Tag Archives: Lake James State Park (K-2739)

CW, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

Snagging a little POTA QRP DX with the Chelegance MC-750 and Xiegu G106

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Over the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to give the Xiegu G106 a thorough workout in the field. This little HF QRP radio is on loan to me from Radioddity who has very kindly been quite flexible about the loan period.

I want to give the G106 a fair shake-out because I believe it must be the least expensive multi-mode, full HF coverage transceiver on the market. Field ops are always looking for portable, affordable, effective radios to take to the field so many are considering the G106.

Of course, you simply can’t get benchmark performance out of a low-cost leader.

My full review of the Xiegu G106 will be in the May 2023 issue of The Spectrum Monitor magazine. It’s one of the longest reviews I’ve published in TSM because I try to fully explore the pros and cons of this pint size rig in order that pretty much anyone can make a purchase decision based on their own preferences and requirements.

POTA Plan B

On Saturday, March 18, 2023, I  decided to take the G106 out for a very brief activation during a return trip to my QTH.

My park of choice was Tuttle Educational State Forest (K-4861) because it’s conveniently located, is an excellent POTA site, and I wanted to fit in a quick hike as well. Tuttle’s two mile loop fit the bill perfectly.

When I arrived at the park entrance, however, the gates were closed. I had double checked Tuttle’s schedule in advance and was under the impression that they had started opening the park on Saturdays again for the season.

I really wanted to fit in a decent hike so the next logical park choice was Lake James State Park. It didn’t require a major detour and I was certain it would be open.

Lake James State Park (K-2739)

Lake James has two major access points: the Paddy’s Creek Access and Catawba River Access.

I prefer the Catawba River Access even though it’s much smaller than Paddy’s Creek. For one thing, it’s always less busy and they’ve better spots to set up for POTA (since I like hanging wires trees more often than not). Although the Catawba River access lacks the trail network found at Paddy’s Creek, they do have a few trails that can be stitched together for a nice workout.

Lake James State Park Map Catawba River Access

After arriving at the park, I put on my hiking boots and walked the Fox Den Loop and a bit of the Lake Channel Overlook.

I hiked back to my car, ate a bite of lunch, then grabbed my radio gear for some cheap POTA fun!

Higher Bands

The great thing about the G106 compared with some of my more affordable QRP radios (MTR-3B, SW-3B, R4020, TR-35, etc.) is that it’s not limited to CW and it covers all bands from 80 to 10 meters. Continue reading Snagging a little POTA QRP DX with the Chelegance MC-750 and Xiegu G106 →

Antennas, CW, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

Postcard Field Report: Pairing the Mission RGO One with the Elecraft AX1 at Lake James for some QRP DX

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Welcome to my first 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 currently got a small backlog of videos I need to post, so in order to squeeze them into my schedule, I’m going to use a slightly more abbreviated field report format: a “postcard” format!

My Postcard Field Reports will still be information-packed, just slightly more concise and distilled than my average field report. I’ll primarily post these for sites I visit frequently.

Speaking of which….

Lake James State Park (K-2739)

Thursday, February 2, 2023, was a rainy, dreary day so the perfect time to play a little POTA, right?  I made time in my morning to visit Lake James State Park (K-2739).

When I arrived at the Catawba River Access, the parking lot was empty. Not too surprising considering it was a Thursday morning on a chilly, rainy day.

Of course, I had the picnic shelter all to myself, so why not use it to stay dry? Continue reading Postcard Field Report: Pairing the Mission RGO One with the Elecraft AX1 at Lake James for some QRP DX →

CW, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

KX2/AX1: Second quick activation of the day at Lake James State Park!

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As I mentioned in my previous field report, on Saturday, January 21, 2023, I had just enough time to activate two parks in short order on the way back to my QTH

I thought it might be fun to perform both of these activations with the Elecraft KX2 and AX1 combo because they’re so speedy to deploy.

Once again, I wanted to show the whole KX2/AX1 set-up and pack-up process in my activation video.

Lake James State Park (K-2739)

As I pulled into the Lake James Catawba River access, I discovered that there were few other guests there that day. I was expecting more people on a Saturday especially since the weather was so pleasant and South Mountains had been so busy earlier that morning.

