2 Weeks And I Am Back

April 13, 2025 / KB3CVO / Leave a comment

On 31 March, I took my car to the body shop due to damage from a ruminant running into my door. I finally got it back on Wednesday, 9 April . The rental I had was really bad. I didn’t like it at all nor did my wyfe. We are thrilled to have our Scoobydoo back. We went out yesterday driving around and looking for places to take pictures and videos. We ended up on the back roads around Gettysburg. One place we stopped was at Sachs Bridge. The bridge was used by the Confederate Army during their withdrawal from Gettysburg after the battle. It is a “Town” Truss type covered bridge and the area is a great spot to fish or just watch the creek roll by. Today we set out to do an activation and play with the cameras again. I asked SWMBO to pick a direction and she had said south. We took off directed south and made our way to Fort Frederick in Maryland which is a park I hadn’t activated before. Where we parked was next to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal which is a historic trail and on the list of places you can activate. It is officially a National Park and runs from Washington DC to Cumberland MD along the Potomac River. This made our activation a 2 fer.I used my app to listen for birds and we heard Northern Cardinals, White-Throated Sparrows, American Goldfinches, Tufted Titmouses, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Carolina Chickadees, Downy Woodpeckers, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Ruby-Crowned Kinglets, Hermit Thrushes and Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers. We started operating and within a half hour we worked 41 contacts. We then played tourist in the park and did some photography and videos. It was a good weekend and it is good to be back in my car where I can work POTA stations. Thanks for being there. Namaste.

A ruminant track next to my car. Quarter is for scale.

Chilly Activation

December 3, 2024 / KB3CVO / Leave a comment

It was a beautiful day today if you care to ignore the temperature. After breakfast at the Newville Diner, we drove up to the ATV lot in Michaux State Forest US-5471. When we arrived the sky was blue, there was a light breeze and the temperature was 271 K or -2 C or 29 F, whichever you prefer. I like K in the winter because it sounds so much warmer. There were no birds to be heard today and also, luckily, the lot was not filled with the vehicles of hunters taking their rifles for a walk in the forest. There were 3 pickups but it is a big lot so no problems finding parking. We started out on 40 metres and the contacts started coming in fast and furious. I did not have time to spot myself online very often. Within 26 minutes we worked 37 stations from up and down the Eastern 1/3 of the country. Towards the end of that timespan, things started to slow up. I swapped out antennae and went to 12 metres to give the Europeans a chance. We made 21 more QSO’s on 12 and then called last call. Overall 58 contacts in about 1 hour. I know that Costa Rica isn’t Europe, nor is Mexico but I was happy to put them in the logs. We even had a contact from Finland. Overall a great POTA day. Yesterday we brought Calamity to the vet for the first time. She received a clean bill-of-health and will have a follow up in a few weeks for spaying. She is a bit older than I thought she was. The vet said she is around 6 months. That doesn’t make her any less loveable. After we got her home we let her out of the carrier and she was her usual self, apparently forgiving me for subjecting her to the indignities of a vet visit. Right now she is playing fetch with me. Well enough for today. Namaste, kidlets.

Calamity at the vet waiting to be taken home.

Moxie and Tootsie enjoying a sunny December day

500 At Gettysburg

November 28, 2024 / KB3CVO / Leave a comment

Thanksgiving 28 Nov 24. Not a pretty day. The dismal sky was a morose shade of gray; a hue that guarantees feelings of despondency and morbidity. It is only in Autumn that such feelings can be invoked by the clouds. The forests of Southern PA were so dank that even Robert Frost could not describe them in an upbeat or pleasant manner. Light rain was attempting to fall and all the birds were in hiding. Of course, we decided to activate. We went to Gettysburg US-0027. We were surprised by the number of people that were strolling around the battlefield. We thought we would have the place to ourselves with most people being at home doing family things but there were pedestrians all over the place in the vicinity of Spanglers Spring and Culp’s Hill. We got set up and started out on 40 M. I figured that there would be a lot of hams at home waiting on their turkey to cook and sneaking away from the family to play on the radio for a brief time and I was right. We had a legitimate activation within 9 minutes which is pretty good for 40 M during daylight hours. We continued on 40 for another half hour, working stations from NH to TN and north to ON. I then made the command decision to change bands and mounted my 10 M antenna. It does not take long to swap antennae. I take the current one off, put on the one for the next band I want to work, tune the radio to an empty freq and get on the air. One thing I try to do is stay within the privilege areas for General Class Licenses. I posted our location on the POTA spotting page and also announced us on the DXSummit page. It did not take long for stations to find us. There were a lot of European stations, we even worked a park-to-park in Germany. We hung around for another half hour end finished up with 53 contacts which made my total for Gettysburg 500 … half way to my Kilo award. Now I am sitting at home letting the pellet stove remove the damp from the air and enjoying coffee as my cats snooze in the warmth. Enough for today. Namaste kidlets.

