My (far) better half and I spent most of the week in central Pennsylvania helping a family member recovering from surgery. Although the mornings focused on getting the grandkids off to school and making sure the grand-dog got walked, I squeezed in a couple of short activations.
Not sure how much radio time (if any) I would have this week, I packed light. I only brought my Elecraft KH1 and some antennas that I usually keep in the truck.
Capt. John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail (US-4567)
On our second day in central PA, I had to drop my granddaughter off at her friend’s house to catch the school bus. Since I was only about five miles away from a boat launch on the Susquehanna River in northern Lancaster County, I drove over there for a short activation of US-4567.
Except for a few early morning cyclists, the place was empty. I parked my truck in a spot that’s within 100 feet of the river and got set up. I didn’t have much time, so I stayed in the truck and used a 17-foot whip and my homebrew loading coil. Up in the cab, I used the KH1 and my CWMouse paddles.
The A Index was a whopping 29, so I wasn’t expecting great results. As is often the case, Mother Nature fooled me. The 40M band seemed really hot; I made my first ten contacts in about nine minutes. The KH1 was putting out a whopping 3.5 watts.
Towards the end of my activation, I noticed that the Reverse Beacon Network and other POTA spotters were showing my frequency 500 kHz higher than my dial frequency. Although I had the KH1’s filter on the narrowest setting, it sounded very broad to me. Doing some poking around the menus, I found the problem. Somehow the mode had changed to USB. Most likely, it resulted from some fat-fingering on my part. Doh! A quick button press or two and all was right with the world. Actually, I made most of my contacts with the mode set to USB instead of CW, so it wasn’t the worst mistake I could have made.
I wrapped things up after 30 minutes on the air, with 20 QSOs in the log (including two dupes). All of my contacts were on 40M. Although 40M seemed long (with several Michigan and Missouri stations), I had a park-to-park contact with my friend N3CU. Ken was activating a park towards the southern end of the county. A park-to-park QSO with KB1SF in Michigan turned out to be park number 1,000 for me as a hunter. It was a fun activation, but I needed to get back to the house.
PA State Game Lands 246 (US-8941, KFF-5862)
The next morning was pretty much the same situation, but this time I activated some nearby state game lands. Although this location is only about 10 minutes away from where I was staying, it had been more than a year since my last activation there. I was long-overdue for a visit.
I used the same setup as the day before, but this time making sure the KH1 was actually in CW mode. Like the previous day, the 40M band was very active early in the morning. This time it only took about seven minutes to log my first 10 contacts, and they rolled in steadily after that.
I finished up with 31 contacts—one was a dupe—in just over 30 minutes of operating. Again, all of my contacts were on 40M. I would have tried other bands, but the hunters kept me busy on 40M. Satisfied with the contacts I made, I headed back to the house for breakfast with the rest of the family.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the KH1 really plays well with the 17-foot base-loaded vertical mounted on the back of the truck. Putting out around 3.5 to 4 watts, the little KH1 was really getting out. Thanks to all the early-rising hunters out there for a couple of fun activations this week.
72, Craig WB3GCK
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 