Then again, the Catawba River access always has less visitors than the Paddy’s Creek area (which is really the main public access point for Lake James).

I pulled into a parking space, found one of the closest picnic tables, and set up the station in short order.

At South Mountains State Park, an hour earlier, I performed the entire activation on 20 meters. To shake things up a bit, I decided to perform the one at Lake James on 17 meters (note here that the AX1 only works on 20 and 17 meters unless you have the coil which adds 40 meters). Continue reading KX2/AX1: Second quick activation of the day at Lake James State Park! →

CW, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP, SSB

QRP by Lantern Light: A CW/SSB sunset POTA activation at Lake James State Park

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The one thing about doing POTA activations in the winter is being aware of just how short the days are. It seems like, lately, I’ve had a number of activations that have spilled over well beyond sunset.

With POTA, running out of sunlight really isn’t a big deal. As long as I have a headlamp (I always do) and/or a lantern, I can continue operating as long as the park is still open to guests.

With SOTA, running out of sunlight can develop into a serious situation, especially if you’ve bushwhacked to a summit in unfamiliar territory. Even with a headlamp, it can be difficult finding your way back to an established trail.  I’ve never scheduled a SOTA activation that pushed sunset unless I’m comfortable with the path to the summit.

If I’m being honest, I think a part of me actually enjoys doing POTA activations after sunset. It feels a lot like camping.

On Sunday, December 4, 2022, I was on the road once again and could not help but squeeze in a POTA activation at Lake James State Park.

It was late afternoon and I knew I’d be pushing sunset, but I had my little LED lantern just in case I ran out of sunlight (hint: I did!) and I was ready to play some radio: both CW and SSB!

Lake James State Park (K-2739)

It was a grey, chilly day and there were no other cars in the parking lot at the Catawba River Access. I had the whole park to myself until closing time at 7:00PM.

I chose a picnic table by the lake, putting some distance between me and the visitor’s center which has been known to spew radio interference (QRM) in the past.

I brought along my Elecraft KX3 for this activation.

The KX3 is one of my top field portable radios, but I rarely take it to the field these days for a couple reasons:

  1. It’s my main shack radio and is hooked up to my KXPA100 amplifier 100% of the time (although I rarely run enough power that the amplifier engages). I do much of my park/summit hunting from home with the KX3.
  2. Since I purchased my KX2 in 2016, I tend to take it to the field instead since it’s *that* much more portable. It’s like a smaller version of the KX3 with nearly the performance and only lacking 160 and 6 meters.

But I do love my KX3. It’s a benchmark radio–and one of the best field transceivers on the market.  You will see a few field reports with it each year since I try to give all of my radios a regular dose of fresh air!

Setting up

After recording the intro to my activation video (which I tried to do before the sun actually set), I decided to film the antenna deployment as well.

I debated which antenna to use at the site. I decided upon the super easy-to-deploy 28.5′ “no transformer” random wire antenna by Tufteln (see link in the Gear section below). I first demoed this super simple antenna on Mount Mitchell during a SOTA activation. It’s basically two lengths of 28.5 foot 26 AWG wire connected to a BNC connector on a small 3D printed mount which provides strain relief.

This antenna is basically my super simple speaker wire antenna, just in a more compact form factor.  Since there’s no transformer, the antenna relies on an ATU to do all of the heavy work of sorting out impedance matches. Continue reading QRP by Lantern Light: A CW/SSB sunset POTA activation at Lake James State Park →

Antennas, CW, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

Pairing the Elecraft KX2 and Chelegance MC-750 for a quick QRP POTA activation

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After a fun “discovery” activation with the TEN-TEN R4020 on the morning of November 12, 2022–click here to check out that report and video–I realized I had just enough time to squeeze in another activation on my way back to the QTH.

I picked Lake James State Park (K-2739) because it was the most conveniently located; only a 20 minute detour.

When I arrived, the park was very quiet even though it was a Saturday no doubt because the ground was still saturated after the two days of rains we received from the remnants of Hurricane Nicole.

I grabbed my radio gear: the Elecraft KX2 and the new MC-750 vertical antenna sent to me (at no charge) by Jesse at Chelegance. This was only the second time I’d used the antenna–the first time was with the X5105.

