I ran out to Sam Lewis, US-1418, to activate when the rain stopped.
I took a few minutes to setup my normal EFHW running North-South to operate more to the East and West, though I did get a contact to Colombia.
I operated mostly low-power FT8, 1-4W, but mostly 2W. I chased and got 1 CW contact before it started getting cold and dark.
On the way back from 3DPrintopia, I stopped to activate US-1587 Palmer State Park.
Uploading to http://pota.app/ from a phone can be difficult sometimes, but I found a way to do it.
Downloads folder,
then upload to pota.app.
If you don’t download it,
you’ll see a network error in pota.app.US-9719 Susquehanna Riverlands.
I went camping and operated there and in Michaux Forest, Pine Grove Furnace, and Caledonia. I ran the 40M EFHW in trees at the parks as a sloper and inverted-V for 40M, 10M, and 15M. I did FT8 and a little CW.
At the campground, I contacted NY and ME on CW on 40M in the morning using the Gabil slider coil and whip. I discoverd that the my older Gabil antenna with jumpers on the coil has different thread size for the whip, so not interchangeable.
I played a little FT8 at US-8834, State Game Land 136, with only 2W on my 40M EFHW in an inverted-V. I made 26 contacts, and looked for some CW, but barely heard anything.
I headed to US-4356, Boyd Big Tree Preserve for an activation. I took my time and med 51 contacts: FT8, FT4, 2 SSB, 2 CW. I stretched my 40M EFHW from pavilion to tree to the East. A bystander hung out for 40 minutes to see what I was doing, so I showed him around the bands.
While on a trip to New York with the kids, I activated a couple parks.
At US-9136, I parked in the middle, and threw the 40m EFHW into a tree to operate 20M and some 40M, FT4 & FT8 I made 13 contacts in the US, Sweden, Germany, and Spain. I got sweat on (in?) the touchpad of the laptop, so the pointer was being very jumpy and hard to control.
On the edge of US-2074, I barely got my 10 contacts in time. I used the magnetic loop, and aligned it to go up and down the coast on 40M.
One morning, I headed to Delaware to have lunch and to activate US-1730, Alapocas Run State Park. It was also along US-9878, Northern Delaware Greenway National Recreation Trail.
I put up my homebrew delta loop with 4:1 balun. With the tuner on the X6100, I could get 1.5:1 SWR on 20M. For kicks, I only ran 1W and made 23 contacts calling CQ on FT8. The location was very quiet for listening.
On 15M, I got Italy with 1W.
I tested a new 5200mAh 12V Li-Ion battery, and it worked for the entire activation. It dropped from 12.3V to 10.9V or so which was plenty for the radio.
I activated the Conoy Wetland along US-4567. I used the 40M EFHW running to the South East. I stayed on 40m, using FT8 and 4W. I got my 30+ contacts calling CQ POTA, and didn’t chase anyone.
I experimented with the counterpoise:
