This is the time of year that tries my patience. The weather can be gorgeous one day and miserable the next. After a week of grey and on and off rain, there was finally a break in the clouds. The forecast for that Saturday called for clear skies and a high in the low 60dF range. Absolutely perfect for some POTA. And better yet, a great time to get out on the bike and ride there.
That was the plan and it went off as well as I could have hoped until the end. But that’s at the end.
Getting to Cuyahoga Valley National Park – K-0020 was a dream. For whatever reason, the multiuse trails were almost empty. Maybe everyone had somewhere else to be? It didn’t matter much. It meant for faster travel, fewer obstacles, and a very smooth and quiet ride out to the park. The initial thought was to head for “my” picnic table near The Octagon shelter, but that was not to be. The shelter was rented for a very large birthday party made up of kids under the age of 9 (my best guess). There were games set up and a lot of folks milling around. No one was likely to say anything, but why introduce a variable like a vertical antenna into this mix?
So it was back up the road a bit to The Ledges. There were people hiking the trail, as always, but almost no one near the picnic area. Despite having more foot traffic in general, there are fewer people near where the best places to set up happen to be. That’s worth noting for future activations.
The setup was quick. The Chameleon vertical goes up in under 3 minutes. That includes time to attach the feedline and toss out a radial or two. With that established, and a moment for a Clif Bar, the IC-705 and Surface came out of the bag and my station was on the air! It was FT8 to shake out a few things that were new to the laptop in terms of settings.
Contacts came regularly and the activation was complete quickly. 40m and 20m seemed to be where most of the fun was to be had. I was definitely getting out on other bands according to PSK Reporter, but no one who could hear me wanted to come back. Or I wasn’t hearing the people who heard me. There was a P2P in the mix – always a good thing! I thought about tossing out a quick email, but I was getting a little tired and still had 11 or so miles until home. So, after some more water and some stretching of the legs, the antenna came down and the whole station was packed in about 10 minutes. That includes all of the fiddling around with the bike.
Here’s what it looked like on the map:
I mentioned on Mastodon that I’ve not been having much luck with tires in the past week. Well, fate is cruel and decided to have one last go at me. When I was about 0.5 miles from home, I got a flat from a piece of road debris. Honestly? I would have sold my bike to the first passer-by for $12 in that moment. Instead, I sent a message to my son and he rode down to take my gear bag to lighten things a bit. I walked the bike home and changed the tube in about 5 minutes. I’m getting good at it!
I’m also getting new tires. But that’s more of a bicycle post than a radio one.
