An Easter activation! We got home from our muddy camping trip and decided to, well, go out to another park. This time it was Portage Lakes State Park [K-1984]. As my son would say, “Literally 1984!” Anyway, Bella always needs a walk. It was NE Ohio April weather which really means that we spin a dial to see what we’ll get and on this date at this time we got sunny, clear skies, with temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s. Great!
Wait. What?
Yeah, not so great. I threw on my heavy coat because sitting still in the wind isn’t fun. While my wife and Bella wandered a new to us trail, I set up on a park bench near the shore of one of the lakes. I don’t know this park well, but it seems like a great place to come and do some kayaking or fishing. It was mostly quiet with the exception of a large family doing an Easter Egg Hunt at the playground up the hill. I got the Chameleon set up and started to work.
This one took a little longer. Not so many people on the air on Easter – shocking, I know! But I did manage to get enough contacts to activate the park.
The big thing for this trip was noticing that I’ve really gotten comfortable with deploying this setup. Getting the whip up and the cables in place doesn’t take very long at all. I think I’m under 5 minutes from claiming a picnic table to syncing the clock on my tablet. That’s not too bad! I also made note of the fact that I never, ever remember to send a Winlink email no matter how many times I say it out loud. It’s not a habit and it needs to be. So maybe the next time out, that’s where I will start.
I bounced around between 20m and 40m and gave 10m a try. This is where I was heard. No 10m contacts this time, but at least I was heard!
And here’s the log for my 7th unique park activation:
AK9IT FN20 40m
W4UWC EM77 40m
WA3TVH FN21 40m
KB8ECG EN81 40m
AC8NP EN81 40m
KZ4KX EM66 40m
KI5TKD EM15 20m
WH6A EL99 20m
K0HMZ DN88 20m
KN4CPAEL96 20m
AC3IU FN00 40m