Endless Variation It's pretty clear that POTA is my thing when it comes to this hobby and that my real goal is to get outside and play radio whenever I'm able. Usually, this is a solo run to th...

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 c...

Yes, I'm Still A Ham It's been quiet around the blog, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been out and playing radio. With the weather turning into real spring and temperatures that are above ...

Back To The Park The temperature was supposed to hit close to 60dF on a cloudy Tuesday in early March and that just screams GET TO THE PARK! I had a lot to do that morning, but I wasn't going t...

Worth Repeating I love my time outdoors. My family is into camping, hiking, and being on the water when we can. Our best times have been on trips to the woods and that's a big reason for my aff...

Circumstances It's mid-November and that happens to coincide with my birthday. In my semi-retired state, I have most days to myself after the kids are off to school. Sure, I have chores to do a...

Ah, The Weather October isn't usually kind enough to grant days in the 70dF range here in NE Ohio. The past few weeks have been really good for that. Sunny, clear days with leaves in high color...

Jamboree On The Air I'm an Eagle Scout. I was very, very into the program as a kid and both of my children are involved in Scouting. Since I got my amateur radio license, I've tried to help out...

Support Your Parks! Every quarter, the Parks On The Air folks have an event called Support Your Parks Weekend. The idea is to get out to the park at least once a quarter, right? I see it as jus...

QRP Rigs Are Fun My interest in POTA and portable operation has evolved as I've spent more and more time in this wonderful hobby. I've said before, and I will say again, that POTA leads to QRP ...

A Long Weekend I had the opportunity to take Friday off, so I did. And with a day off and no commitments until much later, I headed out to The Octagon at Cuyahoga Valley National Park - US-0020...

Gorgeous Weather It was sunny and the temperature was darned near perfect for June in NE Ohio. My wife and I got on our bikes and cycled out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park - US-0020 so that w...

You Read That Right It was a dessert activation. Monday nights are Scout meetings so I figured I could sneak out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park - US-0020 and get an activation in after dinner...

Weeks Without POTA? The past couple of weeks have been very busy and kept me away from my beloved parks and activations. Life is like that sometimes and we have to muscle through it. When I saw...

A Beautiful Day At The Park On Friday, May 10, 2024 I had the afternoon off and decided to head out to Cuyahog Valley National Park - US-0020 to enjoy a quiet afternoon of radio in the park. Th...

Something New-ish? Cuyahog Valley National Park - US-0020 is a massive park. It stretches a good way between Cleveland and Akron. There are over 100 miles of hiking trails scattered throughout ...

It's Here. I'm going to call it: spring has finally hit in NE Ohio. What does that mean? Honestly, it means being outside at the parks and not having my fingers freeze as I work CW or get my st...

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...

Amazing Weather! The entire weekend was about picture perfect. The sun was out. There was a nice breeze. It was warm but not hot. We did have a little work to do with some plumbing on Saturday,...

That Didn't Take Long I have been using West Branch - US-1999 as my go-to park this winter. This is in part because there is a seldom-used shelter available and the park is quite empty this tim...

On Being Invisible Late last week, I was made aware of some concerns that the POTA team were having relayed to them by various official agencies about the poor behavior of activators in parks a...

Out Into The Weather I mentioned my wife's hiking challenge in my last post. It's still going strong and her team is doing well. Part of that is getting out every weekend and hiking both Saturd...

Wrapping Up Vacation During my time off for the holidays, I got in 6 activations. I've been writing them up in pairs and so it only makes sense to put out this last report for 2023 and the firs...

2023: The Year In Radio 2023 was a really, really great year for me with Ham Radio. I was able to get on the air and spend time investing in the hobby. It was a continual source of rejuvenation...

How Did That Happen? There were a lot of things stacked against doing an activation on the 27th. First and foremost, it's my wife's birthday so she sets the tone for the day. Having a birthday ...

What IS That Thing? December in Northeast Ohio is usually marked by leaden grey skies. It's usually cold, windy, and the days are almost as short as they're going to get for the year. It's a ti...

