Double Trouble!

 As winter tightens its grip over Michigan, I take the opportunity to squeeze POTA activations when possible. With temperatures in the upper 40s (about 5 deg C) I decided to ride down to Dodge State Park #4 K-1495. It was chillier than expected. When I reached the park, I noticed that they had removed all the picnic tables. So I was forced to activate right from my motorcycle. This means this was going to be a short activation. It was further reinforced by the icy winds blowing off of Cass Lake that was freezing my fingertips and making paddle operation difficult. 

As I was moving across the bands I first got a call from KQ4DJG which I logged. Within a few minutes, while in the midst of another QSO, I get a call from KQ4DJF. I had assumed that the caller wanted to correct the call and I responded that I got DJF. Then DJG comes back. I was confused about it and tried to asked DJG OR DJF? but got no specific response. I noted this and then went on with my other QSOs. Upon looking the QRZ it appears both calls are possibly related and almost always work together. I'm sure on SSB the confusion could have been sorted out quickly, but the CW skills were not sufficient to indicate that two stations were distinct. 

Would it have been better to send KQ4DJG ES KQ4DJF? Any experienced CW op care to comment?

Lemons and Lemonade

WFH RTO POTA

It is true! Like many of the recent hams -- new or returning back -- I will cite the recent COVID-19 pandemic as an important factor for my return. Upon my return last year, I started my foray into HF and then on to POTA. I started learning CW and now am sufficiently proficient to inflict pain and suffering on other CW ops; HI HI

Fortunately, the brunt of the pandemic is in our rear-view mirrors and life returns to normal. For me that means that the RTO [return to office] mandates are kicking in. We are now asked to come back to work; despite having proven over the last few years that we can do our work remotely and still be productive. 

Even when I was WFH [working from home], my POTA activations were always reserved for the weekends or late summer evenings when the sun was up late. One would hope RTO would crimp my POTA schedule. But fear not! It seems to have the opposite effect.

Milliken State Park K-1522 is barely a stone's throw away from my office in downtown Detroit. Today was especially nice. A 60 degree day in mid-November? What's a POTA activator to do but to go POTA activating. So come lunch time, I headed out the the park, a quick 2 min drive with my lunch box and POTA gear. 

I worked at a furtive pace! Got the antenna set up and the CQs going within 7 minutes of getting on-site. A near record for me! I had very little time. The parking situation at our work garage is not ideal and I risk losing my spot in the garage if I stay out too late. So I did not dally and went out to the trusty 20m band that almost never seems to fail.

POTA and a Lunch at K-1522

I got 14 contacts in about 22 minutes. I also managed to eat my lunch in between. Thanks to the memory keying putting out CQs when I grabbed a bite! A quick wrap up and check to ensure I am leaving nothing behind...I was back at work within 40 minutes. The stars seemed aligned today; the traffic, the weather, the band conditions. Hopefully I will be able to repeat it a few more times over this winter! Hope to catch you during lunch sometime!

One Oh Oh; Twice Over

My 100th successful POTA activation:

I've had a busy summer activating nearby parks. As the number of activations were growing, I was looking forward to my 100th successful activation.  (I have had one failure to date). I have always wanted to do something special for the 100th one. After looking at parks nearby me and some of the stats, I settled on K-1513: Mike Levine Lakelands Trail State Park. This is not a park in the traditional sense. It is basically an equestrian and biking trail that winds its way for a little over 30 miles along an old railroad track. It has a mix of paved and unpaved portions and traverses several counties. I chose this park because:

• I have never activated it
• It seems to have had fewer activations
• It was conveniently located and fit my plans for the rest of the day

I had a few vacation days to burn before the end of the year. Today's weather was going to be tolerable. As much as I would have liked to ride my motorcycle for the activation, my plans to combine with other errands meant that I had to use my automobile. 

My goal for the 100th was to activate a new (to me) park and get at least 100 QSOs. I have never cracked a 100 QSO activation yet.

I chose the trailhead parking at Hamburg township. There were off and on sprinkles on the way to the park, but when I reached there, it was just cloudy.  I carefully backed up my SUV and positioned in such a way that I can perform the activation on the back of the SUV with the hatch opened. By now my experience slinging the arborist line meant I had the random-wire antenna up and functional in a few minutes.

