Mirror Lake SP, K-1464

On Saturday night I was musing over the POTA map and my road maps, wanting another new park to activate and it struck me suddenly that Mirror Lake State Park, K-1464 which I really only knew of from a sign and a quick glimpse of water when driving by on the interstate, was actually right behind the Home Depot that I visit for DIY projects! That made the decision easy!

Perhaps I was a bit optimistic; finding my way into the actual park was a bit more of a challenge, but once I got there setup went well, even with the additional complication of guying the antenna because of the windy conditions and I was on the air quickly … to what appeared to be a dead band! It took an embarrassingly long time for me to figure out that the feedline connection at the Buddipole Versa-Tee had come off. I need to get something like a velcro strap to secure the cable to the mast to prevent that from happening again.

VersaTee showing the counterpoise, the guy ring with the 3 different-colored spools of mason’s twine, and the butt-end of my broken telescoping whip antenna, (soon to be repaired?) …

Try again. This time, plenty of signals; the radio comes on right at another activator at a park, so I work him, then shop around for more contacts. I am listening to a ragchewer when the station announces he is going QRT, so after he does I wait for a minute, ask if the frequency is in use, self-spot, and start CQing, which led to a few contacts, enough to get me over the 10 required to validate my activation. I started tuning around again when my CQs stopped producing, and was working a park-to-park QSO as his last contact; when he went QRT I took over that frequency and started CQing again. I don’t remember if I self-spotted or not, but I got spotted pretty quickly and the calls started pouring in, page after page of them, until I could see dusk approaching, and I had to call QRT myself, with no idea of how many contacts I had made! Took everything down quickly and started heading for home just as darkness was falling.

Well, it added up to 53 contacts when I finished entering it all into Xlog, and I seem to have finally gotten all of the requirements of a proper POTA log right, because the upload was accepted on the first try (again)!

QSO map courtesy of http://tools.adventureradio.de/analyzer/

The next activation might be Buckhorn SP, K-1443, maybe this weekend ?

The whole station fits in this bag; 7 pounds, 13 ounces, not including the coffee and Gatorade

Thanks for visiting driftlessqrp today!


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