Fellow Ham IRL. Dual Activation
Jim, W8STX runs a morning round table on weekdays on 145.150 repeater; I am a frequent participant. Recently he has taken up POTA and uses his ICOM 705 with the Xiegu XPA-125B Amp. In our round table yesterday, he mentioned he was going to activate K-1487 Belle Isle State Park. This park is a stone's throw away from downtown Detroit where I work. The plan was to work him simplex on 2m, but I forgot my HT at home. So when he texted me and let me know that he was there; I headed out there during lunch break.
It is really nice to meet someone who you've known only by voice. When I arrived there he was almost done with 11 contacts. He paused his activation and we chatted for a while. I had also carried my rig along and we examined each others' setup. I did not want a trip to a park go to waste. He graciously offered me to use his mic and rig and perform a 2 operator activation. However, I suggested that I can do a CW operation on my rig and he graciously threw the antenna over to my rig and let me go at it. This saved me a bunch of time trying to my wire antenna up the tree. His antenna was a Chameleon MPAS Lite. My KX-3 had no issues tuning and found a 1:1 match on 20m. I proceeded to put out CQs and quickly had a bunch of responses. I had 11 contacts in 13 minutes including one in NV. In between, we traded tricks and tips. It was fun watching a fellow ham work POTA. At the end, I wrapped up quickly and headed back to work while Jim stayed on to work a few more contacts. We since notice that there were four activations of the park that day!
In all this was a nice day made even nicer by the gracious gesture of a fellow ham!
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