besides, I don’t want to risk getting wet today.
Now that my KX3 is fired-up and connected to the Bioenno 4.5 Ah battery and the antenna, I’m all set to see if anyone can hear me. I should mention that I’m operating at 10W today so I guess that disqualifies me as a QRP operator. 😊
Here is the play-by-play report:
I started calling CQ on 20m at 16:55 UTC (09:55 PDT). My first contact came 15 minutes later with KN7D in Utah. It took another 15 minutes to snag my next contact with WM2V in Arizona.
There’s not much happening for me on 20m, so I switch up to 17m. At 17:40 UTC I log N5RLH in NM. That’s it for 17m. Moving up to 15m, I snag a contact in NC with N4EX at 17:52. That was my only 15m contact of the day.
I went on to try 12m, 10m, and even 30m. Absolutely nothing over the next hour of calling CQ on those 3-bands. Back down to 20m. One contact with KE4KE in Minnesota. It took an hour and 15 minutes more to land just one more contact on 17m with KB6FPW/P in California at 21:00.
I’m definitely not breaking any speed records today. A tortoise could probably log more contacts than this.
Another hour passes until I land a contact with K0SX in Colorado on 20m. Suddenly, 20m picks-up steam and I land 4 more contacts on 20m – two in California and two in Colorado between 22:00 and 22:47. I’m almost at the end of the POTA UTC day for this park, but I’m determined to try to pick up more contacts before 00:00 UTC.
Last crack at 17m band. At 23:13 I land KJ7BS in Arizona. As my final contact of the UTC day, I snag KD7DUG in California at 23:15. I keep calling CQ for the next 45 minutes with no more results. It is now 00:00 UTC and the POTA day is over.
But something drives me on to keep calling CQ. I keep thinking propagation will get better.
At 00:05 I log my last contact of the day on 20m – a P2P QSO with AF0E in Colorado. I realize that this contact will have to go into the next day’s POTA log, but a contact is a contact. At the end of the day, I logged 13 valid POTA contacts, plus 1 into the next UTC day.
Tip: Click on the map for a larger image view.
The Contacts Map above does seem to confirm that my narrow corridor of propagation was primarily due-south or SSE – squeezing through the mountains opening. Some magic of propagation handed me North Carolina and Minnesota.
This is by far the hardest I’ve ever had to work to get sufficient contacts to activate a new park. I was determined to get this park activated, though. It took 7 hours of calling CQ to log 13 contacts. That’s a record 1.8 contacts/hour!
I don’t think the antenna is the real culprit for today’s weak results, especially considering that 6-days earlier I logged 68 contacts including 8 DX stations in Europe via Inonoaklin Provincial Park CA-3626 using this same antenna configuration. I wont get any awards for logging the most contacts per hour – but perhaps I qualify for an award for the least number of contacts per hour! They could call it the Snail Award. 😊
Between being surrounded by mountains and muffled by solar storms, it was a challenging day. Time to pack-up and make the 2-hour drive back home before it gets dark.
Many thanks to Tom (VA2NW) for this report on Chillycon, aka Chilicon – Vince.
Canada’s capital, Ottawa, is the home of the Ottawa Valley QRP Society. The group holds an annual weekend camp-out at the Rideau River Provincial Park (POTA CA-0365) in early fall and it’s affectionately called Chillycon (also known as Chillicon). This year’s camp-out ran from September 20th through 22nd with some folks arriving a few days earlier. It’s a low key gathering which largely consists of casual operating, socializing, sharing tips and tricks, and checking out everyone’s portable radio gear.
On Friday morning I packed up my van with radio gear, camping equipment, and enough batteries to get me through a weekend of operating and cell phone recharging. Rather than tent camping, I decided to set up a sleeping pad in my minivan. The trip from Gatineau Quebec took a little under an hour, and I arrived just after 2:00pm local time.
Entrance to Rideau Provincial Park in Kemptville Ontario Canada
I brought my new toy with me, the Venus SW-6B (metal case + internal battery configuration). In just a few minutes I was on the air with the radio, an AlexLoop Hampack antenna, American Morse Equipment Mini-B paddle, and Apple EarPod wired headphones. I made several POTA contacts before it was time to start my shift as the Straight Key Century Club’s Canadian Straight Key Month special event station VC3Y/VE3. Conditions weren’t great and there wasn’t a lot of SKCC activity in the middle of a work day, so I only made one SKCC contact that day. After SKCC hour, I joined in on the weekly K1USN Slow Speed Test (SST). I contacted a few regulars, and then I returned to POTA and made another dozen or so contacts to bring the total up to 17 QSOs.
