After posting about my POTA activation just a bit ago, I went off to https://pota.app in order to validate a couple of callsigns based on spots and get things ready to email off for upload.
Clicking through I found something I hadn’t seen before:
I can just upload my ADIF files directly now?
So I did what it said on the screen – dragged and dropped the file into my browser and saw the following:
I’ll let you know if anything goes wrong, but this is a welcome development and great to see.
Its been a couple of weeks since my last POTA attempt, and about 8 months since I last went down to Frontenac State park in southeast Minnesota, so my 2 youngest sons and I joined our friend and his kids for a quick overnight campout at this beautiful park.
About an hour south of my home, this park sits atop a rise that overlooks both Minnesota and Wisconsin.
On our drive in I had to stop the car to get what I think is an Eastern Fox Snake off the road. If you know for sure then please let me know in the comments. It was doing its best to be intimidating by hissing and vibrating its tail, and striking at my shoe.
My son was torn between seeing the snake with his own eyes or looking at the screen to keep the snake in the camera.
Note I only had my shoe there to give it something to focus on or target while I used the stick to gently pick it up.
It was a bit grumpy at having his time warming up in the sun interrupted by us, but we were able to safely relocate him off into the woods.
After setting up camp, and while waiting on our friends to arrive, I quickly put up my Chameleon MPAS Lite which has been a consistently good performer.
Setup is really quick and after running out about 25 feet of counterpoise, I ran some coax over to a tree that I sat against. I hooked up my Elecraft KX2 and my BaMaKey TP-111 paddle and got down to work.
I forgot to bring my knee board (lesson learned)
After spotting myself on https://pota.app, I called CQ on 20 meters for a couple of minutes before I had my first contact.
Now I have no doubt that he was doing all the work – signal report was only a 149, and it took a couple of times for me to be able to get the callsign accurately copied (thanks Alfonso for your patience!) – but I was able to log EC1R in Palencia, Spain!
My first CW DX contact ever – and at only 5 watts. My sons couldn’t figure out why I was so excited.
In only about 20 minutes, with kids circling me asking about dinners, I logged 10 contacts and then signed off to get them taken care of.
Everything was logged into the HAMRS app on my phone which, if you haven’t used before, is an absolutely phenomenal app for POTA. (pick it up for multiple platforms at https://hamrs.app/)
Our friends arrived shortly thereafter and we focused on sharing food, friendship, and beautiful scenery.
We had to head back early this morning, so a fairly short trip on a July 4th weekend, but a great time for sure!
The kids spent a couple of hours trying to start their own fires with a fire steel. Great way to occupy kids and get them focused on something 😉Breakfast of champions – cinnamon rolls in a dutch oven over coals
After last weekend’s failure to activate Afton State Park (K-2466), I decided to take my learnings and head back out to the park.
This time I chose to record the session so that I could go back and review. As a new CW operator, this is invaluable and I’ve done it at home with just an audio recorder to check my progress and blind spots – I highly recommend doing so.
I chose 20 meters and had 10 contacts within about 30 minutes of being setup.
Anyway, here is the video:
For reference, here is what I took with me:
Elecraft KX3
Chameleon Antenna MPAS Lite w/coax and necessary BNC adapter
Elecraft KXPD3 Paddle
Bioenno 4.5Ah Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery (overkill for what the KX3 draws)
Sony ICD-UX570 Audio Recorder
Pencil and Paper for recording QSOs
iPhone 12 for POTA spotting, RBN, etc.
Goruck GR1 for hauling everything
Elecraft AX1 as a backup antenna
Here is what RBN saw on 20m:
And here is a map of the QSOs I logged on 20m:
A great day in a beautiful part of my home state in all the glory of fall colors.
kd0hbu 