POTA K-4265 Bong

POTA Activation, K-4265 Richard Bong State Recreation Area

Updated 2022-10-13

2022-11-11 Our Wisconsin weather is turning toward winter. Instead of 75 as yesterday it was 40 and windy when I set up my 29' end fed this afternoon at k-4265. Using the IC705 on 40 meters I got 25 contacts in 40 minutes, all but 3 CW. The three were SSB. All were within a few hundred miles and considerable QSB. But it was fun. Will it still be fun at 15 deg.?

2022-10-13 It's Fall in Wisconsin which means anything can happen weather wise. But I took my chances and headed out to my favorite and nearest park, k-4265 Richard Bong State Recreation Area. It was 44, windy and threatening rain, so I nearly had the whole park to myself! I quickly set up my (becoming) favorite antenna, a 29' end fed wire with a 17' counterpoise connected to the K6ARK 9:1 mini unun. The unun hung from my car's side mirror on a short 1/8" bungee cord and the 29' element sloped up to the top of my 25' carbon fiber fishing pole out in the grass. Ten feet of RG174 went through the door to radio in the back seat.

I quick jumped in the car as rain started. Thankfully I did, as almost simultaneously it poured for about fifteen minutes making me wonder how the antenna and unun would fare. My Elecraft T1 tuner and IC705 were very happy with the soaked antenna, gratefully.

To make a long story short I logged 16 contacts including two P2P's on 30 meters and 8 on 17 meters, including one more P2P AND one station in Italy! Four minutes short of an hour separated the first and last contacts. And it started raining again as I backed out of the parking space! A tiny bit of sleet was mixed in with that last shower! Fall is definitely here!

2022-07-22 Went back to k-4265 Richard Bong State Recreation area again today. It was about 83 and bright sun when I arrived. When I left a couple hours later it was 90 and "really bright sun," and steamy!

I changed my antenna setup with the WM4ACK EFHW from an inverted vee with a 22ft center pole, which I usually use, to a sloper with a 33ft support. Since I was at a picnic table under a nice tree I tied off the transformer to the tree trunk about 5ft up. SWR was great on 40 and 20 meters.

As I was setting up a fellow stopped by and asked about what I was up to. He was just out walking. So we had a fun 20 minute or so chat. He knew pretty much nothing about either ham radio or POTA but at least acted like he was impressed! I connected the antenna, turned on the radio and wouldn't you know a POTA station was calling CQ right on that frequency. So I "nailed him."
After my new friend moved on I posted a spot for 14.064 and started calling CQ POTA. First call came back a couple calls later and I was then pretty busy for the next 50 minutes with 20 QSOs in the log including one in France! All but the first one were on 20 meters.

Band noise was very low and signals very good this morning making getting contacts easy. My mast stand wasn't super secure so when the wind started kicking up I decided it was time to call it quits.

2022-06-23 Another really nice day here in SE Wisconsin. So took my ic705 & KM4ACK EFHW to k-4265 near home. Started on 40 SSB and got 8 in 30 minutes. Switched to 20m and got 4 more in 20 minutes, two SSB and 2 CW. All picnic tables in the shade were taken as lots of families with kids were enjoying the lake beach. So I found an open couple parking spaces in shade with two perfectly spaced trees! Also found three ticks checking me out. Sadly, I had to terminate them. Bug spray kept the rest at bay. But they were circling! Thanks for the contacts!

2022-06-10 Due to road work, yesterday afternoon I ended up in a different location within k-4265 Richard Bong state Recreation area than where I normally go. It is much more wooded and secluded. Doesn't even have an outhouse nearby! Could almost qualify as wilderness except a somewhat busy road is nearby and it's surrounded by farms. As gas prices keep going up I like this park more and more, being only about ten miles from my house.

As with most of my activations, and even operations at home, I used my IC705 transceiver. For the antenna I used my KM4ACK EFHW set up as an inverted vee using a 20ft fiberglass fishing pole. Even though the 49:1 transformer was only about ten feet from my rig, the only feedline I had with me was a 35ft piece of RG316. Connected directly to the radio without the tuner it gave be excellent SWR 40, 30 and 17 meters. I have alligator clip links in the radiating element at appropriate points for 30 and 17 meters.

I started out on 40 meters hunting and picked up two SSB contacts almost immediately. Then I posted on the POTA Spots page and started calling CQ on SSB. No takers. So after about 20 minutes of calling with no response, I moved to 30 meters where I got ten responses in about 20 minutes. It was about time to quit but I wanted to try 17 meters. the antenna tuned up nicely and I got one response right away but then nothing. Just listening, the QSB seemed really deep on all bands. Band noise was very low on both 40 and 30 meters but there was some kind of manmade noise on 17 meters. Overall it was a good activation. I was especially happy again with that KM4ACK antenna!

