KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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Dayton Hamvention 2026: Day 1, Wednesday, May 13

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Last Wednesday, I began my annual trek to the Dayton Hamvention. I live pretty close (three and a half hours driving), but I like to attend QRP-ARCI‘s Four Days in May on Thursday, so I head down early. I used to actually leave verrrry early on Thursday morning to get there by 8 am (and not have to pay for a night in a hotel), but I gave that up several years ago.

A couple of years ago, I started doing Parks on the Air (POTA), so I take the opportunity to stop at a couple of parks on the way. My first stop is Van Buren State Park, which is just north of Findlay. It’s right off the freeway (I-75) and very accessible. I arrived about 11:30 am.

Picnic shelter
This is the picnic shelter I use when I activate Van Buren State Park.

I set up in the picnic shelter (shown above) that’s near the entrance to the park. This was my third activation, and there’s never been anyone else using the shelter when I’ve operated from there. I set up my 66-ft. doublet at the far end of the shelter, by the trees.

That was my first mistake. I was in a bit of a hurry, since I wanted to get set up quickly, so that I could eat lunch while i was operating. In my haste, however, I didn’t anchor the mast very well, and it was very windy that morning. So, of course, the antenna blew over. Not only that, one leg of the antenna got caught in one of the trees that you can see in the picture. This particular tree sported some big thorns, which made disentangling the wire a bit of a challenge.

I did manage to get the antenna back in the air—and eat my lunch—but it was very chilly with the wind and all. I squeezed out 12 contacts in about 45 minutes, then decided to tear down and hit the road.

In 2024 and 2025, my next stop was Grand Lake St. Mary’s State Park near Celina, Ohio. It’s a lovely park, which oddly enough, has a small lighthouse on it. It’s more than 20 miles east of I-75, though, so I thought I’d try a different park this year for my second activation. That honor fell to Kiser Lake State Park.

Beautiful view of a lake.
It was kind of cloudy at Kiser Lake State Park when I got there.

Getting there was a bit of an adventure. Like many people, I use Google Maps for navigation. After leaving Van Buren State Park, I got back on I-75 for about 20 miles, at which point Google decided to direct me to the back roads. The closer I got to Kiser Lake State Park, the narrower the roads became. At one point, the road was so narrow that there wasn’t even a center line. The directions were true, though, and I arrived in good time.

It was still windy and chilly, though. I set up in a picnic shelter near the park entrance, making sure this time to securely anchor the mast. I was able to make 14 contacts in about 45 minutes, and then decided to call it quits.

The nice thing about operating from Kiser Lake State Park is that the route from there to Fairborn, where I was staying is short and takes the back roads, avoiding I-75. I got to the hotel in about 45 minutes. I headed over to the FDIM hotel, picked up my badge and then headed out to dinner. Overall, this was a great start to my Dayton 2026 adventure.

Amateur radio in the news: Students learn how to use ham radio, Saline resident reaches remote island, ham radio open house a success

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Saline Resident Reaches One of Earth’s Most Remote Islands

For most travelers, a trip halfway around the world is enough of an adventure. For Saline resident Dennis Ward, it was just the beginning. Ward recently returned from a rare expedition to Bouvet Island, a remote, glacier-covered outpost in the South Atlantic Ocean, where he joined a small international team of amateur radio operators seeking to connect with the world from one of its most isolated places.

read more…

I like this story for a couple of reasons. First, it was a collaboration of three different clubs. Second, the Great Bend Radio Group is about more than just amateur radio. Judging by their banner, they welcome anyone involved with any of the personal radio services. Unfortunately, the reporter got some of the details wrong…..Dan

Ham Radio Open House a big success

PARKERSBURG – Members of three regional amateur radio clubs contacted ham radio operators worldwide for World Amateur Radio Day (WARD) Saturday at Fort Boreman Park in Parkersburg. WARD, also known as the Ham Radio Open House (sic), was a collaboration of Great Bend Radio Group of Meigs County, Ohio, the Parkersburg Amateur Radio Klub and Wood County Emergency Communications. The three clubs working together on this project fulfills this year’s American Radio League (sic) emphasis on “Year of the Club.”

