Big Changes
This isn’t a blog where I share everything that happens in my day to day life. The purpose here is to document the fun and challenges of my amateur radio hobby. But a hobby does intersect with life. We’ve all picked up and put down hobbies over time depending on life circumstances. I had a big change lately and I’ve had a few questions from people who read this blog asking if everything is OK.
TL; DR: It is. Everything is great!
In mid-September, I had my last day at work. I’m in a state of semi-retirement right now trying to figure out, well, a lot of things. I’m very, very fortunate that I’m able to take this time to pause and think about what’s next. My family has been incredibly supportive of this move and I couldn’t be happier about it.
With change come challenges. I’ve taken over the day to day running of the house. That means vet appointments, doctor appointments, groceries, meal planning, household chores, a million projects…all of the things. I’m still coming up to speed on that stuff and as a result, radio has had to take a back seat. Well, no more!
Getting Outside
I only had ONE activation in August and ONE activation in September. That’s appalling to me. One of the things that has kept my stress down over the past few years has been POTA and I’m not happy that things slid off like they did. But as I said, big changes take a lot of time.
On a Wednesday morning, with all of my chores more or less handled, I put my IC-705 and assorted gear in my backpack and decided that I’d head out to West Branch State Park – US-1999 after giving my dad a hand moving a few things over at the PCARS club site. As I was packing up, I decided to toss the Surface Go 2 into my bag on a lark. I haven’t done much FT8 lately and I do like mixing up my modes. It’s what I didn’t toss in the backpack that would get me.
Back In The Saddle
West Branch is a very busy park when the days are long and warm. People come out to boat or to sit on the beach. There are a million hikers with dogs. In fact, even on the rather remote peninsula where I usually settle in to do my activations, I get a lot of traffic and folks poking their heads in to ask what I’m doing. That’s great! But it’s not why I go to the park. It’s probably why I go to Cuyahoga Valley National Park in the summer: people are there to hike and keep moving. There is far less chatting.
On this rather cool (50dF) and windy morning, the only other people I’d see at the park were the park staffer who was mowing part of a field around the disc golf course and a guy out on his boat fishing. If the water isn’t frozen, there is a boat on that reservoir.
The table was right where I’d left it. Sort of. Someone moved it closer to the edge of the peninsula, so I’d have to use a different tree for my antenna. Having thought about it on the drive over, one of my favorite things about my normal spot is being able to easily get my EFHW into a tree. I decided that I’d pull that out (I keep it in the Jeep at all times) and use it. I was glad that I did!
I got the line in the tree after a number of frustrating throws. The lack of practice from this summer was really showing. With the line over a branch – as opposed to The Branch I was aiming for – I got the antenna in the air and got to setting up the rest of my gear.
Decisions Made For Me
Two things conspired to make this a digital only activation. The first was that thing I didn’t put in my bag: my headset. I had no headphones. There were high winds and really loud Canada Geese (providing quite intentional QRM) in the area. The second item was my friend from the park department who was mowing. There was no way I’d hear CW on my 705’s speaker without a headset. I was quite glad I’d tossed the tablet in my backpack!
My digital setup is fast and well-oiled. With my gear all talking to each other, I started up WSJT-X and got to the business of making contacts.
WSJT-X Improved
On my desktop I have been using WSJT-X Improved as my FT8 client of choice. There are a few little tweaks that the developer made to the UI that makes it so much easier to navigate. I hope that some of them find their way into the main branch. Things like being able to push the band button without navigating that finicky dropdown selector and a setting that will respond if it sees your call come up without the user clicking to get there. On a desktop, these are nice to have features. In the field on a small tablet with a touchscreen, they would be game changers.
I say “would be” because I didn’t take the time to install it on the tablet and was using the stock install instead. I really, really, really missed those features. As well as the ability to ignore a station. That’s a rant for another time.
In short, check it out. I find the UI changes to be refreshing and really helpful. YMMV.
The Activation
Once I was on the air, I was pulling in contacts like crazy. I started on 20-meters and it just took off. Given that it was about 14:00 UTC or so, that wasn’t so much of a surprise. But my EFHW and the bands conspired to give me contacts from California to Barbados and France. It was great!
As I sat and reeled in contacts, I started to notice that it was actually cold. The wind was blowing hard and I was in the shade of the massive trees that sit on the edge of the water. It made me think of last winter and the winter to come. Getting out in the less than comfortable weather is good for building character (as if I needed more) but it’s also a reminder to take the right coat. Sitting still in the shade means wear a warmer than you would if you were walking kinda coat. And maybe take some gloves? I need to restock my backpack for the season, it seems.
Toward the end of my time, I switched over to 15-meters and picked up a station in France. I wasn’t feeling like hanging out much longer as the wind was picking up further and the sun wasn’t going to be getting to me any time soon. I stopped and packed it in.
QSO Map
31 contacts for the activation but 2 were dupes. When someone comes back at me after I’ve logged the contact, I usually work it through even if I see it’s a dupe. Maybe the other operator didn’t close out the QSO on their end and really needs…checks notes…a park in Ohio? Maybe? Anyway, 29 contacts that count toward the activation and they came in from all over the place. Here’s the QSO Map:
Final
It felt so good to get back out to the park. I missed West Branch and I missed my little spot by the water. The cold wind and obstructionist geese? Less so. But it was a gorgeous day to be outside and the ionosphere rewarded me with many contacts. There’s nothing like getting outside with a radio to refresh a radio nerd!
Thanks for reading along. Lots more updates to come as projects move forward and some winter time radio experimenting starts up. I have a lot I want to do with packet radio and BBSes and the like. Not to mention some Hellschreiber POTA activation attempts as well! I have the time!