Hatchback activation

There was a minor problem. The lamp on the hatch stayed on and did not have a cut off switch [NOTE: This is an older vehicle that uses incandescent bulbs and not LEDs] . This was going to drain my batteries! So I had to unscrew the housing and pull the harness off the lamp to conserve the vehicle battery. 

I got started at around 1600 UTC.  I realized that the bands were in good shape. I worked 17m, 20m, 30m, 40m on CW and 20m and 40m on SSB. Once I reached the 100 mark, I was hoping for a lull in hunters; but they kept on coming until I had about 132 QSOs in three and a half hours. I realized during the QSOs that this was a needed park for quite a few hunters who were thankful. I ended up getting my first POTA SSB DX from Italy; not bad for 7W indicated by my radio. I also had one other CW DX from France for the day. The band was getting progressively better, but the temperatures were falling and I had errands to run. So I took the first lull in hunters to QRT and head on with the other tasks for the day; but not before reconnecting and installing the lamp on the hatch!

Shameless brag:

Screenshot showing 100 activations

Screenshot showing 132 QSOs for activation

I had great fun today and was glad to have accomplished the goals. I look forward to my 100th unique park in the future, but I am not sure if it will surpass the excitement of today. Hope to catch you on the air soon

73

The ugly duckling

 The Elecraft KX-3 is the radio that I use for POTA activations. I got my radio with the KX-PD3 paddle. While the KX-PD3 is well built and works like a charm, it seems to require periodic maintenance. Every other outing, I find I need to clean the contacts out or the paddles keep missing dits or dahs. So I found myself using the compact morse paddle such as this one https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Key-Automatic-Morse-Stainless/dp/B09KC3JYC8

While the compact morse paddle is great, it adds to setup and tear down time as I have to remove it from the box and hook it up to the radio and reverse it when I QRT. The convenience of the paddle attached to the radio such as the KX-PD3 cannot be beat. While looking around in the web, I ran into a post by fellow ham mentioning the QRPBuilder kit for a single lever paddle for the KX2/KX3: https://qrpbuilder.com/kx_single_lever

Now this intrigued me. It was cheap and I do not have to worry about putting it through the rough paces in the field. Granted, that this is not an iambic two lever paddle [ they sell a kit for that one if you need it ], but I rarely use the iambic feature and was not a concern to me.  The kit comes with all that is needed to build it. The instructions for building it are downloadable from their website. They rate the build at medium high difficulty.

I am not an experienced kit builder and in fact this is the first kit that I have built. Bear in mind, I have done some tinkering with soldering iron though, such as the occasional ESP32 project builds and replacement of busted USB ports etc. This build was a little challenging. I took it very slow and built it over 3 days. I went through their assembly instructions several times. The instructions are clearly written and easy to follow. The challenge is to keep everything aligned through the process as there are no detents or jigs to help with the alignment. Another factor contributing to the challenge is the fact that the structural rigidity of the kit depends on soldering.  I used a small dollop of gorilla glue between the plastics to tack them  give more strength to the final assembly. The wait for the 24 hour cure time accounts for the 3 day build time. After soldering the 2x2 connector in the first step, I verified that the connections are solid using a multimeter. The patience did pay off in the end as the paddle worked the first time I plugged it in. The 2x2 connector and the mounting screw holes are perfectly aligned and plug in smoothly even when compared to the KX-PD3

The QRPBuilder paddle for KX-3

So there it is, the assembled paddle attached to the radio. Not a great looking piece, but boy does it work! After a few tweaks, I got the paddle travel to work to my liking. If you get a KEY ERR message when radio starts up, do not despair; verify that the contact screw is not making constant contact as you power the radio on.

So off I went POTA activation and got two parks with this paddle today.  I was a little worried that the stiff paddle piece would cause the radio to move while in operation, but so far it has not been the case. This is my first paddle that does not either use springs or magnets for return. I found the operation very fluid. It takes a little getting used to as I did make a few errors, but overall, I rate this kit build a 5 out of 5.

Besides the cost, an advantage I see over the KX-PD3 is that the paddle is quite a bit away from the surface with the radio legs extended. This translates to the ability to operate the radio on slightly uneven surfaces. The KX-PD3 skims so close to the surface that the paddles experience interference even on moderately uneven surfaces such as picnic tables. 

In summary, I had quite a bit of fun building this kit. I may pick up the iambic paddle version of this kit and build it just for kicks!