Many thanks to Micah (N4MJL) who shares the following guest post:

Fort Point (3-Fer POTA activation) San Francisco 1 June 2024

by Micah (N4MJL)

What do you do with 24 hours off in San Francisco? Well, as a card carrying FCC certified nerd, I hit the streets and headed off to Fort Point with my brand new Elecraft KH1 for an afternoon of sightseeing and history.

Fort Point is the only brick fort on the west coast of the United States. Construction on the fort was from 1853-1861. Shortly after completion of Fort Point, the Civil War began. By the end of the Civil War, advances in military technology had rendered the fort less effective.

Cannons were finally removed from the fort in the 1890s. Brick fortifications were simply no match for rifled cannons and iron clad war ships. In the 1930s, the fort was used as a command center, cafeteria, and barracks for the engineers building the Golden Gate bridge.

Leading up to WWII, Fort Point would continue to play a key roll in San Francisco harbor defenses. Durring WWII fort point was a control center for the submarine net across the harbor. In the 1970s Fort Point would finally be officially categorized as a Notional Historical Site (POTA US-0819).

ATTENTION: Full disclosure here!

The sexy photo (above) with my KH1 on the ramparts of the fort, with the American Flag and Golden Gate Bridge in the background was a staged photo.

Yes, I’m sorry, not a single QSO was made from that position. It was simply too loud, too cold, and too distracting to operate from that position. Best of luck to anyone attempting to operating from there.

The vehicle traffic noise, venture affect off the wind, and the constant flow of tourists made it a very difficult spot. Instead I operated on a bench next to the bathrooms outside the walls of the fort but well within the confines of the Historical Park site. The single brick column next to the road in the picture above is the boundary line for operating in Fort Point US-0819. Just to the right of the brick column in the grass area against the hill is the bench (next to the bathrooms) where I operated for all my contacts.

The operating area for Fort Point is rather small and challenging. It gets very busy there. Be prepared to be asked regularly if you are tracking whales are trying to communicate with aliens….. Space aliens to be exact…..

All my contacts for this activation were from hunting park to park on 20m using whip antenna.

With the noisy distracting environment combined with my compromised antenna I did not feel comfortable calling CQ. Instead I focused on hunting parks I could hear very well in hopes they would be able to hear me with my compromised antenna. My first contact was at 1610z and my 10th contact was at 1754z. It was very slow going, but I really wanted to activate Fort Point. Not to mention the fact that Fort Point is a 3-Fer activation.

A 3-fer means that with one activation you get credit for 3 different park activations. Looking at the map above of the San Francisco area you can see that Fort Point US-0819 (#6) falls inside a much larger park entity (#7) Presidio (POTA US-7889). Both Fort Point and Presidio also both are located in an even bigger park entity known as the Golden Gate National Recreational Area GGNRA (POTA US-0647).

Restating what is written in the picture above for easier reading: After six generations, coastal defenses were made obsolete by intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area GGNRA was created largely from surplus coastal defense military reservations.

So much can be said about Presidio of San Francisco (US-7889). It served as a military out post for the Spanish Empire(1776-1821ish), Mexican Republic(1821-1846), and United States Army (1847-1989).

As a pilot, I have to mention Crissy Field. Crissy Field is part of the Presidio park, and played a huge part in the fast development in aviation technology. The first successful dawn to dusk trans con (east coast to west coast) flight landed at Crissy Field June 1924. In addition to military operations, the airfield played a major role for Coast Guard Search & Rescue, AirMail, and Forest Fire Surveillance.

The Presidio is a very large park, that’s offers many stunning views of the area. There are plenty tucked away picnic tables near tall trees that are just begging you to hang a wire antenna.

As an airline pilot, I am in San Francisco often. I am always operating QRP and much of the time I’m having to use a whip antenna due to busy/small operating area. As my CW skills improve I hope to get more of you in my log in some of these hard to activate parks.

PS Don’t quote me on this history stuff. Remember I’m a pilot not a history major, so I’m just kind of winging it.

Until then 72 . .

~ Micah J. LaVanchy

Many thanks to Matt (W6CSN) who shares the following post from his blog at W6CSN.Blog:

Weekend POTA Roundup

by Matt (W6CSN)

It’s been a stormy past several days here in Northern California, but if anything, the weather only amplifies my motivation to go outside and get on the air.

Rather than do a separate writeup for each, this post is a roundup of my last four POTA activations, from Friday, February 2nd through Sunday, the 4th.

A faint rainbow splashes down in front of Angel Island

Thursday and Friday had been wet, with one storm in a series moving across the Bay Area. However, by Friday evening the cold front had passed and there was a break in the rain. This was a perfect opportunity to try an after work activation at the Presidio of SF (K-7889).

I hadn’t used the QCX-Mini in a while, and this activation reminded me why. I believe what is happening is that being so close to the antenna, RF interference causes clicking while keying, nearly to the point of distraction. I need to experiment with RF chokes on the key and audio lines to see if that improves the situation.

Fed up with the RFI on the QCX-Mini, I switched over to the MTR-4B which doesn’t seem to suffer the same issue. I wrapped up the activation after netting 21 QSOs in the cold west wind.

All QSO maps in this post are from http://tools.adventureradio.de/analyzer/

The next bout of rain wasn’t due to arrive until later Saturday afternoon. This was a change in the forecast that subsequently altered my plan to stay in Saturday soldering on my QMX Hi-Bander project.

Initially I went to Fort Point (K-0819) in the hopes of changing it up from my usual activation park but there were just too many people there. So seeking relief from crowds, I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and went up on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais.

I parked at Trojan Point at an elevation of approximately 1800 feet. See this post for more views from this location. The temperature was in the mid-40s, which is cold for us coastal Californians. Besides, the winds were picking up ahead of the next storm so I operated from the comfort of my vehicle using the Gabil 7350T base loaded vertical antenna on 15m and 20m.

This activation used the FT-818 and yielded 23 contacts, including JH1MXV from northwest of Tokyo, Japan coming in fairly strong on 21 MHz.

Driving back to San Francisco takes me right through the Presidio of SF (K-7889) and noticing that it was after 00:00 UTC, I made the last second decision to divert to East Beach to see if I could work in another activation before the anticipated rain.

At my usual spot for activating this park, it took only moments to raise the MFJ-1979 20m quarter wave and do a quick deployment of the MTR-4B on the trunk of the car. The wind was picking up, but not nearly as strong as it was up on the mountain.

After seven QSOs, the skies began spitting raindrops, this was going to be close! I closed the cover of the Maxpedition pouch to protect the radio and battery while the Bencher paddles could tolerate a little bit of moisture.

I was happy to have a Rite-In-The-Rain notepad for logging [Amazon affiliate link], because now I was certainly writing in the rain! Three more contacts and the activation was concluded with a hunt of Jim, WB0RLJ, in K-4011. Continue reading Matt’s Weekend POTA Roundup! →