I knew the MC-750 would be quick to set up and that was a good thing because I only had a max of about 45 minutes for the entire activation including set-up and take-down.

I walked down to a picnic table by the lake and deployed the station.

The MC-750 took me all of three (casual) minutes to set up.

Next, I set up the Elecraft KX2 and my CW Morse Outdoor Paddle with Steel Base for one-handed picnic table operating.

Of course, I also needed to prepare a log sheet even though I planned to live log everything in the HAMRS app on my phone. Continue reading Pairing the Elecraft KX2 and Chelegance MC-750 for a quick QRP POTA activation →

Antennas, CW, Field Reports, New Products, News, Portable, QRP

Taking the new Chelegance MC-750 vertical on a POTA activation at Lake James State Park

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Back in September, I was contacted by Jesse Chen (BD7LLY) who has been a long-time reader of QRPer.com. Jesse is also the founder of Chelegance (a.k.a. JNCRadio): a company that has been producing ham radio gear and accessories since 2020.

Jesse reached out and asked if I would consider evaluating a couple of the field portable antennas he designs and produces in China.

In truth, I get a lot–and I do mean loads–of requests to evaluate products and I pass on 97% of them. I only have so much time and I simply don’t bother with gear I think is unnecessary or that could be cheaply made.

Before replying to Jesse, I did a little research on Chelegance and discovered that DX Engineering now distributes their products. I decided that if DX Engineering liked the quality well enough to add Chelegance products to their catalog, then it must be up to a decent standard. I’ve never purchased anything sub-quality from DX Engineering.

I also like the fact that Jesse is a real amateur radio operator.

After checking back in with Jesse, he decided to send me two of his portable HF antennas: the M-104 and the MC-750. In full disclosure, he sent these to me at no charge–i.e. free–with the idea I could do a proper evaluation and share my thoughts both with him and with my readers.

He knew that both of these antennas had the potential to compliment my style of portable operating. I also told Jesse not to rush ship them to me as I was quite busy. I received both antennas at the end of October.

The first antenna I wanted to try was the MC-750.

The Chelegance MC-750

When I received the parcel from Jesse, I was very impressed with the MC-750’s custom soft-sided case. The stitching and quality of it are much better than I would have expected. The interior is custom designed to hold all of the MC-750 antenna components. There’s enough extra space in it, in fact, that I can also carry a 40′ RG-316 feedline inside.

Product Photo by Chelegance

The antenna basically consists of the following components in the supplied padded bag:

  • A heavy stainless steel ground spike and matching unit
  • 40 meter coil
  • 50 cm antenna arm/extension
  • 5.2 meter telescoping whip
  • 4 yellow counterpoise wires with a wire winder board

The price for the antenna system is $250 via DX Engineering and 219€ via WIMO. Moonraker in the UK is also a Chelegance distributor, but doesn’t seem to have the MC-750 listed in their inventory at time of posting (Dec 5, 2022).

The only antenna I have that might compare with the MC-750 is the Chameleon CHA MPAS Lite which is one of my favorite portable HF antennas for its quick deployment, and overall quality. For reference, the CHA MPAS Lite retails for about $360.

I thought the best way to test the MC-750 would be to take it on a POTA activation. Continue reading Taking the new Chelegance MC-750 vertical on a POTA activation at Lake James State Park →

CW, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP, QRP Radios

POTA in the Dark: Problem solving as the sun sets and the clock is ticking on my UTC day

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Have you ever had an activation that didn’t quite go to plan?

Yeah. Me too.

Truth is, it’s just the nature of field radio that things sometimes break, behave erratically, and/or some key component goes missing. When you’re lugging your gear around in a pack and deploying it outdoors in a wide variety of settings it’s a much less “controlled” environment than, say, in the shack.

When a problem arises, you have to work that problem in the field to get on the air and complete the activation.

If you watch my activation videos, you’ll note that I try to include everything in them–including mistakes and mishaps.

Mishaps that lead to a failed activation happen less frequently than they did when I first got started in the world of field radio. Over the years, I’ve refined my field kit and made sure I’ve got the right spare components and tools to solve minor issues I might encounter.

That said, I felt like my activation attempt of Lake James State Park on Wednesday, October 5, 2022 was a total comedy of errors. It seemed like an extra layer of complication presented itself each step along the way as I tried to activate that park.

Lake James State Park (K-2739)

The plan was to leave my home around 17:15 local, arrive at the park around 18:00, set up my Icom IC-703 Plus, pair it with a 40 meter end-fed half-wave, hop on the air and work stations until about 19:00 (23:00 UTC) at the latest, then pack up and continue driving another hour to my final destination.

Here’s how it actually played out…

I had all of my bags packed and ready to go at 17:15, but as I was ready to leave, I discovered a plumbing leak under our kitchen sink. It required immediate attention (obviously) so I grabbed my tools, pulled everything out from under the kitchen sink, found the leak, and sorted out the issue. Thankfully, I had some spare plumbing parts at the house. This only delayed my departure about 30 minutes.

I arrived at Lake James around 18:30 and had the entire park to myself.

My real goal at the park was to take the Icom IC-703 Plus out for a little fresh air. It had been ages since I put it on the air in the field. The last time I tried to use it in the field, the internal keyer was tripping up due to a little RF coming back to the radio from my end-fed half-wave. This is a known issue with the Icom IC-703–it’s more sensitive to RF than any other radio I own.

This time, I planned to eliminate the RF with the inline common mode choke built into my Chameleon 50′ cable.

I grabbed my throw line, MM0OPX EFHW and had the antenna deployed in record time.

You can’t tell from the photos because my iPhone does a great job with low-light, but the sun was setting quickly even as I set up the IC-703. I knew I’d be finishing the activation in the dark, but I had a headlamp handy so wasn’t concerned (again, never leave home without a headlamp!).

I turned on the ‘703 and the 40 meter band was chock-full of signals. A very good sign!

Then I switched the 703’s meter to the SWR setting and sent a couple of dits on an open frequency to confirm a low SWR.

The SWR was off the charts poor, pegging the SWR meter at 9:1 (or worse?).

What–?

Continue reading POTA in the Dark: Problem solving as the sun sets and the clock is ticking on my UTC day →

CW, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP, QRP Radios, Videos

An evening POTA activation with the Penntek TR-45L, a pileup, and buddy Steve

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Last month, my buddy Steve (VA3FLF/KM4FLF) was in North Carolina visiting family and we hoped to meet up in person at some point.  Thing was, both of our schedules were pretty busy with various family activities and projects.

On Wednesday, September 21, 2022, we found an opening in the evening that coincided with a trip to do a little caregiving for my parents. We agreed to meet up at Lake Jame State Park (K-2739) which was on my way and also convenient to Steve.

Steve is also a fan of Parks On The Air, so why not fit in an activation? No better way to spend time with POTA family than at a POTA park, right? Right!

I arrived at the park around 18:30 local (22:30UTC) and set up MM0OPX’s 40 meter end-fed half-wave.

I only had one radio with me at the time: my prototype Penntek TR-45L.

At that point, the TR-45L had not yet been released and was in the very final stages of Beta testing. I was waiting on one more firmware update to bring the radio up to what would eventually be version 1.

Since I was still waiting on the final update that sorted out the CW message memory recording function (and boy did it–the final version is benchmark) I didn’t use message memories during this outing.

I offered Steve a hand at the TR-45L, but he claimed he wasn’t a heavy CW operator–he was interested in helping me with logging, though. How could I refuse that?

Continue reading An evening POTA activation with the Penntek TR-45L, a pileup, and buddy Steve →

Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

Field Report: Giving the Elecraft KX1 a thorough post-operation POTA test!

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After returning from Canada this summer, I had a number of projects on the table including three radios to evaluate and a number of DIY projects on our investment house. The home projects took priority, so for the month of August, I did very little in terms of POTA activating.

In September, there was one radio in particular I was very eager to take to the field (besides the Penntek TR-45L). That was my Elecraft KX1, “Ruby.”

Before leaving for Canada, Ruby went into surgery once again under the care of my good friend “Dr.” Vlado (N3CZ).

I couldn’t figure out why she kept dropping power output to nil after being on the air for 20-25 minutes. I knew Vlado would sort out the issue.

