Our family had to postpone our Thanksgiving get-together until the weekend. So that gave my (far) better half and me a quiet day to ourselves. What better way to celebrate a holiday than a POTA activation?
My destination today was Marsh Creek State Park (K-1380, KFF-1380), one of my favorite local parks. As I was walking out the door, my (far) better half told me, “You shouldn’t expect too many contacts because of the holiday.” Ha! After being married to a ham for 46 years, you would think she would know better. A holiday is just an opportunity to get on the radio instead of working!
My rig today was my old YouKits HB-1B. After I bought it through Ten Tec 10 years ago, it was my go-to portable rig. In recent years, I’ve been taking it along on trips as a backup rig, but it hasn’t seen much air time.
The HB-1B has a canned “CQ” CW message, but no programmable memories. I brought my old NorCal keyer along to take care of that. Since the HB-1B also lacks an internal tuner, I used my Elecraft T1. Actually, this was a portable configuration I have used many times years back. Antenna-wise, I went with my 12-foot whip and homebrew loading coil on the back of my truck.
The HB-1B never had the cleanest sounding sidetone; but using a LiFePO4 battery (around 13V), the sidetone had some loud clicks. Over the years, the display also developed some kind of mark or smudge that is very noticeable at some viewing angles. Neither of these issues were a show-stopper for me.
I started out on 40M and seemed to get out well enough. After the first eight contacts, though, the band seemed to dry up. I moved up to 20M, and things picked up. Although it took 20 minutes to get my first 10 contacts, there was lots of activity on the 20M band. The power output is slightly lower on 20M (approximately four watts), but I still collected 32 contacts there. I picked up a few more on 30M before calling it quits.
In less than 90 minutes on the air, I ended up with 50 contacts (with one dupe). There were no park-to-park or DX contacts today. (I neglected to post a spot for the WWFF folks.)
Despite its shortcomings, the little HB-1B gave a good accounting of itself. It’s still a worthy backup rig, and I need to put it on the air more often.
Finally, to all those celebrating, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.
72, Craig WB3GCK
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 