There was a lot of bouncing around the week before with work travel, so when Saturday hit, I was ready to unwind. My family, naturally, had Scouting activities that were going to keep them wrappe...

Some Time Off This past week was Thanksgiving in the U.S. and I decided to take off Monday - Wednesday to pair up with the holidays that were already on the calendar for Thursday and Friday. It...

A picture of a 95 pound Rottweiler named Bella in profile. She's such a good girl! Fun Rottweiler Facts! There are some things that people don't understand about Rottweilers. Some of those ...

National Park Service sign at The Octagon. The Park Cuyahoga Valley National Park has always been a special place. I spent a good amount of time in my youth at Camp Manatoc which is inside...

We had a chance to make a quick ride out to the park, so we took it. Here in NE Ohio, we're going to be running short on nice days for good cycling, so we're going to grab all of them that we can...

Monday, 04-Sep-2023 Labor Day weekend had some really nice weather this time around, if a bit muggy. We decided to take Monday and ride out to the park. I took along my gear to sneak in an acti...

Cycled out to The Cuyahoga Valley National Park on Saturday to get in a quick activation before we were sucked into a whirlwind of family activities. It was a great day for a ride and the park wa...

In the past, I've used posts here to motivate myself to get outside and enjoy my hobby in the parks. The blog acts as a journal of sorts to capture things like weather, general conditions, and an...

A short report this time as there isn't much to say about this one. My wife and I had a weekend to ourselves and we love to get out and ride. Our favorite destination is still Cuyahoga Valley Nat...

As July comes to a close, we're starting to see the calendar ramp up for the back to school season in our house. That means that my phone is always covered in new things being added to the calend...

The last couple of weeks of July in NE Ohio are when everyone seems to empty out and head to a vacation destination. School will kick off for the kids earlier than usual this year, so everyone is...

The Warthog! I took a day off from work and having cleared some time off at home, found myself in the position to have the better part of a day to do a rove. I've been thinking about this for a...

Last week was big for my family. My wife and daughter were at camp while my son and I held down the fort and fed the dogs. With the ladies home safe and sound, and knowing that it was Support You...

With all of the fun and adventure of our week plus in the U.P. I was afraid that it would be a bit of a downer coming back to the same old, same old. Happy to report that is not the case. After u...

It was a weeked of time spent outdoors. The sun was there, the breeze was good, and the weather held all through Saturday and most of Sunday. It is a glorious time to live in the part of the worl...

The start of the cycling season was a rough one. Within a seven day stretch there were 4 different tubes replaced on the bike. The roads and trails seemed littered with things bent on causing pun...

With it being Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. I decided to take Friday off. The weather in NE Ohio is only like this for a small slice of the year and given that it wasn’t raining or grey, it wa...

It was a Friday afternoon. I took half the day off to deal with a few things that were time sensitive. They were taken care of well ahead of when I thought they would be, so I found something to ...

Monday evenings around our house are usually busy. My family has a standing activity and I use that time to get things done or sometimes to read in the quiet for a moment. Last night, however, I ...

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...

Support Your Parks Weekend is a seasonal event run by the folks at Parks On The Air. Since getting into POTA, I've been trying to activate and hunt for each of the events as they pass. More than ...

After all of the work in getting my computer setup for field work again, I was itching to get outside. Easter Sunday presented a very nice opportunity. The weather was stunning. It was in the mid...

The day was just too nice. It was in the mid-50s and the skies were clear. There was a lot of wind, which isn't always great, but staying inside simply wasn't an option. Originally, I wasn't goin...

This past Sunday, the weather was supposed to be in the mid-40F range and clear with something call "The Sun" in the sky. I seemed to remember this yellow orb from my childhood and thought that i...

Sunday afternoon it got up into the mid-40sF and was bright and sunny. It's the kind of sunlight that warms a person who is sitting in it. One might even be able to ditch the coat for a little wh...

Every year, PCARS hosts a club contest for QRP operations in February. Astute readers of the blog will note that the last one was in…November? Of 2022? Well, things happened back in February of 2...