Man and woman hanging banner at park gazebo.
From left, Beth Edwards, WB3TH and Brian Taylor, KZ8U, from Meigs County, Ohio, hang their club banner at Fort Boreman Park.

Summertime, Summertime, Sum, Sum, Summertime

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I like wearing shorts whenever I can, even when it might a touch on the chilly side. When it’s chilly outside, and my wife sees my bare legs, she’ll say, “What, you think it’s summertime?” At this point, I break into song, singing the chorus of “Summertime, Summertime,” the 1958 hit of the Jamies.

Today, was a completely different story. It was 80 degrees this afternoon, and though a bit overcast, it really felt like summer. It was a perfect day to do my first POTA activation of the year.

Dan, KB6NU, sitting at a picnic table operating his KX3 transceiver.
The beautiful weather made for a great start to the 2026 POTA season on the Iron Belle State Trail.

I activated a new (to me) park, too. As I reported last week, the Iron Belle State Trail is now a POTA park. The exciting thing for me is that the trail runs through Bandemer Park, which is about a mile and a half from me. So, this afternoon, I hopped in the car and drove over to make my first POTA activation of 2026.

I decided to head to the northern end of the park, where there’s a pavillion, just in case it decided to rain. They’ve made many improvements since I last visited the park, so it took me a few minutes to find the pavillion, but once I did, I got set up quickly and got on 20 meters.

Signals didn’t seem too bad, but I wasn’t generating any pileups. I did manage to work one Italian and several West Coast stations, but after about 45 minutes I’d only made 14 contacts, so I decided to give 40 meters a try.

That move really paid off. The first contact I made was a park-to-park (P2P) contact with WK2S in NY, and over the next 36 minutes,  I made 29 additional contacts. My last contact was with my friend Paul, KW1L. I almost missed his call, as I was about to close down, but he snuck in under the wire.

Overall, it was a great start for my POTA activations this year, and I’m looking forward to many more from the Iron Belle Trail this summer.

 

Exciting news for Michigan POTA ops!

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Julie, WT8J, the Michigan Parks on the Air Map Rep, just dropped some exciting news on me. She writes:

We’ve added Iron Belle State Trail to Parks On The Air bringing activation opportunities much closer to urban centers in Southeast Michigan and beyond. According to Michigan.gov,  “The Iron Belle Trail is the longest state-designated trail in the U.S., spanning over 2,000 miles from the western Upper Peninsula to Belle Isle in Detroit. The trail is currently more than 70% complete and connects over half of Michigan’s counties.” The Trail’s POTA designator is US-13184.

A map of the Iron Belle Trail.
The Iron Belle Trail is the longest state-designated trail in the U.S., spanning over 2,000 miles from the western Upper Peninsula to Belle Isle in Detroit.

This unique trail features two distinct routes: a biking route and a hiking route. The biking route travels along the eastern side of the state, using existing bike paths, lanes, and designated routes. Meanwhile, the hiking route follows the western side of the Lower Peninsula, incorporating sidewalks, trails and a significant portion of the North Country National Scenic Trail.”

The Iron Belle overlaps with several existing municipal trails, such as the Border to Border here in Washtenaw, the Downriver Linked Greenways, and the Detroit Riverwalk.

The trail also traverses many downtown city parks, including Riverside in Flint, Ojibway Island in Saginaw, and Defoe in Bay City. Additionally, it passes through several parks in Ann Arbor, such as Gallup, Fuller, and Bandemer. This means these municipal parks are now valid locations for Parks On The Air activations, provided you are within 100 feet of the trail.

