A Nice Ride This week both the terrestrial and solar weather were in agreement that I could bike out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park – US-0020 for an activation. I’ve been keeping my cycling closer to home due to rain and whatnot, but with sunny skies and an ionosphere that wasn’t really unhappy with us,…
Why Do I Need A New Antenna? When I started my ham radio journey, I lived in a suburb of Philadelphia. The house was a twin that sat at the convergence of three hills. Essentially, it was in a depression or, well, crater. It was also a corner lot with power lines running both ways….
Getting Out To Support The Parks One of my favorite things in amateur radio is obviously getting out to the parks and participating in POTA as an activator. It’s also pretty clear that I really love hanging out at Cuyahoga Valley National Park – US-0020. There’s really not much better on a Saturday than to…
The Weather Isn’t Why I Live Here That’s not an entirely true statement. I’ve lived in places where the weather was far, far worse but there is something about having a bright, sunny, gorgeous looking day (as seen through the window of a house) and walking out into high 30s / low 40s temperatures. Not…
Ah That Beautiful Autumn Weather It’s that time of the year where Northeast Ohio reminds us that it’s going to be cold and miserable for a bit. There was a good amount of rain on Saturday and that combined with a myriad of family activities made getting out for an activation impossible. Sunday was a…
Time To Experiment My POTA activations are supposed to be recreation. That is, they should involve setting up the station, operating it, getting enough contacts for an activation – or not! – and then packing up and heading home. This isn’t supposed to be stressful or a place to deal with the bumps one hits…
This past weekend was a good one for radio. I managed to squeak in two activations of Cuyahoga Valley National Park – K-0020. Along with that, I tried something new with my mast and my bike. On Saturday, I drove out to the park. There were still stray bands of the ragged edge of the…
Since we got a camper, we started spending time with Hipcamp. It’s a place where you can find private campgrounds. In essence, someone has a chunk of land and they set it up for camping and rent it out through this service. Kinda like Airbnb for camping. Using that service, we found a nice farm…
This weekend wasn’t a great one for portable operations in NE Ohio. The weather was cold and rainy. As someone who spends a lot of time outside, I get that there is No Bad Weather, Only Bad Gear. That said, I’m not out to prove anything and if it doesn’t look fun, I’m not gonna…