2022-06-01 It's been a while since my last activation of k-4265 or any park for that matter. But today was so beautiful I just had to give it a try. Took my IC705 pedestrian mobile radio kit without the neck strap and set it on a picnic table. I like using it as the radio, battery, key, mic, T1 autotuner and a place to mount my phone for logging are all right at hand. Connect an antenna and you're ready to go. For an antenna I set up the 40 meter K6ARK EFHW, which has a link for 30 meters, as an inverted vee using my 20 ft fiberglass fishing pole. Tied the far end to a nearby picnic grill with some 1/8 in bungee cord and connected the k6ark 49:1 transformer directly to the tuner with no feedline. Answered one POTA caller on 20 meter CW then settled on 30 meters to call CQ POTA. In short order had an answer and ended 50 minutes later with a total of 15 contacts. It was a refreshing and fun hour or so in the park and on the air.

2022-05-04 Today was a "don't stay inside day" here in SE Wisconsin. It was sunny, nearly calm and about 57. So I took my pedestrian mobile setup out to K-4265 Richard Bong State Recreation Area and did an activation. It wasn't disappointing.
My setup is an ICOM IC-705, Elecraft T1 tuner and a 55" collapsible whip that mounts on the edge of the back of my backpack. Rather than the bottom loaded coil I've used previously I used a K6ARK 9:1 unun which tunes the whip very nicely on 40, 30, 20, 17, 12 and 10 meters. The unun's BNC male connector goes on the tuner's antenna female BNC connector. A short wire then goes to the unun's antenna jack and a 15' drag wire on the unun's counterpoise jack.

Even though band conditions didn't seem very good I made 7 SSB contacts and six CW contacts, all on 20 meters. Three of the CW ones were with stations in Finland, Sweden and France, each over 4000 miles. All contacts were at 10 watts. I was powering the radio from a 6Ah LiFePo4 battery.

What did I learn? Pedestrian Mobile is really fun. It is so much fun that it makes regular portable seem a little "flat!" There is just something magical about making contacts using gear hanging on your body! And it works better than I ever imagined, even when propagation is kind of iffy like today. I was on the air from 18:08 to 19:17 UTC which included some fairly long dry spells. I tried 40 and 17 meters with no responses. Bands seemed kind of down with a few upturns now and then. and all three European stations came within about ten minutes of each other shortly after 19:00. Then things dried up. I think I'm hooked on pedestrian mobile!

2021-10-13 The Kilo Award snuck up on me! I knew I had a lot of contacts from Richard Bong State Recreation Area as it is only about ten easy miles from home and I went out there often for a quick activation. Doing that a every few days, making ten to fifteen contacts at a time adds up! 912 of them were CW. Special credit goes to the hunters who made it possible. Kind of exciting!

2022-04-21 Today was the first sunny and actually warm (65 degrees) day for too long here in SE Wisconsin. So late morning I went to k-4265. I know, I always go there! But it's only about 10 miles away! Harnessed up with my pedestrian mobile rig and got 5 contacts on 20m CW. 10w and 50" antenna.

After a long visit with an 82 yr old retired teacher and my lunch sandwich, set up my KM4ACK EFHW. Connected the ic705 And at 5w had 8 more contacts on 40m. It was getting really windy so I packed up and came home.

The map above shows the combined results of both the pedestrian mobile and portable operations. The two below show the five contacts done with pedestrian mobile on 20 meters and the eight done on 40 meters with my portable setup using the KM4ACK EFHW inverted vee. Not valid comparisons since different bands are involved and a couple hours difference in time but interesting.

Playing with pedestrian mobile has forced me to log on my phone. Today I kept that up while sitting at the picnic table as a portable station. I've even starting doing my logging at home with it! The more I use it the more "second nature" it becomes. I'm starting to like it!

2022-04-19 K-1465 Richard Bong State Recreation Area has become the test location for my latest portable pursuit, Pedestrian Mobile. It is nearby, relatively open in terms of overhead obstructions and large. So plenty space to walk around with a five foot antenna on your back. To see my current kit and how I arrived at it, click Pedestrian Mobile. I still have a long ways to go on both the kit and the procedures but with 48 contacts in the log made on three different ventures to Bong in the last couple weeks. I'm on the way!

I don't think pedestrian mobile operating will displace my regular portable operating but it certainly is both viable and interesting. It adds new challenges for equipment, antennas, logging, etc. It also may be a little more challenging in terms of making contacts as well. My setup is limited to ten watts. That in itself is not new as I've done most of my POTA activations at 10 watts. But a potentially less efficient antenna adds further challenges. Though to this point I have not found making contacts that much more difficult than my normal portable setup. I get and give very similar signal reports.