Headed west out of Washtenaw, through downtown Jackson it picks up the MLK Equality Walk and continues down the Falling Waters Trail to Concord.  Here starts the patchwork of proposed and complete pathways until it hits the Calhoun County Trailway that takes it right through the heart of Battle Creek.

All this and that’s just a portion of this Parks On The Air reference.  I think that eventually this will be the most activated reference in Michigan!  2-meter pedestrian portable activations are now entirely possible in several communities.  And I just think that’s neat.

A map of the Belle Iron Trail as it passes through Ann Arbor.
The Belle Iron Trail passes through Ann Arbor less than a mile from my house.

As a reminder, the activation rules include that you must be on public land and within 100’ of the trail.  Good operator etiquette is a smaller footprint in urban areas for any portable station.

73 & POTA ON!
Julie WT8J
Michigan Parks On The Air Map Rep

This is really exciting for me as I live less than a mile from the Iron Belle State Trail. (On the map at right, I live very close to the left edge of the map.) If I was really ambitious, I could even hike over to Bandemer Park and activate there.

I’d be over there right now, if the weather was a little more accommodating today. Unfortunately, it’s overcast and 45°F, and while I hate to admit it, I’m pretty much a fair-weather POTA op. Be listening for me this summer, though, from US-13184.

ICQPodcast Episode 479 – Baofeng UV-5R Mini

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ICQ Podcast logo.In this episode, I join Martin Butler M1MRB, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, Edmund Spicer M0MNG and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news, including:

Colin, M6BOY, also reports on the following:

This month’s feature is a report on the new Baofeng UV-5R Mini.

Bouvet (3Y0K) Update

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One of our local club members—Dennis, KT8X—is one of the operators on the Bouvet Island DXpedition team. He just posted this to our club mailing list:

News Update – February 23 2026

The team is excitedly preparing for arrival at Bouvet – which depending on some factors (mostly weather) will either be Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.

Everything is going well on the vessel; it handles the sea very well and has no problem running at 14 knots+. The weather has been fantastic for the past 2 days, but tomorrow we expect the sea to be a bit rough.

All team members are in good spirits and only a few persons are seasick; meanwhile, our preparations continue. We’ve fine-tuned our logistical approach and have established a flight plan with all equipment going onshore, and we have had meetings with pilots, vessel, and expedition crew. All merge very well into the team, and we are on this mission together.

We are evaluating various scenarios that may unfold and discuss / mitigate what we see as obvious risks. We’re confident that the preparations we’ve made based on our experience will take us one step closer to getting onshore and will adjust as we see necessary.

The helicopter, being a workhorse and a solid aircraft, the pilots are very confident in this machine and express that this helicopter is the right choice for such an operation.
We have published a band plan on our website (link below), where our team will have a strong focus on the human modes, but digital modes are also being strategized.
We will release more information soon; the next update can be expected once we are onshore the island.

Visit 3y0k.com/#bandplan for the Band Plan.

We have devised an ideal method to get around the usual DQRM – we think it will work well. As always, LISTEN to the Operators stating Where they are listening and How they want you to call!

The 3Y0K Team appreciates your continued support of this adventure.

See you in the pileups…

Operating Notes, January 5, 2026

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Screen shot of an IC-7610 band scope.
I’d recognize this signal anywhere.

It used to be that you could recognize an operator by the sound of their fist. That is to say the distinctive way that they sent dits and dahs while operating Morse Code. With the advent of the electronic keyer, fists have become less distinctive, but it’s still possible.

But, there’s another way you can now sometimes recognize an operator. You don’t even have to hear them send a single dit or dah. The key is what their signal looks like on your waterfall.

Yesterday, just after I turned on the radio, I saw a signal around 7022 kHz. Immediately, I knew who it was. I tuned it in, and sure enough I was right. This signal is a little more recognizable because it’s from a homebrew rig, but even so, other signals can probably be determined from how they look on the waterfall if they’re strong enough.