Vlado discovered the source was a cold solder joint that was failing when the radio would become warm from operating. He fixed this and checked a number of other spots on the board.

He then tested the KX1 on a dummy load for and hour and she performed flawlessly after the surgery.

He fixed Ruby in early June and then we went to Canada for two months. I never put Ruby on the air in Canada.

After our return to the States, I was eager to take Ruby out to the field again and that’s exactly what I did on Sunday, September 11, 2022.

Lake James State Park (K-2739)

Lake James State Park–along with South Mountains State Park–are the easiest parks for me to hit during my nearly weekly travels on Interstate 40. I feel so fortunate that both are superb POTA sites with loads of spots to operate.

I arrived in the late afternoon and to my surprise there was hardly anyone at the park (I think it was a little too close to evening mealtime for families).

I set up my station at a table close to the parking area just to keep things simple. I was looking forward to enjoying at least 30 minutes on the air and seeing just how well Ruby might hold up.

I decided to use the Tufteln End-Fed Random Wire antenna knowing it would be a quick to deploy and frequency agile.

I tried to use the KX1 ATU to tune the random wire, but I wasn’t pleased with the SWR. Frankly, it was doable (1.9:1 on 20 meters), but I wanted something much closer to 1:1 since I was already only pushing 2.5-3 watts output.

Keep in mind, the KX1’s internal ATU is not in the same league as the ones in the Elecraft KX2, KX3, or T1–the KX1 ATU has a much smaller matching range.

Also, I suspect Ruby’s ATU wasn’t built for optimal performance by the original builder. I do plan to re-work her ATU as best I can at some point in the future.

I pulled out the Elecraft T1, put the KX1 ATU in bypass mode, and hooked it up to the antenna. The T1 had no problem at all finding 1:1 matches across 40, 30, and 20 meters, of course.

Continue reading Field Report: Giving the Elecraft KX1 a thorough post-operation POTA test! →

CW, Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

POTA RaDAR Run: Planning, Plotting, Packing, and Activating Park #1!

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You may have noticed a common theme in my field reports: basically, it’s rare that I plan out an activation more than 24 hours in advance.

Indeed, due to my “dynamic” (I think that’s a good word for it?) family schedule, I often don’t plan an activation more than one to two hours in advance.

But last month, I saw an opportunity open on Wednesday, January 26, 2022. Basically, I had from early morning until late afternoon to play radio.

Making plans

At first, I thought about striking out early and hitting some of the parks that are a little further afield–parks I hadn’t visited in a couple years, or some new-to-me parks.

Then, I hatched an idea to activate two SOTA summits. Both would qualify for bonus winter points and both were technically doable in the time I had allotted. It would involve about 9-10 miles of hiking in addition to 3 hours of driving plus allotting for the time I’d actually spend on the air. It would equate to a very early departure and some steady hiking.

That Tuesday evening, I started putting the plan together, downloading all of the maps, preparing my SOTA alerts, and packing my SOTA pack. I spent the better part of an hour plotting and planning these activations.

Then the realization hit me: the trails I’d be hiking were likely covered in snow and ice which would slow me down considerably especially since my Yaktrax Traction Chains hadn’t yet been delivered. I realized the schedule was just a little too tight. There’s be no room for mishaps and if I made the trip I really wanted to hit both summits in the same day. So, I saved all of my maps, links, and notes to do this multiple SOTA run in the near future.

Back to the drawing board!

I decided that I did like the idea of doing multiple activations in a day, so why not fit in a RaDAR run?

RaDAR (Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio) is basically an activity that can be combined with summits and/or park activations and the idea is simple: you complete multiple rapid field deployments within 24 hours.

If you’d like more information about RaDAR, check out this webpage. Parks On The Air even has a few awards for RaDAR runs–it would be fun to apply for one of them (thanks, WD8RIF, for the heads-up!).

I so rarely have enough time to consider more than two or three activations in a day that the idea of fitting in four or possibly five activations was very appealing.

I looked at the POTA map and sorted out a route between park entities that were all in western North Carolina. I was familiar with all of the locations save one which had the potential to be both a POTA and SOTA activation. Continue reading POTA RaDAR Run: Planning, Plotting, Packing, and Activating Park #1! →