The biggest challenge for me has been logging. I've only done paper logs on my POTA activations. That's pretty much impossible when walking around. So I've started using VLSLogger on my phone. I'm very familiar with it as I use it to transcribe my paper logs. Just getting used to entering contacts "in the heat of battle" is probably the hardest part for me. Coupled with that is figuring out how to mount the phone so it is easily accessible without having to hold it. Whether CW or SSB my hands tend to be occupied. But I'm getting there!

2022-03-15 Seventeen QSOs on 20 meters this afternoon with this setup. 15 were CW, 2 SSB. I was in k-4265 near Burlington, WI. Was about 50 deg. The rig was my ic705 @ 10w. The antenna was a Signaloop magnetic loop (no longer available). Wasn't sure what to expect from the loop but not disappointed! THANKS ALL.

2022-03-10 A few weeks ago, watching a video by K8MRD I saw the Ed Fong DBJ-2 Ham Portable Dual Band J-pole antenna. It got me thinking that I should add 2 meter capability to my POTA kit. So I ordered one which came yesterday. Today, even though it was in the 20s, I took it and my KM4ACK EFHW and my IC705 and headed out to the Richard Bong State Recreation Area, K-4265. My plan was to set up it and the EHW on my 20 ft collapsible fiberglass fishing pole, which I did. A small bungee cord loop supported the j-pole from the top while the apex of the EFHW inverted vee passed through that same loop.

Right away I had a problem. The SWR on the EFHW which is normally very near 1:1 on both 40 and 20 meters was about 3 or more to 1. So I lowered the j-pole about two feet and tried again. 40 meters was fine but 20 meters was still high. When I lowered the tip of the j-pole about five or six feet the problem cleared up completely.

I then called my near neighbor, Carl, AF9L and we did a test contact. Signals were solid S9 both ways. I had logged my first two meter POTA contact! We were on 146.94, and FM simplex frequency. I posted on the POTA spotting page and called CQ POTA for about 15 minutes but no joy. At that point I gave up and went to 20 meters, ending with 15 contacts, four SSB and the rest, including ON4VT in Belgium on CW. By then I was "freezing" and packed up and came home.

2022-03-04 This morning, after quite a long time away and with temperature rising into the upper 30's, I took my ic705, DIY 9 ft vertical and K6ARK EFHW and headed to the park. The park was very quiet with only one or two other people in sight. I found a corner of a parking lot where I could park the car setting on my DIY drive-on support so my push up 20ft fishing pole was well placed to string up the EFHW as an inverted vee. After quickly deploying the antenna I set up the radio and checked the SWR. It was not good, something above 2:1 forcing the radio to limit it's power to about 6 watts on both 40 and 20 meters. I could find no reason for that. It normally has a near 1:1 SWR.

Rather than spend time figure things out I set up my 9ft vertical. It's SWR was "perfect" on both 40 and 20. Made my first contact at 1621 using the EFHW on 40 meters with K9UUM in far western Wisconsin, at K-5578. Then switched to the vertical and quickly got an answer from a POTA activator in Texas. Then I settled on 14.063, posted a spot and started calling CQ. With only a couple short lulls I shut down at 1718 after a contact from OH1MM in Finland who gave me a 559 report!

I failed to take any photos but everything except the EFHW antenna went as I had hoped. The only thing different about the way I set up that antenna is that both ends may have been a little higher than I normally set it up. I'll do some experimenting here at home to see whether that might be the culprit. The several times I've made 20 contacts with it previously on 40, 30 and 20 meters and have been very pleased. I've made 413 contacts with the vertical on those same bands with total satisfaction. It's a solid, dependable performer and nearly perfect for portable use being pretty light weight and small for transporting.

2021-09-10 This afternoon I took my ic705 and WRC vertical to k-4265, Richard Bong State Recreation Area, my favorite and nearest park. After watching a K8MRD video last evening reviewing the LC-192 backpack for the ic705 I decided to take a lawn chair along and use it rather than a picnic table. I didn't hike out on any of the trails like he did, just sat in the lawn chair! My intent was to work SSB. So I tuned around the bands and decided 20 meters was my best bet. 20 meter SSB was really busy. Settled on 14.260 and called CQ. Got five SSB contacts quickly, including three P2P contacts, K8MRD @ k-3019, M0NOM @ G0165 and K0KWH @k-2694! Then I discovered I was right on another activators frequency even though I had called the SSB equivalent of QRL several times. Sorry pal it was accidental.
Went down to the CW portion, set up on 14.067 CW and got ten more contacts, including Alaska and Porto Rico.
The setup worked flawlessly! I'm far more comfortable with CW than SSB for some reason. Perhaps because I have had 1100 activation contacts using CW and 85 using SSB!
It was also good to get back to the ic705 after using the x5105 for the previous several activations. Both are excellent rigs, the IC705 is just smoother overall. and I loved the voice recorder feature, letting it do all my CQ POTA calls for SSB. It was really fun, and pretty comfortable sitting in the lawn chair!