Straight Key Night 2026

As I’ve mentioned before, the only time I use a straight key on the air is Straight Key Night. This year, I only made four contacts before I put the Bunnel #9 back on the shelf. Even though I made only four contacts, two were notable:

  • I1MMR. If you live in the eastern U.S. and operate 40 meter CW at all, chances are you’ve worked Mauro, I1MMR. This was my 42nd contact with Mauro. This wasn’t strictly an SKN contact, but I’m counting it.
  • N0AX. Ward Silver is one of those hams that everyone seems to know. He’s the author of Ham Radio for Dummies and has edited the ARRL Handbook. Signals were S9 both ways and we had a nice chat before my wrist started to quit on me.

Short skip on 40 meters

Every once in a while, I get some really short skip on 40 meters in the evening. A couple of days ago, I worked a fellow who lives near Lansing, MI that QRZ.Com said was about 50 miles away. That’s gotta be too far away for ground wave, so it must be really short skip.

Right after that contact, I worked a guy near Bad Axe, MI, which is in “The Thumb.” (Take a look at a Michigan map, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.) He was only 110 miles away, according to QRZ.Com. Both stations were S9 here in Ann Arbor.

Two operating tips for new POTA CW Ops

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Parks on the Air (POTA) logoOne of the cool things about Parks on the Air (POTA) is that the simple exchange  and lack of rules is encouraging some operators to try their hand at CW. Not only are some of newer operators working POTA, they’re also making regular CW QSOs as well. This is great for all CW ops as it increases activity on the bands.

The problem is that newer ops are not often familiar with common operating procedures, and the lack of rules can be confusing to new ops. For example, the POTA protocol is for “hunters” to send their call once when responding to a CQ POTA. Most of the time, the activators are able to get the call the first time, but if there is some fading or several stations call at the same, they might miss the call or not get the complete call.

When that happens, the protocol is for the CQing station to send “?” or “QRZ?” This means that the hunter should repeat their call sign. Many newer operators don’t seem to understand this, though, and they get confused. So, if you’re hunting, and you hear “?” or “QRZ?” jump right in there again with your call sign.

If the activator sends a partial call sign followed by a question mark, only reply if that partial call sign matches your call sign. For example, if an activator sent “KEB?” I’d know not to respond because that string isn’t part of my call sign. On the other hand, if the activator sent “KB6?” I’d know that they heard me, and I’d’ jump right in and send my call sign again. I’d maybe even send it twice for good measure.

Be patient

My second tip is to be patient with an activator. If they don’t reply to you on the first call, try again. Any number of things might cause an activator to not hear you, or they may hear you, but decide to reply to someone else first. Don’t disappear on the activator. Just wait till they’ve completed the QSO and try again. The activator wants to work you as much as you want to contact them.

When you call the second time, maybe try sending a little slower. That might help the activator pick you out of the noise or the pileup.

These are some tips that I’ve picked up over the years. I hope that you found them useful, and that they will help you make more CW POTA contacts.

 

POTA, no POTA, POTA, POTA, POTA

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POTA Park Activator name tage for KB6NU.My birthday was last Wednesday, and for my birthday, I convinced my lovely wife, Silvia, to head “up north” (as we say here in Michigan). We spent four days in East Tawas on the shores of Lake Huron, going to the beach, enjoying our state parks, and, of course operating some Parks on the Air.

Bay City State Recreation Area (US-3305)

To get to East Tawas, you take I-75 north until you get close to Bay City, then head east on US-23. It only takes 2-1/2 hours to get there, but I thought I’d make a POTA stop along the way. I consulted the POTA app’s map feature and found exactly what I was looking for—the Bay City State Recreation Area (US-3305).

This park, located on the southern edge of Saginaw Bay, is just north of Bay City. To get there, Google Maps actually routed us through the city. The park has both a large campground and a day use area. The day use area has a couple of picnic shelters, and I was hoping to set up in one of the shelters, but since we were there on a Sunday, both shelters were reserved.

