It was overcast, seventeen degrees, and flurrying gently when I rolled out of the driveway en-route to Wildcat Mountain State Park, and the sun was about to get above the horizon as I was driving along the county highway.
As I promptly realized when I got to the park it was just too cold for a hike, so while the snow flurried and the overcast returned I set up the vertical antenna, then unpacked the radio. This took about 20 minutes, with a few pauses to warm up my fingers.
Equipment used:
- Buddipole tripod, pole, and VersaTee
- Xiegu X6100 SDR transceiver
- Bioenno 3Ah 12 volt LiFePO4 battery
- Rite-in-the-rain notebook
- Rite-in-the-rain 1.3 mm mechanical pencil (YE13)
- 17 foot stainless steel telescoping whip antenna (a hamfest purchase, similar to the MFJ item)
- 18 foot counterpoise made from electric-fence twine (any farm-supply store)
- Caseling “hard” case (seen in picture below)
- G4Free crossbody sling bag, accessorized with two
- Water bottle pouches
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Propagation seemed good, not too much fading and a low noise level. While searching for an empty spot I met a station guarding a frequency for an upcoming net, so i courteously moved on, logging the conversation as my first QSO. A park-to-park contact was next as I tuned downwards, and then I found the spot I was looking for.
I started calling CQ, and self-spotted; within 30 seconds an alert operator gave me a call!
After that, stations came in at a pretty good pace; 45 minutes of operating brought me a total of 15 contacts, mostly from the southeast but a call from Alaska was a pleasant surprise!
I remember complaining in a recent post about activations seeming to take 2 or 3 hours, so it was a welcome contradiction of my pessimism to accomplish one in an hour and a half! Returned home, transferred my log from paper to an ADIF file and got it submitted to POTA by lunchtime. One of my P2P contacts had already made it into my “recent hunter qsos” ahead of me; I think he was logging with an internet connection where he was operating because he knew my name as soon as he had my callsign
Ever since I was licensed I have been a paper log guy. Never needed electronic logs except for Field Day back when I did it with a big club, and one of the club members handled most of the heavy lifting on that. When I started doing POTA that all changed; sending an ADIF file was the only option. I tried several of the popular packages that had a linux version, but the only logging program I have ever gotten to actually work on my Linux Mint system computers is called xlog and though it is kind of minimal it does what I need, when I need it.
It was really good to get on the air from a park after what seemed like a long, long time (even if it was only a little more than a month). Now to do it again, soon!
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