Reading ‘The CW Way of Life’ by Chris Rutkowski by the (citronella) candlelight
For the second activation, I wanted to take Vlado to a site I’ve activated numerous times—one of my favorites—that he had yet to visit:
Table Rock State Fish Hatchery (US-8012)
We arrived on-site around 11:00 AM and, no surprise, had the place to ourselves. Honestly, I was hoping we’d see the three dogs that often pop by for a visit, but I believe they were on vacation with everyone else!
We both figured 20 meters would be our bread-and-butter band for this activation. More importantly, our transceiver was a 20-meter monoband (more on that below), so I deployed my new 20-meter end-fed half-wave antenna.
This particular EFHW is built on a transformer by Walter (NE4TN) at TennTennas.
TennTennas 49:1 QRP Transformer
I may have mentioned before that Walter gave me this little 49:1 transformer at Hamvention this year when I met him in person. Walter is one of my top hunters in POTA, and I can often count on hearing his call when I’m on 40 meters.
Walter handed me this little transformer as a thank you, with no obligation to promote it—in fact, he didn’t even tell me where they could be purchased.
But I’m a sucker for home-grown mom-and-pop ham radio businesses, so of course, I’m going to plug it! He sells these on eBay (partnership link) for $39 each as a small side business. Not a bad price for a solid little 49:1!
As I mentioned, I trimmed this one for 20 meters, but I’ll likely make it a linked antenna with 30 and/or 40 meters as well someday.
Vlado’s Homebrew Transceiver
I was also excited that Vlado brought along his homebrew 20-meter QRP transceiver.
I had seen this radio in his shack during various stages of development, but I had never had an opportunity to use it in the field.
I’m not sure if Vlado had used it for a POTA activation yet, in fact.
His little transceiver is super simple but sports proper filtering, an OLED display, and, despite the large battery he connected to it, has modest power requirements.
He built it into an old Kenwood VHF radio chassis he found at a hamfest. I’ve been with Vlado before when he’s hunted for chassis for his various homebrew projects. The OM is always building or repairing something in his shack.
We were really looking forward to putting this little transceiver on the air!
Gear
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Many thanks to Jeff (VE7EFF) who shares the following guest post:
2.5 km Trek into Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, BC, CA-4307
by Jeff (VE7EFF)
My goal this summer is to do more backpacked-in POTA activations. This is my 3rd POTA outing over the past week. Being in Canada, I don’t have much time left this season to do this before the weather turns too wet, cold or snowy for my liking.
I attempted to activate Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, CA-4307 last summer. However, I couldn’t get there because the FSR forestry service road was washed out about halfway to the park. My Subaru Forester is an amazing SUV on outback FSR roads, but this washout was too much to even attempt.
So, this year I decided to attempt to hike to the park on foot which turned out to be a 2.5 km trek with about 653 ft elevation gain. As always, my wife Alexis (VE7LXE) is my travel companion.
Our trailhead starts about an hour’s drive north of Kelowna, BC which is where we live. We park on the side of a gravel road near the trailhead. We will be following a 2.5 km segment of the Okanagan High Rim Trail, which will take us to our destination in the middle of Wrinkly Face Provincial Park.
We aren’t sure exactly where the trail starts from here. But just around the corner ahead of the car, is an adjoining FSR road. Here we find a sign and map of the Okanagan High Rim Trail (OHRT).
A closer look at the sign shows the OHRT trail starts near the sign. I have circled our starting point and ending point on the map photo, marked in yellow. (We ended up setting down about midway in Wrinkly Face Prov. Park.) So, off we go.
We found the trail!
Apparently, there was a heavy rain downpour early this morning. So, the trail is quite soggy and damp for most of the trek up. It’s also feeling quite cold this morning. We actually felt the need to put gloves on.
The beginning of the trail is a steady uphill trod. However, it also crosses a couple of FSR roads, which gives us some flat areas to walk on. While most of the trail is well marked with small markers, there were a few areas where we got off track for a short distance and had to backtrack. There are also free-range cows up here and they tend to create their own network of trails which often crisscross the OHRT trail, which causes periodic confusion as to which one for us to follow.