No matter. I found a nice, shady spot with a picnic table near the southernmost part of the park that was out of the way and set up there. I made my first contact just before 11:00 am and logged my 10th contact a little less than a half hour later. Overall, I made 26 contacts—10 on 40 meters and 16 on 20 meters—in an hour and 45 minutes.

That’s not a great rate, but I did take time out to go to the beach for a little bit and eat the lunch I brought with me. It also included a nice chat with a woman who stopped by to chat about ham radio. She was a Bay City resident who’d come down to enjoy the beach, and after talking with someone on the phone for a while, she came over to talk to me.

As it turned out, her late husband was a ham. I asked if she knew his callsign, but she said that she didn’t remember it. I should have written down her name, but that didn’t seem quite appropriate at the time. At any rate, it was a nice way to end my visit to Bay City.

East Tawas State Harbor (US-6812)

The place we stayed while we were in East Tawas was the Tawas Bay Beach Resort. One reason for choosing this spot is that it is right next to the East Tawas State Harbor (US-6812). I didn’t’ have to drive anywhere, just haul my stuff over to the park, which I did early the next morning. I activated this park last year, and while it wasn’t a great experience, I did manage a legal activation.

No such luck this time. The noise was S9+, and I couldn’t hear a single signal. I tried changing the orientation of the antenna and the noise blanker, but nothing worked. I packed up after about 15 minutes and headed back to my hotel room.

Tawas Point State Park (US-1545)

All was not lost, however. Silvia and I headed over to Tawas Point State Park (US-1545). The park is a short, scenic drive from our hotel.

Once we got there, we set up our beach chairs and headed out into the water for a while. After a bit of that, I set up the radio and made my first contact at 12:35 pm.

Over the next  three hours, I made 51 contacts, but the cool thing is that I had quite a few visitors, including two hams. I spent quite a bit of time with these visitors, so while my rate (17 contacts/hour) wasn’t all that great, I still had a lot of fun explaining Parks on the Air to both hams and non-hams.

Another cool thing about this state park is that it’s home to a lighthouse, meaning that I can also claim a lighthouse activation on the Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society website.. The Tawas Point Lighthouse was built in 1876 and will be celebrating it’s 150th anniversary next year. I plan to be back next year to help them celebrate.

Harrisville State Park (US-1501)

The next day, Silvia and I drove up to Harrisville State Park (US-1501). It’s about 45 minutes north of East Tawas. According to its website, the park was established in 1921 and is one of Michigan’s oldest state parks. The beach there is quite rocky, much rockier than the Tawas beaches, so I’m glad I brought my sand shoes.

We found a shady spot, and I headed out into the water for a bit. One of the things I like about Michigan beaches is finding fossils. Many of the rocks have visible fossils, and the Harrisville beach didn’t disappoint. I found two very nice rocks to add to my collection.

Harrisville has a nice picnic shelter, but I decided to set up in a clearing a short way away. Being a  little out of the way, I didn’t think that it would get much foot traffic,, meaning that people would be less likely to walk into my antenna. It was very shady there, too, which was nice.

I made my first contact there at 12:52 pm, and three hours and 20 minutes later, I made #40. That was a little disappointing, but again, I had a couple of nice visits. The first guy to wander over was a tower climber in his younger days. He said that he’d always been kind of interested in getting a  license, so I gave him one of my cards.

On the way home, I said to Silvia that I’m getting a lot more visitors here than I do when I activate parks closer to home. She replied, “Well, people here are on vacation and want to be entertained. You’re the entertainment!”

Tawas Point State Park (US-1545)

On Wednesday—my birthday—Silvia decided that she’d had enough POTA, so I drove over to Tawas Point SP by myself. This time, I thought I’d try to find a spot closer to the lighthouse. The problem is  that the lighthouse is located in a big, open space, and there’s not much shade. I did spot a shady  patch, though, and dragged a heavy picnic table about 50 feet over to it, only to find that there was a lot of poison ivy there. Since I’ve almost recovered from my last bout of poison ivy, I decided to abandon the picnic table and set up in my previous spot.