2021-08-26 Another activation of k-4265 Richard Bong State Recreation Area this morning. Decided to go out even though bands didn't seem very promising. To my surprise I didn't have to call CQ POTA long on 30 meters (after spotting) to get my first response, KD1JT in CT! Got four more on 30, then switched to 20 meters and picked up eight more, including KG7ZML 1300 miles west in AZ. Was running 10w CW with my IC705. Antenna was my nine foot vertical with DIY coil which covers 40 through 15 meters. Carried everything in one trip from the car to the site in my LC192 backpack, one of my objectives!

One interesting thing was that when I first set up I used a 15' RG174 coax and the SWR was not good on any band. That shocked me as I've been playing with this antenna for a couple weeks using 25' of RG174 and ALWAYS get a good SWR. When I switched to my 25' RG174 coax SWR was nearly 1:1 on all bands. Not sure I understand what's up with that.

2021-08-06 Bounced back to Bong, k-4265 about 11:00 CDT this morning. Took my xiegu x5105 QRP RIG and QRPGuys random wire end fed with 35' radiator and 17' counterpoise. Set up as a sloper from a picnic table to my 20' collapsible fiberglass fishing pole. Managed nine 30m contacts and 8 20m contacts, all CW. Tried 17m but no response. The very small, simple setup worked well. Toward the end a fellow ham from Illinois showed up. He set up his KX3 and EMMCOM III antenna a ways off in the picnic area and was doing well when I stopped by on the way out. I'm always happily surprised when I use my little QRP rig and antenna. Was on the air a little over an hour using the x5105's internal battery. Thanks, everyone.

2021-07-08 Went back to Richard Bong State Recreation Area, K-4265, about ten miles from my home QTH here in SE Wisconsin this afternoon. I have almost 600 activation contacts in that park so far. I decided to go minimalist today with a 4 pound kit consisting of my X5105, QRPGuys 9:1 transformer with a 29' radiator and 17' counterpoise and a 14' collapsible fiberglass fishing pole. I could have carried the whole thing in one hand had I not also taken my DIY stand for the pole and a couple bricks to keep it upright since the wind was a bit gusty.

It took about ten minutes to set up. When I turned on the radio, N4EES in TN was calling CQ SKCC right where the radio was tuned. We had worked early in the morning from my home station but I gave him call anyway and we had a short chat! That encouraged me. I tuned to 14.044, called QRL a couple times, posted a spot on the POTA spotting page and called CQ. RBN showed several hits with good reports.

After just a couple calls N3AZZ responded from PA. Over the next half hour I logged 14 contacts. Then the well dried up. I then switched to 10.114 on 30 meters and called. Two stations responded including N3OJL who had also called me on 20 meters. Then 30 meters dried up!
My only disappoint from the day was early on I got a call from a station in Washington State which I wrote down as K7L but later realized that was incorrect. That was a good contact at 5w on the 29' sloper from WI, but alas it won't be in the official records!

I really like that 29' sloper even though I don't use it much, thinking of it as a compromise antenna. But today it held its own and moved up on my list of choices! If you have a tuner it can be used on just about any band making it very flexible. The x5105 has a great tuner so the pair are made for each other.

Thanks to all of you hunters who called me today. You gave me a very pleasant hour or so in the park. And you gave me enough time to pause and notice a couple wild flowers!

2021-05-13 At k-4265 today logged 15 contacts on 20 and 40 meters. 2 in Spain, 1 in Finland. CW, IC-705 @ 10w. All with this DIY 1 meter mag loop. I was surprised, pleasantly! The problem is, I now have one more antenna to choose for activations!

2021-07-01 It's been a while since I was able to do an activation due to weather and some family medical stuff. But my dear wife offered this morning to go to a park and nap while I played radio. That didn't work out but I went (with her encouragement!) to k-4265 Richard Bong State Recreation Area here in SE Wisconsin for an hour and had fun anyway. 18 CW contacts in 24min on 20 meters. Porto Rico and Oregon the most distant. One P2P as well. And it was a beautiful day!
Setup was my ic705 and WRC TIA Mini with 17' chameleon whip and my standard 4 ten ft counterpoise wires. Feedline was 25' rg174 coax. Ran 10 watts.
Band noise was low. Signals were strong. Not a single CW spot was showing when I started and mine was the only spot the whole time! Thought I had wasted my time 'till I called CQ. Got many strong RBN spots and was "hit" almost immediately!