Moxie and Ptolomey enjoying a foggy and dreary morning on Culp’s Hill.

The flamingos are restless preparing to continue their northern migration.

An Historical Comment, A Demo And An Unexpected Activation Not In Order

July 14, 2024 / KB3CVO / Leave a comment

I believe there is an ancient curse that goes something like: may you live in interesting times. Yesterday in Butler, PA, while at a campaign rally, President Trump was the target of an assassination attempt. I am only recording this as an historical event and not making a political statement or assigning blame or trying to justify either side of the issue. Unlike the news outlets of our times, I am reporting facts only with no speculation or opinions. A person took some shots at Trump, apparently hitting his ear and killing 1 member of the audience and wounding 2 other members of the audience before being killed by the security forces on site.

Enough of that. On July 10th the club, Perry County Amateur Radio Club, put on a demonstration for a day camp at Little Buffalo State Park (US-1386). I worked the radio station and under bad band conditions was able to activate the park and even got a couple of the kids to say hello on the air. I even had Zarathustra with me to guard the radio. It was hot but we made it through and I hope the kids enjoyed it. On July 11th, at breakfast my long-suffering wyfe said “let’s go to Gettysburg”. We packed up and set out. Her mission was to go to the visitors center and get a map of the monuments as their online map was almost impossible to read when you embiggened it. The visitors center was crowded but I made my way to the desk to inquire about a copy of the map. The nice fellow at the info desk told me that the only map was the one online but at the gift shop I could purchase a book that had details about all the monuments with maps on how to get to them. I bought a copy and my wyfe seemed happy with it. We will be researching it and making a list of the ones we want to photograph along with their locations. We then set off to Culp’s Hill to do an activation before it got too hot. When we pulled in, SWMBO recorded only 1 species of bird: eastern wood peewee. I got set up and in about 45 minutes we worked 24 stations. We left before it got too hot. One nice thing about the location at Culp’s Hill is that it doesn’t get too crowded in the mornings during the week. I hope I didn’t jinx myself there. lol. Well, I have to get ready for work now. Work is the curse of the drinking class, I have been told. Namaste, kidlets.

A day to remember maybe

February 18, 2024 / KB3CVO / Leave a comment

Hi all. It was a beautiful day so we went out. We started with breakfast at the Newville Diner in Newville PA. After a filling and hearty breakfast we set out for Gettysburg, PA. Yes, that Gettysburg. We arrived at the first hill overlooking the town from the north. There is a tower here and it is across from the Peace Light. I started to set up and broke my tripod. The tilt control snapped. We took off to the local Walmart and got a new tripod which I resolved to not leave in the car during freezing temps. We got back to the location which I thought might be relatively quiet and set up. There were more cars in and out of the parking area than I had thought there would be but we were in a spot where we were not in the way. I did observe a van pull up next to us at one point and a young man (late teens, early 20s) jump out wearing fake military cammy and carrying an airsoft “assault” style rifle. He and his group went up into the tower and I believe he took some selfies. They departed a short time later. The wind was blowing relatively strong which made it chilly. Even Tootsie didn’t want to leave the car. Between 20 and 40 meters I worked a total of 35 contacts including some park-to-parks. It was a good activation in spite of the broken tripod. SWMBO and I are making a good team on these excursions. 🙂 We left there and went to the ATV lot in Michaux State Forest on Bendersville Road above Pine Grove Furnace. The lot had some ATV riders there along with their vehicles and trailers but we found a good place to park and set up. Yup. then I started making mistakes lol. First I tuned my coax to a perfect 1:1 on 20M. Yup. Tuned the coax without it being attached to the antenna. Luckily my long suffering wyfe pointed that out to me. “Aren’t you going to connect your cable to the antenna?” she asked. After I got it attached, I got on the air. Worked 20M for a while and then went to 40M to let the locals have a chance. Finally when we were ready to go, I looked at my antenna and LO! and Behold! the tilt had loosened and the wind had blown it over. Lesson learned. Always have the antenna in your line of sight. Also, always check the tightness of any and all connections on new equipment. How do you spell duh? Amazing thing was the last few contacts came in just fine and it didn’t seem to affect the SWR. We logged a total of 26 contacts there including some park-to-parks. We got home ok and then got all equipment put away and entered the qso’s into the log. Then had a catastrophe. One of our cats does not get along at all with the 2 younger cats. we try to keep them separated. I was carrying one of the youngsters up from the basement and slipped. He is ok but I am nursing a very sore arm/wrist/ribs/knee. Oh well, as the philosopher said: “you take the good, you take the bad”. Enough for now. Namaste kidlets