This day, the bands were in pretty good condition, and I made 55 contacts in just two hours, bringing my total to 172 contacts in 4 activations.

I also had several visitors during those two hours. One of them was also a ham who said that he was going to activate later that day. I just checked, and he did indeed activate, making 11 phone contacts.

This got me  thinking about who are the park leaders at the three parks that I activated this trip. As it turns out, I’m the park leader at the Tawas Point State Park with 165 contacts over four activations. I’m not even on the leader board at either Bay City or Harrisville.

I guess that I’m going to have to get back up there and activate those parks more. I’ve been trying to convince Silvia to buy a summer place up  there, and we saw something that looked almost perfect for us, but someone had already made an offer on the place. We’re going to keep looking, and if we do manage to find something, I’ll be able to extend my lead at Tawas Point SP, and maybe catch up a little at the other parks.

A POTA procedural proposal

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A swallow's nest attached to a beam of a picnic shelter.
A swallow’s nest attached to the picnic  shelter where we operated from this morning. Mama swallow was not happy with me taking this picture. In fact, she dive-bombed me earlier. She had at least three chicks in the nest.

I often do POTA activations with two friends: Paul, KW1L and Rick, K8BMA. We almost always operate CW. On a recent activiation, Paul asked if there was a way to do a joint activation like many phone operators do. If you hunt phone POTA activators, they often say something like, “Stand by for a second operator,” then the second operator gets on and makes their contact.

This rarely happens on CW. In fact, I don’t think that there’s a standard procedure for doing this, and sending something like “QRX for a second operator” probably wouldn’t’ work. For one thing, it’s too long to send. For another, many POTA CW ops are not very experienced and probably wouldn’t know what QRX means.

Even so, Paul and I wanted to be able to set up one station and then make contacts jointly. Paul emailed Tom, K4SWL, if he had any suggestions. Tom wrote back, suggesting a possible way to do this, but added, “I’ll be honest. I think that this would throw off most hunters.”

Paul and I tended to agree with him, but we thought we’d give it a go anyway. This morning, Paul, Rick, and I headed out to the Pinckney State Recreation Area (US-3322). After getting set up, I suggested that what we might do is for me to spot myself and call CQ, and after getting a reply somehow indicate that a second operator, and therefore QSO, was available. The first transmission was pretty much standard, but after the hunter replied, I would send something to indicate that Paul was also there. Here’s an example:

CQ CQ POTA KB6NU KB6NU POTA

W1ABC

W1ABC 599 MI BK

599 MA BK

TU NW W1ABC DE KW1L 599 MI BK (This is the crucial step. With this transmission, we’re telling the hunter that there’s a second station that want a contact, too.)

If the hunter responded with an exchange, we counted that as a contact for KW1L. If not, we didn’t count it.

We experimented with slight variations of this format.  For example, instead of just a single KW1L, we sent it twice. If neither transmission elicited a response, I would give another call, simply:

W1ABC DE KW1L 599 MI

This would sometimes get them to reply. Another trick that we tried was to slow down when sending that final transmission, thinking that that would be a clue that there was a second operator present. That seemed to work sometimes.

Overall, a little less than half the time, the hunter would get the idea and realize that we had a second operator. The other times, the hunters either didn’t understand what we were sending or tuned away after their transmission and didn’t hear ours. If the latter, it’s a shame because they could have had a second contact.

We made 12 contacts for Paul, after which, he decided to call it quits. So, he now has his first legal activation under his belt!

As a result of this experience, I would like to suggest that CW hunters listen to the final transmission of the activator in case there is a second operator present. I would also like to suggest that activators use the format:

TU NW <hunter call sign> DE <second activator call sign> <second activator call sign> 599 <state> BK

I’m not wedded to this, though, so if you have a better suggestion, please let me know.