2021-04-22 It was good to be back at K-4265, Richard Bong State Recreation Area here in WI this afternoon. It's my closest POTA park and has lots of places to set up. So I set up in one of the picnic areas as no one was around. Rig was my IC_705 in the ICOM backpack. Antenna was a QRPGuys mini 40-10 end fed which has a very small 9:1 unun. It requires an antenna tuner so I used my first-time-out Elecraft T1 QRP tuner. All performed very well.

Started out at 7.043 where over about 15 minutes I got three contacts. Moved to 10.114 and picked up another four contacts. Then switched to 14.041 and got another four contacts. Most exotic was CE1R in Chili, a meager 5345 miles! Next most exotic was W6OUL in CA, 1800 miles, both on 20 meters. Total on-air time was about 45 minutes. Needless to say I was happy with the results and very much appreciate all the hunters.

Observations? The main one is that the humble 29ft wire with 17ft counterpoise is a good antenna. Not the best I am sure but with its ease of setup, very light weight and small size, it is a good option. And the tiny T1 tuner is simply a slick device in every way!
My second observation is that though auto-repeat CW message keying (CQ CQ CQ POTA de K0BXB k0BXB) is really convenient, It invariable caused me to miss the first letter of a replying stations call so I had to ask for a repeat. I gave that up and simply pressed the message button each time. The reason is that to stop the repeat you have to tap the key or press the button. Both are distracting and issue a beep. Probably just my problem!

Finally, I came away impressed with the ICOM bag. It is so nice to simply unzip the bag, attach the key and external battery (in the case), attach the antenna and go to work. Saves setup time and messiness. It doesn't allow as much flexibility in placing the radio to avoid reflections in the screen but on balance I like being able to keep it in the bag to operate.

Sorry no photo of the antenna and overall setup. Nature was calling loudly and I had to make quick work of packing up! Weather was wonderful, about 65, sunny and not too windy.

2021-02-23 It hit 42 today here in southeast Wisconsin. What a pleasure to wear just a light coat for my activation of K-4265 today. Used my x5105 QRP xceiver and my Wolf River Coils TIA1000 with the 213" whip and four 10' counterpoise wires tossed onto the melting snow in the parking lot. I usually use RG-174 coax but this time RG-58c/u, not that it makes a lot of difference. the antenna was about 15' from my car.

Started on 20m and pretty quickly got four contacts, FL, NM, WY and CA. Then everyone ignored me. So switched to 30m and picked up another ten contacts including one in AZ. Then 30 dried up. It was getting a bit late anyway so I packed up and came home. Another nice QRP outing.

Being almost exclusively CW when activating, I'm starting to really like 30 meters.

Thanks again to the fourteen of you who contacted me and the several others that I could not hear well enough to connect.

2021-02-21 Pretend Spring came to SE Wisconsin for a few hours today. So I grabbed my QRP x5105, new version of my DIY 3 band wire vertical and headed to nearby k-4265. After a quick setup I posted a spot for 10.116mhz and called CQ.

They were a bit slow in coming but ended 35 minutes later with 11 in the log, including one P2P. After a few more CQ calls I gave up and headed home to beat the impending snow storm!

Sorry, in the chilly wind I forgot to take a shot of the antenna. It was a 20' fiberglass fishing pole stuck in my DIY drive-on support and a 20m 1/4 wave vertical wire with a 30m/40m tapped bottom loading coil. 25' of rg174 coax.

Thanks one and all! Fun 30 degree, breezy outing.

2021-02-11 This afternoon I drove the 13 miles to k-4265, Richard Bong State recreation area in southeast Wisconsin. It was 17° and overcast. This was my first time to try an activation below about 30° and wasn't sure how long I would stay. It only took about six or seven minutes to set up my Wolf River coils Tia 1000 with 213-in whip and 4 10-ft radials. RG 174 coax connected it to my xiegu x5105 qrp rig.

I initially checked the POTA spots and didn't see anything interesting but then stumbled across K8TK at Park k-4226 calling CQ on 7.062 megahertz. So I knew everything was working. After tuning around I selected 7.059 MHz and started calling cq POTA after posting a spot. Within a few minutes calls started coming in ending with 11 calls about a half hour later.

