Welcome to another Postcard Field Report!
If you’ve been following QRPer.com and my YouTube channel for long, you’ll notice that I typically post two field reports with videos per week when my free time allows. Each report takes about four hours to produce along with a video. I’ve got a busy day ahead on the road (including a POTA activation), so in order to squeeze this field report into my schedule, I’m going to use my more abbreviated field report format: a “postcard” format!
Speaking of which….
Pisgah National Forest (K-4510)
On the morning of Friday, November 10, 2023, I had a couple hours to fit in some POTA time.
All morning, we had been receiving some much-needed rain in the form of scattered showers in a constant heavy mist.
I decided to explore picnic areas I hadn’t yet visited in Pisgah National Forest along the Pisgah Highway near Brevard, North Carolina.
I was curious if I might find a small shelter at one of the roadside sites. Unfortunately, I did not; however, I did find quite a few sites that were ideal for POTA with tall trees, space between picnic tables, etc. I decided to pick one at random that had no other park visitors.
I did have a small rainfly in the car I could set up, but I decided to simply risk it. The goal was to pair the new Elecraft KH1 with my (MW0SAW) End-Fed Half-Wave antenna.
I wanted to see if the KH1 ATU could match the EFHW on 30 and 17 meters (outside of its resonant bands of 40, 20, and 15 meters).
Setup
Since I wasn’t using the KH1 pedestrian mobile, I connected my N0SA (“SOTA paddle”) and my Anker Soundcore Mini portable speaker.
Antenna deployment was easy enough (though I did take a few tries to hit *the* tree branch I wanted)!
In no time, I had the KH1 on the air and ready to start calling CQ! Continue reading Postcard POTA Field Report: Pairing the KH1 with an EFHW at Pisgah National Forest