In the morning I wasn’t even thinking about radio, but with an early start on the household stuff, as noon approached the vista of the afternoon opened before me. I mulled over the POTA map for a few minutes and for some reason Kickapoo Valley SWA seemed like a good idea. Looking back, I see that it is more than 2 years since I activated there. Off and away, down 82; catch 131 south from LaFarge (home of Organic Valley), … Viola, Readstown, Soldier’s Grove, Gay’s Mills, then Bell Center, and a little parking area just off the road.
It was pretty windy, so it took a few tries to get the tripod into a position where it got support from the car body, but I was on the air quickly. So quickly, I forgot to connect the antenna to the X6100! (why is the band so quiet?) When I noticed that, even with the engine shut off there was a lot of popcorn noise making about an S5 noise floor; it sounded more like a lot of lightning QRN rather than noise from the nearby power lines, though.
Only one park-to-park, for a twofer, otherwise 21 contacts in a little over one hour, with the usual distribution of mostly east and southeast stations.
Thanks for visiting driftlessqrp! I’m going to move along, and post about today’s activation!
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