Then I switched to 30 meters and called CQ at 10.111 megahertz. The first contact took about 10 minutes and then over the next nearly half hour I got another nine contacts. By then the outside temperature dropped a few degrees and it was getting cold in the car so I packed up and headed home.

What did I learn? Nothing particularly new but I continue to be impressed that qrp with a simple, easy to deploy antenna, is definitely viable and provides a lot of fun. Oh yes, I can survive in the car at 17° outside temperature!

This weekend we're visiting our son over in Minnesota who lives on a lake and who knows we may set up the rig there and have some lake QRP fun. I apologize for not taking any pictures. Just as I had my camera ready to take a picture of my setup and the antenna I got another call and then got distracted and forgot about it.

Thanks to the 20 people who contacted me today making my cold activation successful and fun.

2021-02-02 I just couldn't stay inside any longer so I decided on the spur of the moment after lunch to head out to K-4265 Richard Bong State Recreation Area here in Southeast Wisconsin and see what would happen.

Took my xiegu x5105 QRP rig and Wolf River Coils mini with 213" whip and my 4-wire bundle of ten foot counterpoise wires. I partly assembled the WRC before I left to make setup even quicker since it was 30 degrees and overcast. Thankfully it was calm so really wasn't bad. I wimped out anyway and sat in the car!

Checking around 40 meters KN4IXU was calling CQ so I answered him. He was in NC and copied me pretty well so we had a five minute QSO. Nice way to start off the event. 7.043 was clear so I spotted and called CQ. After a couple calls, started getting return calls and for the next 29 minutes I was busy with 17 more contacts for a total of 18. I was "fat fingering" my paddle for some reason so pulled the plug. I apologize for the stumbling CW.

It was really nice to get out again after nearly a month mostly indoors, thanks to the weather and pandemic. We have about 18 inches of snow which makes things beautiful.

I feel bad saying this, but today was much more fun radio-wise than this past weekend's Winter Field Day. Perhaps it's because I like being the center of attention, which you are as a POTA activator. On Winter field day and Summer Field Day for that matter, you are just in the middle of the fray competing for attention along with every one else! Both are fun and provide experience.

2020-11-22 Thanks to the 22 hunters who responded to my calls on 30 and 40 meters today, eleven on each! Furthest contact on 30 meters was with NQ7R in Arizona, 1,443 miles. Furthest on 40 meters was with VE3DQN in Ontario, 647 miles. All were CW. I used my g90 at 10 watts driving my WRC with the 213" whip and four 10' counterpoise wires. The feedline was 25 ft of RG-58/u. Both the G90 and the antenna are easy to set up and seem to perform well.

2020-11-16 I may get tired of K-4265, Richard Bong State Recreation Area! But it is so easy to get to and activate that it is just ideal for quick activation on a cold day! With that said, I went out there again today after lunch. Once again I took my xiegu x5105 QRP rig. But this time I took my QRPGuys 3 band vertical. It only took about 5 minutes to set it up using my drive-on stand and 20 ft carbon fiber fishing pole. even the coax was easy, just a 15ft piece of RG-174. I set the antenna to 40 meters and jumped in the car. It wasn't "bitter" cold but was a about 30, cloudy and breezy. But it was nice and cozy in the car.

Flipped on the x5105 and tuned around. N3LOU was calling CQ POTA on 7.214 SSB from K-1740, Killens Pond State Park in Deleware, about 700 miles. So I gave him a call and he came right back. Nice way to start the activation! I then tuned down to 7.041, posted a spot on POTA site and within a few minutes started getting calls. I went QRT after 18 contacts. Total on-air time was 33 minutes. The rig and vertical performed perfectly! That simple wire vertical is a good antenna for any use but especially for portable. With its four ten foot radials it takes up very little space.

But the highlight of the experience was while I was taking down the antenna. A car pulled up behind me and said something like, "I suppose this will be on Facebook! It was K0MKE. Andy was activating the park at the same time on 20 meters SSB! He also saw my Spot so drove around and found me! We had a nice chat. It was really fun to eyeball with a fellow POTA enthusiast! Thanks for stopping by, Andy.

2020-11-13 Well, went back to K-4265, Richard Bong State Recreation Area near Burlington, Wisconsin this afternoon. This time I took my x5105 QRP rig and QRPGuys EFHW inverted vee. Had 18 CW contacts in the 30 minutes I was on the air. The first one was with a SOTA station. The rest were POTA hunters, including three P2P stations. All signal reports were good both directions.As the one photo shows, I tied the driven end of the antenna to a jug of antifreeze! Some nearby bushes took care of the other end. Furthest distance was just under 900 miles. The rig and antenna performed perfectly. Nice simple setup - that works!

