It didn’t go as planned, but any day with an activation has to be better than one without.
Plans? What Are Those?
When I got up this morning, I thought that I would be riding my bicycle to Cuyahoga Valley National Park with my TR-35 and AX1 in tow to do an activation at my favorite park. After chatting with my wife, it was decided that we’d do a ride after she got home from work, so maybe it would be better for me to change plans and get my 20th activation at the Coopenrider-Kent Bog State Nature Preserve (US-9401). I could knock out my Repeat Offender award and add to my total activations and QSOs at The Home Park. Sounded like a great idea!
The Bog is a nature preserve where there’s a very nice boardwalk. Sadly, while there are a couple of benches along the boardwalk, there are no tables and no way to be out on the boardwalk and do an activation without hindering the use of others. So it’s usually a Parking Lot On The Air for me. Now, there are roughly 8 parking spots which is more than enough for this park. This morning, all but one of them was taken. It seems there was a nature preserve service project going on. I saw 3 or 4 rangers and a group of volunteers dressed to get dirty. This was not the day to pull up in the last existing spot and activate. That would be weird.
This Might Be Plan C?
I got out of the parking lot (which took some work) and pulled into the Post Office to look at the POTA map. I wanted to find something that I hadn’t done before that was close enough. As it turned out, I’ve never activated Auburn Marsh Wildlife Area (US-9445). This would be largely because I didn’t know that it existed until today. In my few roves, it was in the wrong direction to get to other parks, so I must have just pushed it off to the side.
With no knowledge of the site or situation that might be waiting for me, I dropped the address into the navigation robot and headed out. 30 minutes later, I was there.
Or was I?
The robot wanted me to pull into someone’s driveway. That seemed counterproductive. So instead, I went up the road a bit and found the parking lot for the Nature Area. It was not large at all. But it was empty. So I had that going for me.
I took that picture from the road. It’s a small space for cars. But then again, it’s primarily for access for hunters and trappers. There aren’t exactly a stadium’s worth of those in this part of the world.
Getting To Business
I’ve gotten pretty good with the mobile setup for the IC-705. The clamps that I got for both it and my CW paddle base work really well on the panic bar in the Jeep. I keep the clamps in the Jeep at this point and it makes getting set up a question of 2 or 3 minutes maximum if I’m screwing the whip into the mount on the rear of the Jeep.
I got on the air and it was a bit slow. 40M was pretty quiet, but I got a quick 5 before things really slumped. I was wondering if I was getting out, but both the Ham Alert that pings my watch and my website widget showed that I was getting out.
I moved on over to 20M and saw that things were even worse from a band perspective. The contacts I did make were quiet and faded a lot. I squeaked out 11 contacts in about an hour and that was all the time I had. I felt refreshed!
QSO Map
Here’s the QSO Map.
Not too bad at all!
Final
The past week in our household has been difficult. My dear friend and companion of over 12 years, Dr. Finneas J. Nacho aka The Radio Beagle aka The Nach passed away. For such a small guy, he has left an enormous hole. Getting outside, hiking, mountain biking, and certainly POTA are things that I need right now to get those happy brain chemicals flowing. Espeically MTB and POTA because it’s really hard to think about being sad when you’re flying down some single track going far faster than a dude in his 50s should or are decoding CW from some OP that doesn’t understand that 18 wpm it what feels right today rather than 27. It’s good therapy.
Thanks for reading along and 72!