Northeast Ohio has always been grey and nasty through the winter. At least that's been the case as long as I've been here. There's not really any point in being down about it. It's the state of t...

In NE Ohio, real winter is in January and February. The world gets cold. The skies are grey. That giant orb of light in the sky that we see all summer? It fades into memory. The stuff of stories ...

2023 is already underway and there's always a strong desire to hang a new calendar and immediately start scribbling on it. Goals. Targets. Whatever the choice of words is, there seems to be a nat...

The grey of the week was oppressive. People may not know it, but for Seattle's reputation for grey skies, NE Ohio beats it for cloud cover over the course of a year. Honestly? It can get heavy af...

It was a long bit of time off for me this holiday. I grabbed what amounted to about two weeks of time off and spent most of it with my family around the house. It was a wonderfully low-key holida...

2022 is in the rearview mirror. Seems like the right time to look back at the year in ham radio for KC8JC. Let's do that, shall we? 2022 GOALS At the end of 2021, I was looking for some Stupi...

It has started to get chilly here in NE Ohio. Not a surprise for December. I had a long week and decided that the thing that I really needed to do was get out in the field. There is a wonderful s...

A very brief field report. On the 26th, my wife, the puppy, and I went back to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park - K-0020 for a dog walk and a little radio. The weather was almost too nice. It wa...

Well, I did it. I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t hit the Oasis Activator award for K-0020 this year, but my long birthday weekend brought it so close that a quick trip out to the park the day be...

It was a big week for me with a milestone birthday and all, so I took a couple of days off that led to a four day weekend. I activated Cuyahoga Valley National Park - K-0020 on the 17th and just ...

November 17 and 18 are off days in my world to celebrate my circumnavigating the sun one more time. And what does it mean when there is time off? POTA, my friends. POTA. Nothing but POTA. All day...

There is probably a strong case to make Cuyahoga Valley National Park - K-0020 a topic of its own on this blog since all of the posts about POTA operations of late have been about it. Or so it se...

So I snuck out to the park Friday and I figured that would be all the activating I could get in for the weekend. But I forgot about the time change as we leave DST behind. When our Rottie slapped...

There are some days when the stars align just right. This was already set to be a big weekend for radio, but I managed to squeak out some time after work and before my family left for a Scouting ...

Time to title these posts differently, I think… My family was otherwise occupied this past Saturday, so I did the only thing that made sense: I loaded up my bike and cycled off to Cuyahoga Vall...

It was a windy Saturday morning with plenty of sunshine. Naturally, ones thoughts turn to cycling and a trip to the park. Why not toss the radio into the panniers and ride? Why not indeed! That...

A mid-week activation! Something that's important to note is that I work from home. Given the weird nature of my gig and meetings and a team that spans the globe, sometimes my work hours get st...

So it's starting to look like I only ever go to one spot. That's not really the case, but I am trying to get the Repeat Offender Activator award for Cuyahoga Valley National Park - K-0020. There ...

It was a Saturday morning and a great time for an activation out at my favorite spot: Cuyahoga Valley National Park - K-0020. Yes, yet again, my wife and I got on our bikes and rode out to the pa...

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...

And we're back to Cuyahoga Valley National Park - K-0020. As has become our custom, my wife and I got on the bikes again and rode out to have a good morning on the trail. And, as usual. I brought...

This biking thing is getting fun. A quick zip out the the Cuyahoga Valley National Park [K-0020] and back isn't a big deal. On the Saturday in question, my wife and I decided to head out. It was ...

My wife and I have been big on the cycling thing since we acquired our new bikes. Since the previous weekend's trip to Cuyahoga Valley National Park [K-0020] was so much fun, we decided to do it ...

It's been a while since my last trip out to a park for an activation. This time of year, things get really busy and it's hard to make time to get out to a park for a bit. So I intentionally put t...

I took Friday off and managed to get out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park (K-0020) for a bit with my wife and her dog. I decided to leave The Mighty Nacho at home as the weather was questionable ...