Posts from David Saylors (WK4DS)
38 posts
Today I had an errand to run before I could setup and get an activation. I had to travel to the other side of Chattanooga to pick up a computer for the shop office and then I could go “play” radio.
The next thing I had to do what figure out how to make the antenna at least “appear” longer to the radio so I could trick it into thinking it was really a 40 meter resonant antenna.
I decide to activate US-0716 (Chickamauga National Military Park) and did the Tennessee side at Eagle’s Nest as it is a convenient location for me to access, close to home in relation to the Georgia portion of the park and is generally easy to work from.
I got the opportunity to activate a couple of parks while on a trip to Arizona so what did I take with me? Well, that is a simple answer to be honest, I take a small, CW only QRP rig.
So today finds me at park US-2169…again…but this time I have a challenge in front of me.
I do enjoy having friends activate with me on occasion, but I REALLY like to solo activate. ALOT, Today saw me at this very park and I also setup with the intention of doing a “CW only” activation this time as well.
As it turns out, I quickly learned why a lot of people just choose to not have a meter lamp. It is buried really deep inside the radio and almost impossible to repair without fully dismantling the radio.
I decided to go to Chickamauga Battlefield, instead of Cloudland Canyon today, with me needing only one more activation to get 200 activations at Cloudland Canyon. But, I really like activating Chickamauga battlefield as well so off we go…
What kinds of side quests can I find when doing a POTA activation with the HF Signals sBitx and a bad space weather report? Let’s take a look.
The most recent POTA activation caught me off guard. You see, I failed to check the space weather and just went to a park all willy nilly expecting to make tons of contacts without much effort. What happened was very different from that.