On the morning of Wednesday, Could 15, 2024, I awoke, grabbed breakfast, and headed to Strouds Run State Park in Athens, Ohio. (You may examine that activation in my earlier area report.)
As soon as I returned to Eric’s (WD8RIF) QTH, Eric, his son Miles (KD8KNC), and I packed up the automobile for the drive to Dayton—roughly 2.5 hours from Athens. En route, we selected an activation of Scioto Path State Park (US-1990) which additionally occurs to be a two-fer with Scioto Path State Forest (US-5448).
I’d hoped band situations would stay as favorable as they have been within the morning, however the solar had different plans! (Certainly, this may grow to be a recurring theme all through the next week.)
We arrived at Scioto Path round 2:00 PM, underneath scattered clouds and after passing via some rain. We hoped the climate would maintain!
I’d by no means been to Scioto earlier than and was happy to see a small island on the lake accessible by a footbridge. It had a gazebo, excellent for a POTA station.
A spotlight of this journey was giving Eric an opportunity to function my Index Labs QRP Plus. Eric had owned one for 13 years as his first area radio. In reality, as I’ve talked about earlier than, after I first met Eric in 1997, it was whereas he was working a QRP Plus throughout FYBO!
For the reason that QRP Plus is best suited to tabletop use, I really helpful Eric arrange within the gazebo.
I supplied my Chelegance MC-750 for him to function on 20M.
I arrange underneath a tree on the fringe of the island—as removed from Eric as attainable to reduce interference. In actuality, the island is small, so I used to be solely about 15 meters away—not ultimate!
The tree provided some shade and potential rain safety. I deployed my Helinox Chair, my “no-transformer, no feedline” Tufteln random wire antenna, the Elecraft KX2, and my Tufteln/N0RNM kneeboard.
After I turned on the radio, I might hear Eric’s sign bleeding via on 30 meters (a band I selected to keep away from harmonic interference with 20M).
The KX2 is delicate, so this wasn’t surprising. Eric by no means skilled interference from my station, seemingly because of the QRP Plus’s much less delicate receiver.
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This turned out to be an activation the place I’d actually put my KX2 ATU to work!
I began the activation on 30 meters and labored one station (thanks, N4NTO!).
I then moved to 17 meters solely to search out it was utterly useless.
Subsequent, I moved all the way down to 40M and finally labored my second station: KK4UZK. Eric used a dummy load on the Index Labs radio and labored me P2P as nicely.
Subsequent, I moved as much as 15 meters, understanding full nicely that if 17M was useless, 15M was seemingly “deader.” Eric saved the band by working me P2P there.
Up so far, I had been avoiding 20 meters since Eric was planted there working stations. 20 meters was, indisputably, the healthiest of the bands in the course of the activation window.
Eric informed me I might hop on 20 meters.
I labored 9 extra stations: WD8RIF (in fact!), KJ5W, N4CD, N5DUX, KA1DMA, WW6W, W0YEM, N5IM, and KE0YDN (who was activating US-7209).
Not the best of activations, but it surely was extremely enjoyable and memorable!
Right here’s what this five-watt activation seemed like when plotted out on a QSO Map:
Right here’s my real-time, real-life video of your complete activation. As with all of my movies, I don’t edit out any components of the on-air activation time. As well as, I’ve monetization turned off on YouTube, though that doesn’t cease them from inserting adverts earlier than and after my movies.
Observe that Patreon supporters can watch and even obtain this video 100% ad-free via Vimeo on my Patreon web page:
Click on right here to view on YouTube.
After packing up, we headed to our resort in Dayton to dump a few of our gear and provides.
Eric and Miles (who’ve base passes for Wright Patterson AFB) continued our annual custom of dinner and drinks at Wings Grille at Wright-Patterson Membership.
Afterwards, we drove to the Vacation Inn in Fairborne so we might choose up our FDIM passes and I might be sure that my presentation for the following day was loaded and dealing correctly on the FDIM AV system.
The next day was 4 Days in Could and it was an absolute blast!
Restful sleep was exhausting to come back by within the following nights. Our late returns to the resort and early departures to drive to Hamvention made certain of that!
It was all price it, although. I’m so grateful to have met so many readers and subscribers at Hamvention and FDIM!
Thanks for becoming a member of me throughout this activation!
I hope you loved the sphere report and my activation video as a lot as I loved creating them!
In fact, I’d additionally prefer to ship a particular due to these of you who’ve been supporting the location and channel via Patreon, and the Espresso Fund. Whereas not a requirement, as my content material will at all times be free, I actually recognize the assist.
As I discussed earlier than, the Patreon platform linked to Vimeo makes it attainable for me to share movies that aren’t solely 100% ad-free but in addition downloadable for offline viewing. The Vimeo account additionally serves as a 3rd backup for my video recordsdata.
Thanks for spending a part of your day with me!
Cheers & 72,
Thomas (K4SWL)
