Those of you who have visited my QRZ page know that I try to ride my motorcycle to my POTA activations. This allows me to combine my passions for riding and POTA at the same time. While I usually carry a 20ft lightweight antenna pole, I never had to use it until today. You never know when the items in your kit may come in handy.
Sep 16, 2023: What a beautiful Michigan day! Late summer/early fall weather with temperatures around 70F (21C). Time to pile on some miles....
Today I rode up to activate St. Clair Township State Game Land (K-6788). It is about an hour's ride away from my residence. I usually plan my activation ahead of time and took a look at the POTA site for information. Most state Game Lands have a small area cleared for parking. Looking at the map linked to at the POTA site I see a parking area identified. As is usual for most game areas, the access road is a dirt road and not a paved surface. Although I ride a touring bike, I can handle a few miles of dirt road if I take it easy. When I ride up there, I find the entire parking area to be a muddy mess due to some rains. I did not want to risk my heavy bike getting stuck in the mud or even worse dropping my bike.
So I decided to park my bike on a soft shoulder at a safe location and then walk to a mowed field within the Game Land. In almost all my activations, I usually find a tree close by and string up my antenna using a throw line. But today, there was not a tree that was convenient. The field was a little soggy closer to the tree lines. So I had to resort to using my 20ft fiberglass pole that I carry for the first time. My pole is the WiMO-18333-6K pole from DXEngineering. I used this with a 1-1/2 inch PVC tube, WiMO portable mast Guy Ring WMO-18310-40 along with some paracords and garden stakes to anchor the pole to the ground.
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| Fiberglass pole at St. Clair Township State Game Land |
The pole is not a heavy-duty pole at all. So forget about heavy baluns etc. at the top end of the antenna. The pole tends to bend even under the weight of 16-18g speaker wires. In the above picture you can see it bending even though the antenna wire is not pulled taut. It is a last ditch attempt at gaining some height for simple antennas. It is however very light weight and works in a pinch. I had a successful activation and worked most stations on 40m CW that morning.
After this activation, I rode down to K-6789 (St. John's Marsh). This is a short ride through semi-rural roads. Once I reached the marsh, I noticed that the place was the Waldorf Astoria compared to K-6788. It had a convenient bench with a nearby tree. This was my first time activating from a bench as I usually look for picnic tables when possible. As I was activating, I saw humming birds and other small birds go on about their business. It does not get any better or so I thought!
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| St. John's Marsh. My ride is visible far in the background to the left of the parked truck. To the right was the marsh where humming birds were at play |
Finally to cap my day I went up to Algonac State Park (K-1484). What a beautiful park! Even better than the marsh! The main picnic area overlooks the St. Clair river and it was great to watch the ore vessels go by silently as you are activating the park. Time for some lunch as well and a nice ride back home after three successful activations!
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| Algonac State Park Picnic area overlooking the St. Clair river. Watching the ore vessels silently drifting by during activation is fun! To it add home-cooked pasta and it doesn't get any better. Note: this is a mirror image due to Selfie! Let me know of your enjoyable POTA excursions! |
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