With rain in the forecast, I headed out to Norristown Farm Park (US-4363, KFF-4363) early on March 31st and conducted my activation under the shelter of a picnic pavilion. I used a jaw clamp to mount a 17-ft whip antenna to one of the picnic grills. So, I guess you could call this another “Grills on the Air” activation. With the lousy forecast and being a weekday to boot, I had the entire picnic area to myself.
After installing the antenna on the grill, I laid out three 17-foot radials. With this setup, I easily obtained a 1.4:1 SWR. I set up my Penntek TR-35 (5 watts, CW) at the closest picnic table. The 18-foot length of RG-8x I brought along was a tad short, so I had to suspend it off the ground. I placed my LiFePO4 battery on top of the coax to prevent my little Elecraft T1 tuner from being dragged off the table.
There was a bit of static from the storm moving in, but the signals on 20M were strong enough to overcome it. Despite being early on a weekday, I made my first 10 contacts in about 13 minutes. I continued on 20M until the pool of hunters dried up.
After about 30 minutes, I shortened the whip for 17M. I only got the SWR down to about 1.9:1, so I let the T1 do the heavy lifting. The 17M band was less productive, but I made eight more contacts before calling it quits. My last QSO of the morning was with the Slovak Republic on 17M.
After an hour on the air, I had logged 30 contacts with two park-to-park contacts. A few stations worked me on both bands. I also had three DX contacts: F1BLL, DL8NDG, and OM3CND.
It never rained during my activation, but that was fine with me. I had a nice dry outing to wrap up the month of March.
72, Craig WB3GCK
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 