Except for Field Day, I’ve been mostly off the air for the past few weeks. To remedy that, I took advantage of a rare day with outstanding weather for a quick, early-morning activation at Valley Forge National Historical Park (US-0761, KFF-0761).
Since I have to be careful with sun exposure these days, I drove straight to an area I knew would have shade all morning. My original plan was to experiment with a wire antenna with my Elecraft KH1, but for reasons I won’t bore you with, that didn’t happen. Instead, I used a whip antenna on my truck and ran coax over to my camp chair and table. My handy-dandy propagation app showed unsettled geomagnetic conditions, so I went with my longer 17-foot whip and homebrew loading coil.
Despite the poor band conditions predicted for 40M, there was no shortage of early risers hunting parks. Although there was a lot of static from impending storms, it only took five or six minutes to make my first ten contacts. After logging 20 contacts on 40M, I changed bands. I made a half-dozen contacts each on 30M and 20M.
I finished up with 32 contacts after an hour and 10 minutes on the air. Eight of those were park-to-park, including one with my friend Ken N3CU, and one on each of the three bands with Tom KG1A in Florida.
I packed up and headed home to cut my grass before the rain moves in tomorrow. Except for a minute or two of sheer panic when I temporarily misplaced the keys to my truck, it was a good morning and fun to get back out in a park.
72, Craig WB3GCK
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 