Thank goodness, I pre-plan these trips on my Garmin GPS and Google Maps to help with navigation.
I don’t think the OHRT trail is very heavily traveled. In some areas, the pathway is almost overgrown with vegetation.
Along with overgrown vegetation, fallen trees can also create an occasional obstacle. Often, the trail doesn’t amount to much more than a game trail.
Finally, some open views to the south! This could be a viable operating area. One problem though – we haven’t crossed the park boundary yet. Good news – the sky is starting to clear! Onwards and upwards…
Making good progress. We are now crossing into the park boundary.
Welcome to Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, CA-3407. You won’t find any parking stalls, camp sites, picnic tables, or outhouses here. But what I do hope to find here is… POTA heaven!
After trekking about halfway into the park, we finally came across an open meadow. Looks like this could be our POTA ops spot. In the far distance is a glimpse of Kelowna and part of Lake Okanagan.
Cabot Trail Activations on Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia – August 2024
By Bob K4RLC & Alanna K4AAC
In August 2024, K4AAC, my YL Alanna and I took a trip to magical Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. It was Alanna’s suggestion to celebrate my 74th birthday in July. She knew my “Bucket List” had a goal to visit and hopefully activate the two Marconi sites east of Sydney, the Parks Canada Marconi Memorial Site and the original 1905 Marconi House National Historic Site, both POTA sites. Thomas K4SWL kindly published the write up of this adventure a few weeks ago.
After initially activating the Marconi Park station at Glace Bay, we decided to drive the beautiful 300 kilometer Cabot Trail, which circles Cape Breton Island and parallels the rugged Sea coast on both the East and West sides, allowing you to have the steep mountains on your left and the Sea coast on your right – if you make the decision to drive the trail counter-clockwise.
As this was a last minute trip and we had complications with Air Canada delaying our trip by a day, we decided to follow the major points of a clock, and visit sites at the 3:00, 12:00, 9:00, and 6:00 PM positions. The major problem is that there are so many wonderful sites, it’s hard to decide where to visit.
The first day after we left Sydney (see Marconi write-up), we drove to Ingonish Beach Campground on the East, an easy drive from Sydney. You take the the Trans Canada Highway to pick up the northward Cabot Trail in South Haven. The Ingonish area has many places to visit. Alanna had done much Internet research and really wanted to visit Ingonish Beach at the campground. This is a very pleasant white sandy beach, bordered by smooth, rounded glaciated stones and views to the south of Cape Smokey Provincial Park.
As someone who lives part time in North Myrtle Beach SC, I was pleasantly surprised to see a lifeguard but even more surprised to see lots of people enjoying the very cold waters of the north Atlantic, with water temperature almost 20 degrees cooler than SC. It’s not even that cold when we do the Polar Bear Plunge on New Year’s at North Myrtle!
Less than a mile north of the beach, you enter the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, an almost 1000 sq KM park that spans from the east side to the west side of the island and has some of the most pleasant hiking and camping possible, including 27 different hiking trails.
We decided to hike the Middle Head Trail starting near the historic Keltic Inn. The trail is on a mile plus long narrow finger of land that juts into Ingonish Bay, separating its North and South parts. Middle Head is a rocky, up and down trail, very similar to parts of the Appalachian Trail back home in North Carolina. (While the Scots settled in Cape Breton, many also settled in Western North Carolina, as both areas reminded them of their Scottish Highlands home).
The trail ended in a high rock outcropping. We spent time there enjoying the beautiful ocean view and seeing one lone seal, but it is very popular so we went off to the side and set up the radio on a flat-top boulder. The radio was again Rhett KB4HG’s KX2 (as mine was in the shop), with the modified MP1 base loaded coil Vertical on a camera tripod. Unfortunately, our timing was bad as there was another major solar flare. We only had a few contacts on 20 CW. Nevertheless, the beautiful view and hike was well worth it. We spent the night at a country inn there, overlooking the Bay, and enjoying fresh local lobster tacos.
Figure 1 Middle Head Trail Cape Breton Highlands National ParkFigure 2 K4AAC at Middle Head TrailFigure 3 Middle Head Trail End Ingonish Bay
The next morning, we resumed driving north toward Bay St. Lawrence with a few possible activation sites in mind. The first was in the very small fishing village of Neils’ Harbor, where the 1899 Lighthouse is both a POTA site (Neil’s Harbour Lighthouse National Heritage Site) and a Canadian Heritage Lighthouse. There is a small fenced in area around the Lighthouse, keeping you from falling over the cliff to the ocean below, and two picnic tables.