I ran the x5105 off it's internal battery which I believe is a 3.8Ah battery. Based on the 1.1Ah it took to recharge it I'm guessing I used about 1Ah during the outing. So it would likely have run another two to three hours depending on the transmit/receive ratio.

Once again, thankyou, hunters!

2020-11-12 Today I did another activation of the Richard Bong State recreational area K-4265 near Burlington in southeast Wisconsin. About 50 degrees, light wind and sunny. Setup was my G90 and a light weight 40-10 EFHW inverted vee using a QRPGuys 49:1 transformer and about 40' of RG-174 coax. Center support was a 20' carbon fiber fishing pole off Amazon standing in a DIY drive-on stand.Started off looking for P2P stations and landed one on 40 SSB. Then spotted myself at 7.043. After just a couple calls it got busy. Ended 40 minutes later with 34 in the log, all CW except for the first one.

I really like my DIY drive-on stand. One other change is that rather than using a tent peg to hold the far end of the antenna I used a jug of windshield washer! Works well. I may try a half gallon jug. It is probably heavy enough for my very light weight antenna made with about 26 gauge wire, even in wind.

Also, if anyone is interested, My G90 was powered on for about an hour and and in active CW QSOs for about 40 minutes at 20 watts. It took 1.8Ahs or 24Whs to recharge my miady 6Ah, 77Wh battery when I got home. So I could probably have kept up at the rate I was going for a couple more hours from my battery's point of view! Next time I will take along a device to measure actual power usage.

Thanks so much to all the hunter's. The patience of those toward the end was especially appreciated. Both my mind and fist (I'm a straight key Guy) we're turning to mush! I failed to take any pictures but though I was in a different part of the park, my setup was nearly identical to the one pictured below on October 31.

2020-10-31 Went back to K-4265, Richard Bong State Recreation Area again today. I wanted to try out my new DIY drive-on mast support for real. Found an empty parking lot and backed the rear wheel onto the 1x6 board and strapped my 20 ft carbon fiber fishing pole to it with two bands of 1/8 bungee cord. Then I strung up my QRPGuys EFHW antenna as an inverted vee with the far end attached to a wild bush and the driven end secured to a tent peg with another piece of bungee cord in the grassy area nearby. Could have tied it to the tree there just as well. A 25 foot RG-174 coax connected the antenna to my Xiegu G90 in the car where I could stay warm and out of the strong, gusty, cold wind.

Hunted POTA stations in other parks and ended up with 11 park-t0-park contacts and one other contact. six on 40 meters, five on 20 meters and one, my most distant one at 1450 miles in Idaho, on 15 meters. All were SSB but the one CW contact on 40 meters. The drive-on support, mast and antenna all did great both in dealing with the wind and in performance.

My goal is to have this mast for use when the ground is frozen so that tent pegs and guy ropes or a single support stake will not work for holding up a light weight push-up mast. Also, normally when I set up the EFHW or other EF antennas, the driven end is close to my operating position. But with the mast located at the car, the coax needs to connect some distance from the car, about 20 feet in this case. This setup deal with both those concerns..

2020-10-02 Well, I did it again! Went to K-4265, Richard Bong State Recreation Area east of Burlington, WI this afternoon to play POTA. Left home about 2:45 and was back home at about 4:15. Was on 40 meters for about 45 minutes and logged 17 SSB and one CW contacts during that hour. I started by responding to two other stations doing POTA and then spotted myself, called CQ POTA and got the other 15 contacts. Thanks to everyone who came to the party.

Rig was my xiegu g90 set to 20 watts. Power was my Bioenno 4.5Ah battery. It took 1Ah to recharge it so I used about 20% of the batteries capacity in that hour. My antenna was my QRPGuys 3 band vertical using four ten foot radials or counterpoise wires tossed on the ground toward the four winds. Feedline was 25ft of RG-174 coax.

It was in the upper 40s and breezy, so I set up the antenna near the car and worked from inside the car. The pictures give some idea of the setup. Thanks again to all who contacted me. The log has been submitted.

2020-09-13 One of the things I like about the Ham Radio hobby is that there is no one, right or best way to do anything! It's a good platform to learn that the things in life are deeply impacted, perhaps even determined by the broader situations of life, the context, if you please. The last week it has been misting, raining or even down-pouring off and on every day! So until yesterday I felt "confined" to home and unable to get out and play POTA. Picnic tables were wet. Stringing an EFHW antenna would be a messy job. Just stuck. Then I got to thinking maybe I could set up and work from inside my Ford Escape. Then, I discovered when you fold half the back seat down the result is a completely flat and level surface! Awe, set the rig up there, sit in the other half of the seat, set up my Wolf River Coils antenna outside the car and have at it! It wouldn't be "roughing it" which was my image of a legitimate POTA activation, but it just might work!

