Having fun with POTA

I’ve been doing more Parks on the Air (POTA) operation this summer now that I’m “retired.” It’s been a lot of fun. Not only that, I’ve learned some stuff.

Here’s how my activations usually go. Two or three of us—my partners in crime have included Rick K8BMA, Paul KW1L, and my wife, Silvia—leave my house about 8:30 am and head up to K-3315, the Island Lake Recreation Area.  The park is less than a half hour from my house.

After we get there, we set up, play around with the radios for an hour or so, eat lunch, and then go home. We don’t make as many contacts as some POTA activators, but we enjoy the outdoors and have fun shooting the breeze with one another.

Setup is pretty quick. I can fit my entire station, including my KX-3, BioEnno 9 Ah battery, Kent paddle, antenna, assorted cables, and even the KX-3 microphone(!) in a small toolbox. I pull everything out of the toolbox, plug it all together, and then put up the antenna.

My doublet antenna

The antenna that I’ve been using is a 66-ft. doublet made with some wire-wrap wire that I salvaged from a company dumpster many years ago. The feedline that I’m using is some twisted pair that I just happened to have laying around. The antenna coils up nicely and fits into a corner of the bottom of the toolbox.

One thing that I like about this antenna is that because it’s a full half-wave on 40 meters, it’s more efficient than a Buddipole or other similarly short antennas. I connect the feedline directly to the KX-3 with a BNC-binding post adapter, and the KX-3 tuner cranks out a match on all bands above 7 MHz.

To hang the antenna, I had been using a tennis ball to toss a couple of lines up into trees to support the two ends of the antenna. This winter, though, I purchased a Spiderbeam 10-meter, telescoping, fiberglass mini pole from Vibroplex, and I’ve started using this pole to support the center of the antenna operate the doublet in an inverted-V configuraton. This works very nicely, and because I’m getting the center of the antenna up more than 25 feet, it seems to work better than when the ends were up 20 feet or less.

My first attempt at using this pole was kind of kludgey. We moved a picnic table, and tried lashing it to the table. That single point of support didn’t work out so well, so we also tie-wrapped it to a nail sticking out of the eaves of the picnic shelter. That kept the pole vertical, but it certainly wasn’t a optimum solution.

After that activation, I search for better ways to set up that pole and came across a couple of YouTube videos. I had meant to go buy the piece of PVC pipe and straps recommended in the videos, but as usual, I didn’t get around to it. So, before the next activation, I searched my basement and garage for something that I could use.

What I came up with you can see in the photo at right. I had the stakes that you see in the photo from a gardening project. I reckoned that if I could pound them into the ground in a triangular pattern around the pole, then strap it all together, it would be sturdy enough for a three- or four-hour POTA activation. And, indeed it was.

One of the reasons that it worked is that the Spiderbeam pole comes in a  tube that seems almost designed exactly for this kind of setup . The bottom has a rubber “foot” that provides a secure interface with the ground, and the other end of the pole had a ring that you can snug everything up to. I’m’ not sure that I’d try this on a DXpedition to Bouvey Island, but for a casual outing to the Island Lake Recreation Area, it works just fine. And, I didn’t have to buy a single thing!

My last activation

Yesterday, the team included my wife, Silvia, and me. We left the house just a little after 9:00 am, and by 10:00 am, I was on the air. I decided to get on 20 meters first, but after three contacts with stations in Florida, I QSYed to 40 meters.

On 40, the contacts came fast and furious. By 11:20 am, I’d made 29 contacts, filling up two pages in my mobile log book. That was enough for me. I turned off the rig, took a little hike to the platform overlooking the lake to enjoy the view, and then had lunch with my wife. After lunch, we packed up and got home about 1:00 pm.

One of the things that I want to do before my next activation is print out a WTH card for POTA activations. I have one for lighthouse activations, but one describing POTA would be cool.

I also want to experiment with antenna placement. It may be just coincidence that I worked Florida stations on 20 meters as my first three contacts, but the antenna ran east to west, meaning that north and south was broadside to the antenna. Perhaps, if I’d set it up differently, I’d have worked stations to the east and west as well.

Whatever happens, it’s all fun, and that’s the point of ham radio after all, isn’t it?