POTA - Ice Age National Scenic Trail
The Ice Age National Scenic Trail is an approximately 1200 mile long hiking trail from the western Wisconsin state boarder with Minnesota down near the southern boarder with Illinois and up through the center of the state ending in Door County in the north east area of the state. It roughly traces the boarders of the last glacier to cover the state. It is recognized by POTA and can be activated by ham radio operators.
2021-07-14 Just got home from a fun outing. My wife and I went to a beautiful botanical garden in Janesville, WI this morning. At the last minute I tossed my ic705 and WRC antenna in the car. Wouldn't you know the Ice Age National Scenic Trail runs just across the street from the gardens! So with her support, I found a place to park and set up about 10 ft off the trail! In about a 30 minutes I got 14 contacts, 4 P2P on 20 meters! I really like that WRC with 17' chameleon whip and 4 ten ft radials. Quick and easy and very effective. I was running 10 watts CW. Thanks hunters and activators. Sorry I had to shut down due to a prior commitment! Next time.
This was my first impromptu activations. All my others have involved a lot of preplanning and an intentional trip to the activation site. It did occur to me last night that the trail ran somewhere near the Rotary Botanical Gardens so "just in case" I put the radio and antenna in the car before we left this morning. But I had low expectations. But when the trail ran literally across the street on its way through Janesville, I had to give it a go. It did not disappoint! And perhaps most importantly, it encouraged me to look for other parks whenever we plan day trips around the region in the future. I've kind of thought of activations as several hour stand along undertakings, which they can be. But an impromptu short one can be equally rewarding. Even my wife found it interesting!