I failed to take any pictures, but yesterday, that is exactly what I did. And it was really fun. It was dry (and a bit steamy) inside the car as it drizzled and misted the whole time while I was at K4265, Richard Bong Recreation Area, but I logged sixteen QSO's, twelve of them Park-to-Park (P2P)! All SSB on both 20 and 40 meters. I was dry, my WRC was wet but both were happy. My rig was my xiegu G90 powered by one of my 6Ah miady LIFEPO4 batteries with a 50ft RG8x to the antenna. Lesson learned (maybe), there are different ways to get there! And, oh, the mosquitoes didn't get a single piece of me! :-)

2020-08-26 Today was a significant day in my 60 year ham radio life. After months of being a POTA hunter, logging 260 QSOs with stations operating from 37 different parks, and "dreaming" about being an activator myself, today I did it! I packed up my xiegu G90, QRPGuys EFHW antenna, 6Ah LIFEPO4 battery, carbon fiber collapsible fishing pole and dri\ove 4-1/2 miles to Wisconsin's Richard Bong State Recreation Area. I've been there many times over the years to hike, camp and fly RC planes. But never to operate HF radio!

All my gear except the 20 foot carbon fiber collapsible fishing pole were packed in a hard sided case from a local thrift store. The site was an open picnic area shaded by large oak trees. It was relatively cool at 10:00am when I arrived but swarming with mosquitoes. Thankfully, after a few minutes the OFF kicked in and they quit bothering me. If one purpose of POTA is to show the public what ham radio is I didn't do well. the only visitor, other than mosquitoes and a few birds flying around, was some strange bug that landed on my case! He wasn't impressed and didn't stay long.

I chose my QRPGuys EFHW antenna and set it up as an inverted vee using the carbon fiber pole to support the center. I secured the pole to the ground with half of a fiberglass snow marker. The pole was tied to the snow marker with three turns of 1/8th inch bungee cord secured with a cord lock. I find that bungee cord and cord locks, indispensable for setting up antennas. I also used a piece of bungee cord about 8 feet long to tie the far end of the antenna wire to a tent stake in the ground and another shorter piece to tie the transformer to the picnic table. It provides more than adequate strength to hold the antenna taught but is very easy to work with and provides the antenna flexibility. Great stuff I discovered in my hiking/camping hobby.

The picnic table served well as my operating bench! Here are some observations from the experience.

Being a POTA Activator is not nearly as "threatening" as I imagined. I chose CW as my mode and people worked well with my funbling and stumbling! Even the couple small pileups weren't too bad. It helped that I had been a hunter for so long and pretty much knew what to expect.
Being out in a park is much quieter than being at home! There was very little noise on 40, 30 or 20, the three bands I checked out. Forty meters seemed the most alive so I settled on it.
The G90 set at 20 watts worked well for me. I love the G90, using it a lot at home and that love continues after today. The antenna was resonant with as close to a 1:1 SWR as one can imagine so I didn't use the internal tuner.
The QRPGuys End Fed half Wave antenna using SOTABEAMS light antenna wire, about 26 gauge, performed very well. The contacts ranged from 250 to 850 miles, all but one to the south or east. No trouble hearing or being heard. And it is light as a feather, about five ounces. The SOTABEAMS wire is perfect, strong, flixible, tangle free and very light weight. The 20 foot fishing pole hardly bent at all. I used an identical antenna system at home for over a year as my primary antenna, only changing so I could run more than 20 watts. Oh, and it is inexpensive!
Logging is interesting! I had made up some log sheets which I used but quickly realized was a mess! The column widths field order simply didn't work well! But they served. I had another note pad to do my doodling on so I could keep the log sheet somewhat legible. I've already designed a new one! I decided not to mess with the logging program on my phone, though I use it for casual portable operating. The chance of making an error with no trail for recovery is too great. With a notepad and paper log I was able to deal with the fast QSOs and scratchy writing. Nearly every entry had some "backup" on the scratchpad. Obviously I have a lot to learn from future activation's.
Finally, preparing the log to submit was a very time consuming and confusing process. I use Ham Radio Deluxe for all my logging so I entered these QSOs into that. That part went well. But I simply could not find a simple way to export "just what is needed" to send to POTA. Finally, I stumbled onto ADIF Master which allows editing of the ADIF file exported from HRD. But it took me all afternoon and I haven't heard back whether it is acceptable or not. There has be, needs to be, a simpler way!

Conclusion? A lot of fun. I'll be back again, I'm sure.