k-9704 Lizard Mound State Park (2022-09-05)

2022-09-07 Turns out I was the second activator of this park. And I was inspired to activate it by KB9VBR's video as the first activator. Click this link to see his excellent video. https://youtu.be/4uwYca8yZO4​  Thanks, Michael, for inspiring me. My wife and I enjoyed out short visit.

2022-09-05 Located near West Bend, WI, this is one of Wisconsin's newest state parks. It's a small park and it's main attraction is a rather large number of Indian effigy burial mounds. with a network of trails that both surround and snake around among them. The surrounding area is beautiful with farms, hills trees and fields. It is a very relaxing and peaceful place to visit, much of the burial mounds among large oak and other trees. It includes two picnic areas, one of which is where I set up my ham station to do a POTA Activation today,

MY setup was my IC-705 portable/POTA kit which includes the 705, a 3Ah Bioenna battery and CW paddle plus a place to hold my phone for spotting (if I have cell service), looking at the POTA spots website and spotting. It is compact and light and keeps everything together and at my fingertips. My antenna was my mini WRC coil with a 17' Chameleon whip and four 10-ft radials. Coax was a 25ft RG-316 coax.

Logged 12 contacts. Five were P2P, 2 were SSB and the rest were CW. All but one was on 20 meters. Band conditions were not the greatest with a lot of noise and QSB on 40 meters. 20 meters was better but still not great. It took just under an hour air time to get the dozen contacts. But it was fun and even my wife enjoyed the day. In fact it was her idea!