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

Fort Baker On The Air

by Matt (W6CSN)

Fort Baker is a former U.S. Army post situated at the north of side of the Golden Gate, opposite Fort Point and adjacent the town of Sausalito, California. The post is now part of the sprawling Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) which is also known as K-0647 for POTA.

Many of the good POTA spots in the GGNRA are heavily used for recreation and sightseeing on weekend days such as this, but Cavallo Point is out of the way enough that there was still ample, free parking today. This location offers spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the city of San Francisco, and Alcatraz and Angel Islands at anchor in San Francisco Bay.

Today the “pull of POTA” was strong as I wanted to get another activation done before the arrival of an anticipated solar storm as well as rains predicted for the coming week.

During the week leading up to this activation the Bay Area has experienced fine weather with mild daytime temperatures and light winds, but driving in, the sound of rigging slapping loudly against the aluminum masts of the sailboats docked in the Presidio Yacht Club marina told me that it was windy down here.

A short series of wooden staircases lead up from the parking area to Battery Yates, named for Captain George Yates of the U.S. Cavalry who fell in the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876.

The gun battery is a reinforced concrete structure which once sported six rifles that fired a three inch caliber cartridge to provide for naval defense inside of San Francisco Bay. The guns were manned through the middle of World War Two when, by 1943, they had been moved to more strategic locations.

Today I had hoped to use the same steel pipe which supported a fiberglass mast and EFHW in an earlier activation from this spot, but unfortunately the pipe was too thick to get the jaw mount securely attached.

I went with plan B which was to use the pipe railing at the back edge of the gun pit. Being unsure whether or not the galvanized steel railing made any electrical connection to what surely must be rebar embedded in the concrete, I deployed the 17 foot vertical whip with three radials just in case.

Whatever was serving as a counterpoise, it was doing a great job, providing an SWR reading of 1.0 to 1 on the Mountaintopper MTR-4B. This was probably the third activation on this Lithium-Ion battery pack, so the power was down to 3.7 watts, still plenty for a CW activation with a resonant antenna.

The activation was scheduled ahead of time on the POTA web application so all I had to do was just start calling CQ POTA and let the RBN do the spotting. I soon heard from KG6HM from right across the Bay, followed by stations from Washington, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

I was starting to think it would be only western states calling in, but the band opened up a bit, bringing N3RT from Delaware. Now we had a proper coast-to-coast activation, and, I bagged a hard-to-get state needed for an informal CW “Worked-All-States” achievement.

By this time, the wind really started to pick up and with the sun so low in the western sky, it was becoming chilly. Satisfied with the 14 QSOs in the log, we packed up, made our way back down the pathway to the car, and then to a fancy coffee house in Sausalito for a nice warm cup.

Equipment Used

Mountaintopper MTR-4B v2 by LNR Precision
Talentcell 3000 maH 12v Li-Ion battery pack
ABR RG-316 coax feedline with ferrite common-mode choke
MFJ-1979 telescoping whip from DX Engineering
Quick release mirror mount with 3/8×24 to SO-239 adapter
N0SA SP4 Morse paddles by CWMORSE.US
MUJI Notebook for logging
ZEBRA mechanical pencil for logging (the “shock absorber” spring makes this great for field use)
Various Maxpedition Gear pocket organizers

73 de W6CSN

DITs and DAHs from Alcatraz

by Leo (DL2COM)

San Francisco Radio Diary – Part 1

“No way!” I said to myself when I saw that Alcatraz Island is an official Parks-on-the-air (POTA) reference which has only been activated four times by two operators.

It surprised me that such a historically relevant site hasn’t seen more ham radio activity in the past – or maybe it has, just not for POTA. I then got super excited as I was packing my bags for San Francisco.

I have missed this foggy beauty so much and it has been many years since I visited the city. I won’t bore you with the ordeal of our travel but it included canceled flights, multiple delays and rescheduling via Berlin and London the next day due to a hostage situation at Hamburg airport. So our already super short trip of 4.5 days shrunk into a good 3 days in SF. So which things to cross off the schedule now? It was clear that this unfortunate situation was certainly not going to eat into my activation budget. Hell no!

I admit since watching “The Rock” (1996) Alcatraz has always been a place of mystery and fascination to me. Those who are interested in reading more about the former fort, military prison and federal penitentiary can do so here.

After I learned that it was also a CW ATNO I instantly said: “Done deal. The ink is dry. I will activate with morse code in the shadows of Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris”. Of course I would do it plain vanilla style throwing good ol’ wires in trees and staking pointy things in the ground. Yeah right. Sometimes passion does tend to carry you away a wee bit so a little later I gathered myself and started doing some research.

Apparently the first POTA pioneer on Alcatraz was KC1MIJ who managed to get 5 QSOs in with an FM HT in July 2021. I’d say that’s pretty awesome for a location almost as low as sea level. The first successful activation was done on December 3rd 2021 by Elizabeth “Liz” N6LY and her husband Kevin K6YD. Since then both of them had only been back one time in December 2022 for another day to achieve a whopping cumulative 761 phone QSOs in only two days of total operation. Wow! What an achievement. No other hams have tried to activate Alcatraz since.

National Park Service Badge — The entire island is under management of the National Park Service (NPS)

I didn’t hesitate to write Liz an email and ask about her experience operating from the island as I knew it would probably require some preparation. The POTA website also stated that a permit from the National Park Service (NPS) is required. Luckily Liz replied swiftly with a lot of helpful information and I am very thankful for the email exchange. She specifically pointed out that it is in fact necessary to get a permit (even for simple HT activity) and that she had already applied in July for another day activity this coming December. They are still waiting to hear back from NPS’s office so it does seem quite hard to get approval for a “proper” activation. It is understandable that folks there want to have control over an organized operation where antennas, 100w radios, chairs etc. might need to be set up. With so many tourists visiting each day they also want to make sure that any activity doesn’t interfere with their core business especially on weekends.

Since I really didn’t want to spoil any of the hard preparatory work with NPS that Liz and Kevin had done for the ham radio community as well as respect local processes I wrote an email to the Alcatraz Rangers Office asking for a permit only a few days before my arrival. I knew it was a long shot and highly unlikely that they’d get back to me in time. So I called them every morning and afternoon the days after to follow up but was unsuccessful reaching them on any channel. By that point I had almost given up. However there were plenty of other options for activations so I had a blast in/on several SOTA/POTA references in SF which I will report on later.

On our last day I woke up and thought “Man, I can’t just leave the Bay Area and not activate Alcatraz.” Since one of my appointments got canceled short-term I didn’t think long, jumped on an Uber to Pier 33 and off I was (yeeeees, online tickets were still available). Continue reading DITs and DAHs from Alcatraz →