First POTA of 2024!
The weather this week has been unseasonably warm, so I decided to drive up to K-3315, the Island Lake Recreation Area for a POTA activation. I left my house about 1:00 pm and got up to the park about 1:30. It was in the upper 50s and partly sunny.
The first thing I noticed when I got to the picnic area that I frequent is that someone had been using the picnic tables in my absence.
I guess that they thought they didn’t have to clean up the acorn shells.
I made 30 contacts in the next 75 minutes, all but two on 20 meters. 20 meters was in great shape. I tried both 15 meters and 10 meters, but there just wasn’t any activity on those bands.
It’s going to get cold here again overnight, so I’m glad I decided to go yesterday. It was a nice break from winter. Spring is just around the corner, so it’s certainly worth thinking about what improvements you might want to make for your POTA or SOTA rig.
30 meters open to Europe
30 meters has been open to Europe the past couple of evenings. Yesterday, DF7TV answered my CQ, and he was nearly S9 here. He told me he was running 500 W into a vertical antenna. I followed up that contact with an HA4 contact.
Earlier this evening, an IK1 tail-ended a contact with station in Tennessee. He wasn’t real strong, but it was 100% copy.
A question about the K1USN SST
Sunday evening, I loaded up the N1MM contesting software to make a few contacts in the K1USN Slow Speed Test (SST). I don’t operate the SST every week, but every once in a while it’s fun to do. I set my speed to 15 wpm and run a frequency.
This time, however, it seemed that everyone who replied to my CQ was either going much faster than 15 wpm or were seasoned CW ops that I’ve worked at higher speeds in ragchews or contests. It makes me wonder if the SST has perhaps strayed from its original intent, which is to “build CW skills and confidence with short easy exchanges.” I’m not sure what can be done, but I think that some consideration should be given to encouraging veteran operators not to simply work each other.