POTA Activation @ US-9841 13JUL2024
After an extended absence from mobile radio operations, I decided to get back out in the field. Since my last activation late last year, I noticed that the POTA map now sports a goodly number of new “parks” that were not previously designated. Now I have a handful to choose from that are less than a half-hour drive from my home. Most of them aren’t actual parks, but rather state wildlife areas. I grabbed my gear and headed to Evansville State Wildlife Area, park US-9841.
After about a 20-minute drive, I pulled off the backroads onto a narrow gravel driveway. It wasn’t really apparent if this was the right place or not since the sign was partially obscured by vegetation.
At the end of the drive was a roughly-circular patch of gravel, which serves as the public parking lot, wedged between fields of corn and sunflowers. The location was quiet and scenic. Quite pleasant if you happen to like green and yellow.
This location had two major drawbacks. First, there were no trails leading anywhere from the parking lot. Also, unless I wanted to beat a new path a few hundred feet through a field of purple wild-flowers to some nearby trees, there was absolutely zero shade. No shade, and it was sunny and about 85 degrees.
I got to work setting up my station: a Xiegu G90 and a Super Antenna. Instead of using the standard radials for the antenna I deployed an 8-foot length of aluminum screen mesh as my ground plane. After a few adjustments to the coil, my Rig Expert Stick 230 Analyzer was showing a very favorable SWR, so I figured I was good to go.
Contesters were contesting aggressively, and there was a long list of POTA stations on the air POTAing. Finding no open frequencies, I elected to just hunt park to park for a while. Surprisingly, after trying to contact a few other stations, I had no response. Investigation revealed no modulation, so the remote stations clearly had nothing to respond TO. Further investigation revealed that I had left my G90 set for line-in instead of mic-in. Correcting the input setting did the trick. But by this time, my radio was already hot to the touch just from the sun, and my phone and tablet were shutting down due to over heating. The sun was brutal. Solution: I moved my equipment into the back of my car opened the windows, and operated from there. The equipment was much happier in the car’s shade, and a mild breeze through the windows was pleasant enough.
I eventually found an open slot on the band, and early on my CQ call was rewarded with an answer from F5PYI, a station out of France. This contact covered a distance of 4384 miles, or 7055km, and I was running just 20 watts. I’d say my screen mesh ground plane was working well enough!
The bands were up and down, and the congestion on 20 meters wasn’t helpful, but eventually I logged 25 contacts. Many of them were park 2 park.
Contacts Made During the Activation
- W0TTG
- K1TAP
- N5SRC
- AG5CC
- KQ4GIK
- K4JKK
- F5PYI
- N5CTS
- KZ4CP
- N4MTE
- K1RDD
- K4IA
- N1CCC
- WQ0A
- WA8DE
- W5CLV
- KF8AHK
- W9DWT
- AD4GN
- K9UOK
- KQ4VET