While picturesque, this area had the worst electrical noise I’ve ever heard, ranging from S 6-8. Consequently, I only made two 20CW contacts with Ontario, using the stock KH1. Some may consider this as “failed” activation but, to me, it’s a success to operate in a beautiful, historic site by the ocean. On the positive, inside the Lighthouse is an ice cream shop, selling local flavors, but Cash only.
Figure 4 K4RLC & KH1 Neils’ Lighthouse
Driving 10 KM north off the Trail, we stopped at another POTA site (CA-0454), Cabot’s Landing Provincial Park, on the shore of Aspy Bay. The park has a white sandy beach coastline, and a monument to John Cabot, who allegedly landed there in 1497. The location also marks the 1856 western terminus of the proposed Transatlantic Telegraph cable from Cape Breton to Newfoundland. It was another Kodachrome day by the ocean, with a scenic vista of the steep face of the Pollets Cove-Aspy Fault Wilderness Area to the north of the coastline.
Having gotten there before lunch, I was really happy to see few beach-goers and several high posts around where I hoped to erect an EFHW for 20 meters. Unfortunately, just as we began setting up, the park became filled with sunbathers, of course walking through the planned antenna area. Thankfully, the trusty KX2 and Modified MP1 on the camera tripod by the picnic table did fine. Propagation was decent for a change, and I soon was working a pile-up of other Canadian stations and into the US on 20 CW. But the most amazing aspect was that there was absolutely no electrical noise to interfere with this activation. It was a wonderful experience to operate in a really quiet and picturesque area, so far off the electrical grid. Continue reading Bob and Alanna’s POTA Adventures Along the Cabot Trail!→
Friday, September 13th, I headed to Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge (US-0265) for a POTA activation and was without Daisy as dogs are not allowed at this refuge. Pinckney Island is a 4,000+ acre wildlife refuge off Highway US 278 on the way to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The refuge consists of four islands and numerous small hammocks with Pinckney Island being the largest of the islands and the only one open to the public.
The refuge is named after Major General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and is one of seven refuges managed by the Savannah Coastal Refuges Complex in Savannah, Georgia. Prior to my time as a ham radio operator, I volunteered for the US Fish and Wildlife Service and spent time at four – Savannah, Harris Neck, Wassaw Island, and Blackbeard Island – out of the seven refuges they manage. I never made it to Pinckney Island so I was excited to finally see this property.
Portrait by James Earl. Source: Wikipedia
Most of Pinckney Island is accessible by foot or bicycle only. After parking my car in the designated lot, I began hiking to my destination – Ibis Pond, a large pond for waterfowl about a mile from the parking lot.
Just before I reached the information kiosk, I got a great look at an armadillo doing what most gardeners and lawn aficionados hate – tearing up the ground in search of food. This mammal eats mostly invertebrates including insects and especially likes grubs. They have horrible eyesight but keen hearing and I was surprised this guy or gal let me get as close as he or she did.
information kiosk
Pinckney island is an important link in the chain of wildlife refuges along the Atlantic Flyway and attracts thousands of migratory birds each year, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The Atlantic Flyway is a major north-south route for migratory birds and it generally follows the Atlantic Coast of the US.
source: North Dakota Fish & Game Department
I saw and heard many birds while visiting the refuge including a flock of White Ibis feeding in the marsh and tidal flats, a Great Blue Heron fishing with a Snowy Egret walking nearby, American Coots, a molting male Painted Bunting, crows flying overhead, and I swear I heard a pair of Sandhill Cranes calling to one another at Ibis Pond. I could have spent all day watching the comings and goings of the refuge inhabitants let alone do a POTA activation.
White Ibis feeding in the marshAmerican Coots at Ibis PondWhite Ibis in the trees at the pond during my activationTrail into Pinckney Island
However, I was here for POTA and, in short order, arrived at Ibis Pond. It is one of five manmade ponds on the island and exists to preserve feeding and nesting areas for birds. The pond has cattails around its edges and much of the water is covered by duckweed.I figured I would be less likely to have any human visitors if I followed the trail around the pond to the far side. But I was wrong. Ten to twelve people walked by my station while there, more than I usually encounter at any park. Continue reading The POTA Babe Spreads Her Wings at Pinckney Island→
I’ve had a production unit of the Xiegu X6200 since June of this year and have made several field reports using it for both SSB and CW.
