I made a run up to French Creek State Park (US-1355, KFF-1355) yesterday for an early morning activation. During my POTA/WWFF activation, I also did a little antenna experimenting.
Although the weather was on the chilly side, the temperatures were predicted to warm up as the day progressed. Not surprisingly for a late October morning, the picnic area near Hopewell Lake was completely empty. Normally, I would opt for a spot in the shade; but this morning, I picked one with full sun. That turned out to be a good choice.
My antenna today was a Gabil GRA-7350TC mounted on the table, along with my recently acquired GRA-CFP2600 carbon fiber whip. On previous outings with this antenna, I found 20M a little touchy to tune. Today, I went with four 17-foot radials (instead of my usual two) to see if that would help. My radio today was my KH1, along with CWMouse paddles for keying.
I quickly found a good match on 40M and got started. Normally, the cell service in this area is hit or miss for certain carriers—like the one I use. Today, however, I spotted myself on the POTA and WWFF sites with no difficulty. I guess having fewer leaves on the trees might be helping.
The 40M band was in decent shape this morning. My first QSO was park-to-park with KG1A down in Florida. I also worked stations in Ontario to the north and Michigan to the northwest. I only needed eight minutes to log my first ten contacts.
When the callers thinned out on 40M, I went up to 20M to see if the extra radials would help bring down the SWR. It was still a little touchy, but I got the SWR down to about 1.6:1. After a handful of contacts on 20M, I moved up to 17M.
I had trouble getting the SWR below 3:1 on 17M, but the KH1’s ATU easily found a match. Although I was seeing RBN hits in Europe and Central America, I had no takers. I thought about doing some more tinkering with the radials, but I was running low on coffee. (I have my priorities.) I opted to save the tinkering for another time.
After about an hour, I started packing up. I had 23 contacts in the log with enough park-to-park contacts to put me over the 1,000 mark for POTA. That’s small potatoes for the more avid activators, but it’s a significant milestone for my meager efforts.
A few posts ago, I mention I was looking for a way to store the five sections that make up the Gabil GRA-CFP2600 carbon fiber whip. (Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions.) For now, I’m using a cheap trekking pole bag I found on Amazon. After stashing the sections in the bag, I bundle them together with some homemade adjustable bungees. With the five sections bundled together, it would take more force than I could muster to break them. I can then bungee the bag to the side of my backpack. Admittedly, it doesn’t look like much, but it keeps the whip sections clean and organized. It’ll do until I find something better.
I’m glad I could take advantage of this spectacular fall weather. There probably won’t be too many more days like this, as we head towards winter.
72, Craig WB3GCK
