Owls and Flamingos

Tuesday the 10th vs Friday the 13th

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This is a tale of 2 activations, 2 owls and one park. On Tuesday, Oct 10th, My long suffering wyfe and I set out to Kings Gap (K-4361 for you POTA types) and I activated the park. This consists of setting up my radio and making a minimum of 10 contacts. I was able to make 34 contacts in the time I had to be there and enjoyed the day. Everything went smoothly. I got my antenna line over a tree branch in one throw and was set up in less than 15 minutes. My wyfe wandered around taking pictures and also spent some time on the interwebs and enjoying the weather. It was a great afternoon. As I said, everything went smoothly. My owl decoy, Ptolomey (pictured below) kept watch for bears and made sure we weren’t bothered by insects or other pests. Then there was today, Friday the 13th. My wyfe, on the spur of the moment, decided that she wanted to do some videoing up at Kings Gap and since we would be going up there I decided to bring my equipment and activate. First, I had to turn back 1/2 km from home as I had forgotten to barricade off the area of the house where the cellar stairs are. I rather prefer not to return home to our Rhoomba on its back at the bottom of the stairs screaming for help and being circled by well-meaning cats. Then the small store at the bottom of the hill at Kings Gap did not carry the brand of chips my wyfe wanted. Once we go to the top of the hill where the mansion is, there were workmen doing various and sundry things preparing the place for the upcoming fall/winter seasons. My wyfe settled herself in to doing her thing and I started setting up my radio. Yeah … On the 4th throw, my throwing bag wound 3 times around a branch. I stood there, about 15 or so meters below staring at it and uttering lots of nsfw words. There was no way I could leave an weighted throwing bag attached to several meters of florescent twine attached to that branch. Finally the thought hit me: The twine has 2 ends!! I took a convenient stick and tied it up with the other end of the twine and threw it over the branch 3 times. This unwound the throwing bag. Unfortunately, my wyfe had wandered over to observe the spectacle and almost got hit with the bag when it came loose and plummeted to the ground. Now 3 more throws got it over the branch and I was able to raise my antenna. My usual 15 minute set-up took me almost 45 minutes. Now my owl Tootsie was able to scare away any bears but the gnats were another story. They ignored him and swarmed me. I did my best to ignore them. I made 55 contacts and had a very successful activation in spite of Friday the 13th and Murphy. Feel free to look at my pictures and to laugh at me. 🙂 Pic 1 is Ptolomey, Pic 2 is Me on the 10th, Pic 3 is Tootsie and Pic 4 is me on the 13th. Namaste Y’all

As for Summer, I don’t hear no singing!

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It was a beautiful day today and I decided to go activate a park. I went to Big Spring State Park which is located in Tuscarora State Forest, making it a two-fer! All went well. I put my antenna up over a convenient branch with my arborist bag and quickly got on the air. I self spotted on the POTA app and soon was making contacts. I had no real issues until an operator started using AM on a nearby freq. I just moved down the band and started over. I ran for a while more before the heat got to me. Overall a very successful activation. I made 44 contacts including 3 park to parks. I will be back there in the near future as it is a nice park and is nearby. I enjoy working portable and POTA gives me a chance to get outdoors. Yesterday I was out on my lawn and, with the help of my long-suffering wyfe, got my Buddistick tuned up using a 4″ by 20′ length of copper screen as a ground radial. It worked great and I will have to try it at a park next. Now I think I will sit here and stream some shows.

Namaste, y’all

Radio Active in a good way

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Had a great day yesterday. My long suffering wyfe and I went camping at a local state forest and I activated it for the POTA program. Please note that my wyfe isn’t into camping and only went along to keep me company as I could not find anyone else to join in on the adventure. The campsite we chose was very remote. While we were there no cars went by, which pleased me to no end. It is up on a dirt road on top of a ridge. The only amenities there are a parking area, a picnic table and a fire ring. This was very suitable. While we were there the wind was blowing which kept the bugs to a minimum, even though the temperature was in the 80’s (farenheit) or high 20’s in Celsius. We had the camp set up in about an hour and I was soon on the air. I got to try out some new equipment. To hang my antenna I used a weighted arborists throwing bag. This was easier than using a stick and allowed me to throw the line higher in a tree. I had my generator that I had won in a raffle and my tent which I had also won. Both my owls were there, Ptolomy and Tootsie (pictured below) to guard the camp. I even brought along a slingshot with steel ball bearings in case a bear showed up and I wanted to piss it off. In reality the only critters we saw were a porcupine which walked purposefully past the camp, a large beetle doing beetle things a big toad, and a racoon which came by the tent this morning to see what was blocking his path. As for the activation, I had a very successful time. I made a total of 78 contacts with 4 of them park-to-park contacts. I stayed on the 40M band as it seemed to have a good result. I worked as far away as Puerto Rico, and several places in the eastern half of the country and a few Canadian stations before I had to stop due to my power supply running low. Overall, a good time was had by all. Hats off to my wyfe who made us a great supper of cabbage and kielbasa!

Not a Good day, a Great day!

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It was a great day today. The weather was beautiful and it was a very nice day to be off. One of those Sundays that come along once in a while that make you want to go outside and do things. Today my wonderful wyfe and I went out to a State Park about 15 miles down the road and did a POTA activation. POTA stands for Parks On The Air and is a program for ham radio operators to get out and be active in the public, operating in State and Federal parks, Forests and Game Lands. The park we were at was Big Spring State Park ( POTA Number K-4355) which is located on the western edge of Perry County PA. As I said, it was a beautiful day. It only took me about 15 minutes to set up. I put up an inverted Vee antenna with the apex up about 30 feet. My radio is a Yaesu FT891 and I was using my new LDG Z11 Pro II tuner. The setup worked great and I was able to make 26 contacts in less than an hour of operating before the bugs drove me out of there. In the meantime, my wonderful and long suffering wyfe was enjoying herself making videos of nature and of me operating. All in all, a good time was had by all. Following is a pic of me operating and my setup. The random hunks of tree bark on the table were still there when we left. 🙂

Events Special and Otherwise

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Yesterday we, the club I belong to, held a special event to mark the anniversary of the birth of Marie Doro, a local who was a very well known actress in the early 1900s. She was very famous on stage and in silent films and was the first American actor invited to appear before the British royalty!. She was born here in Duncannon PA and is buried here, though she lived the majority of her life elsewhere. In a perfect world, running a Special Event would be simple. Since when has this world been perfect? There is quite a process involved starting with getting the club interested in hosting the event to announcing the event and getting the announcement published in QST magazine and on QRZ.com to painstaking work designing the certificate to securing a venue to hold the event to procuring equipment to enticing people to operate the radios and bring food, chairs, tables and other odds and ends. anyway, we did it. I even made a batch of chili which was a big hit. I even brought one of my mascot owls, Tootsie to supervise. He approved of the radio activity.