You may have noticed, though, that I haven’t used it much in the field since June.
The reason? I’m primarily a CW operator, and the original firmware had some frustrating CW keyer timing issues.
These keying issues are most noticeable when operating in iambic mode, especially when trying to form letters like C, R, or K by squeezing the paddles. Often, when I try to send a “C,” as in “CQ,” the keyer produces a “B” instead. If you’ve watched any of my previous X6200 videos, you might have seen this happen a few times.
After some time using the radio, I can adapt and reduce the miskeying, but it still happens occasionally. I suspect part of the issue is related to the keyer timing in relation to the transmit/receive switching.
While these keyer issues aren’t severe enough to prevent me from completing an activation, they are certainly annoying.
As I’m reviewing the X6200 (thanks to Radioddity for the extended loan!), I reported the issue to Xiegu back in May and hoped the first firmware update would address it.
The first firmware update, Version 1.0.1, was released in early August. There was an earlier release, but it was retracted due to other issues.
I checked the release notes and didn’t see anything specific about CW keyer timing in the long list of fixes. I had hoped another update would follow soon, but none has been issued yet. Meanwhile, several readers and subscribers have asked me if the keyer issue was resolved.
I decided to update the firmware and take the X6200 out for another field test.
Still, I had a great time squeezing in a quick activation with the X6200, and I thought I’d share the video and a mini field report with you now!
Pisgah National Forest (US-4510)
My wife and I were out while one of our daughters was in Shakespeare rehearsals in Mills River, NC on Friday September 6, 2024. We had a number of errands to run, but my wife kindly worked with me to carve out 30 minutes for a quick activation.
The most convenient POTA location was the Sycamore Flats Picnic Area in Pisgah National Forest.
By mid-afternoon, the park was busy, but most of the picnic areas were open, giving me plenty of options for setting up.
With limited time, I turned on the camera to start my real-time, real-life activation video and got straight to work.
Since the X6200 has a built-in ATU, I decided to use my PackTenna End-Fed Random Wire, as it’s quick to deploy with its 31’ long radiator—any nearby tree would do.
Next, I paired the X6200 with my BaMaKeY TP-III, plugged in the antenna, and found a spot on the band to start operating!
Time to POTA!
Gear
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After tuning up on the 20-meter band, I spotted myself and started calling CQ POTA. Fortunately, hunters quickly responded.
In just twelve minutes, I logged thirteen contacts. Thanks to all the hunters!
My activation was brief, and I was so focused on making contacts and packing up that I forgot to take any photos of the radio in action. I’ve included some screen captures from the video instead.
I did manage to take photos of the logs:
QSO Map
Here’s what this five-watt activation looked like when plotted out on a QSO Map:
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 monetization turned off on YouTube, although that doesn’t stop them from inserting ads before and after my videos.
As I discovered during this activation, the CW keyer timing issue has not yet been addressed in the firmware update.
After returning home, I made some notes and reached out to Xiegu to confirm that the CW keyer timing is still on their radar. They assured me that it will be addressed in the next firmware update. I’ll definitely test it and let you know once it’s resolved, so stay tuned!
If you’ve already purchased an X6200, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this all-in-one radio in the comments!
Thank you
Thank you for joining me during this short 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! Have a brilliant weekend!
Labor Day weekend turned out to be full of labor here at QTH K4SWL. My wife and I had numerous projects to tackle, and my daughters had various activities scheduled as well. By Sunday, my wife looked at me and said, “You need a break. Why not spend tomorrow catching up on POTA?”
That was music to my ears.
I messaged my buddy, Vlado, to see if he might be interested in joining me, and he quickly replied, “Of course!”
So on Monday, September 2, 2024, Vlado packed his radio gear in my car, and we discussed where we should go. We had most of the day for radio, but we needed to decide if we’d head north, south, east, or west. In the end, we chose to travel east, as it offered the most options, including one site Vlado had never activated.
We decided to start at Lake James State Park. Since Vlado had only activated Lake James for the first time the previous day at the Paddy’s Creek Access, we opted for the Catawba River Access.
Lake James State Park (US-2739)
It was Labor Day, so we knew Lake James would get busy around lunchtime, which is why we hit it early. I also knew Paddy’s Creek Access would be much busier today because it has the beach, and I remembered how full the parking lot was during my Labor Day activation in 2023!
At 9:00 AM, when Vlado and I arrived at the Catawba River access, we were among the few people there, so we had our pick of spots to set up the POTA station.
For convenience—especially since there had been a deluge of rain the night before—we chose a spot close to the car, where I’ve activated a number of times in the past.
I also took this opportunity to show Vlado how to use an arborist throw line.
While I didn’t record the antenna deployment—frankly, I didn’t think about it at the time—I wish I had. Vlado was a natural!
On his second-ever throw, he snagged the perfect branch to deploy a 40-meter end-fed half-wave antenna.
CFT1 Time!
The CFT1 with Tufteln cover/stand, audio cable and pack with battery.
I knew exactly which radio I wanted to operate during this activation: the CFT1 by Jonathan (KM4CFT).
I had only recently swapped out my Beta unit for a production CFT1. As a thank-you to Beta testers, Jonathan let us keep the units we tested. I worked with Jonathan and Dan to return the Beta unit and compensate them for the difference.
In truth, there were only a few changes, mostly cosmetic, between the Beta and production units. The biggest improvement for me was that the Beta unit lacked a way to adjust the sidetone level independently from the AF gain. The production unit has this feature, which was my primary motivation for upgrading.
In addition, I prefer using radios that match what my readers and subscribers have. When I use a Beta unit, even if the changes are purely cosmetic, it generates more questions.
Interestingly, this wouldn’t be Vlado’s first time using the CFT1. He must have been one of the first people outside the Beta testing team to try it because we used it on Field Day alongside the TR-45L and X6200 (although you won’t see it in my report since it was still somewhat of a secret project at the time).
We paired my MW0SAW 40-meter EFHW and Bamakey TP-III with the CFT1. I also used my Anker Soundcore Mini speaker for audio.
Time to POTA!
Gear:
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Many thanks to Jeff (VE7EFF) who shares the following guest post:
Off The Beaten Path – Campbell-Brown Ecological Reserve, CA-3925
by Jeff (VE7EFF)
This is the 2nd backpacked-in POTA activation outing that my wife and I have done this summer. I’m the 2nd person to have ever activated the Campbell-Brown Ecological Reserve (CA-3925). Last year was the first time I activated this eco reserve and that was also my first ever backpacked-in POTA activation.
After studying my GPS and Google Maps/Satellite view of the area, my goal this time is to trek about twice as far and twice as high as last year’s outing. There are no documented trails here. Access is a mixture of old overgrown and abandoned forestry road (or fire break, not sure which) and some crisscrossing animal game trails. The actual mileage/Km’s isn’t really that far, but it’s all uphill and a mixture of bushwhacking and scaling slippery grassy slopes.
The reserve borders along the busy highway 97, between the cities of Vernon and Kelowna, BC. The area overlooks the beautiful Kalamalka Lake, as you will see in some of the photos. There’s no actual parking lot, just a small gravel pull-over spot just off the highway. There is no formal pathway into the reserve either, so we had to scale the gated fence to start our journey.
I’m a little bit familiar with the route we took last year, but I heavily rely on my Garmin 66sr GPS and Google Maps/Satellite view on my Pixel phone.
My wife Alexis (VE7LXE), accompanies me on all my POTA outings. She packs the food and water while I pack the ham gear and other outdoor essentials. We both carry IC-V80 VHF handhelds for comms in the event we ever get separated. And of course we always carry bear spray when doing backcountry treks.
We do have some relatively flat areas in sections, but there are also a lot of deadfall trees to either step over, climb over, or go around.
This grassy meadow is where I activated last year. Actually at the top end of the meadow. But today’s goal is to find another open grassy meadow higher up the mountain. Higher usually means better radio propagation, not to mention spectacular views.
Beyond the grassy meadow, we followed some semblance of a trail. But it wasn’t long before I realized that it wasn’t taking me where I really needed to go. So, according to my GPS and Google Satellite, we needed to head straight up-hill.
This was actually a real slog uphill (especially for us 73 and 72 year olds). 🙂
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Many thanks to Tom (WW8D) who writes:
