A Perfect Day To Activate
The First of October was a truly beautiful Sunday. The sky was clear and it was in the mid-60dF range. There was a light breeze and I didn’t care what the solar weather was looking like because it was a day I had to be outside. My family was running in a dozen different directions, so I grabbed my gear and headed out to West Branch State Park – K-1999.
I’ve been going to West Branch since I was a kid. There is a beach there and my mom and the neighbor would grab a pile of boys from the neighborhood, a lunch, a blanket, and take us out to go play in the water. For us, it was a trip to the beach! Having travelled a bit more and seen a few things, it’s still a great trip to the beach if you make it with friends and Laura’s chocolate covered Rice Krispie treats. I’ll take it over The Gulf Coast any day of the week.
It was a quiet day for the most part. The trees were lighting up with color and that usually means that the number of people in the parks shrinks a bit. Aside from a few less than polite folks tearing up the reservoir with their boat and music loud enough you could hear them all over the water, it was a really pleasant afternoon to be there.
The Setup
I set up my gear.
Something to notice on the picnic table. It’s what’s not there that matters. The computer. I made the decision that this was going to be an all or nothing CW activation. It’s part of keeping things interesting. With nothing but my paddles and rig I got ready to activate.
The State Of The Park
As I was setting up, a nice woman who had been wandering around the nearby field with a camera stopped by. She asked, “Do you frequent West Branch?”
“I’ve been coming here since I was a kid. But now I come every few months, maybe.”
She gestured around the field. “What happened to everything?”
She was asking about the facilities that used to be where we were standing. I told her my story from back in January. How things had gone from existing to gone in a week.
We both shrugged. I told her that the facilities were in good repair to my eye, especially the rest room which no one could prove was there at this point. I also mentioned that I could find no mention of the impending demolition or any plans to rebuild. I haven’t gone so far as to call the park, but there was no public notice of a change to the facilities that I could find.
She thanked me for my time and went back to photographing the trees and grasses that are reclaiming the picnic field and bringing a very different kind of beauty to the place. Note: not once did she ask what I was doing or any questions about my gear. Matters of the park facilities are certainly more important.
The Activation
With my gear ready to go, I put on my headset and started calling CQ. It didn’t take long to get contacts rolling in. I was excited! People were moving at about 12-18 wpm and I was keeping up. I don’t think I sent too many ?s and there were more than a few calls that I got on the first try. I scribbled along and caught most of what I needed to catch. In the end, I did have one busted call. I feel awful about it, but I did repeat it several times.
Somewhere in there, I hit a really beautiful state of flow. I was sending and receiving. Someone came and sat on the park bench about 10 yards away and I had no idea. I was really deep into the process. It was refreshing. It felt good. It was a sensation that I’d been hoping for when it came to my hobby.
As an aside, I will say again that the entire reason that I chose to chase ham radio as a hobby was to get away from screens. I wanted something that would take me away from the computer and get me back into an activity that was more tangible. Back in 2017, that wasn’t really working out as I lived in a valley lined by powerlines in a hyper-urban area near Philly during a really rough time in the solar cycle. With compromises and bad conditions aplenty, I turned to FT8 just like everyone else because any contact is better than no contact, right? It wasn’t what I’d thought it would be, but it was still fun.
Discovering POTA brought something else to the table: getting outside. Although I kept taking the computer into the field, I was working toward something else. POTA took me to QRP which led me to CW. Finding Thomas K4SWL’s blog QRPer gave me some measure of hope that someone new to the world of CW could do an activation. And Jim N4JAW’s blog HamOnABike made it all look so fun. How could I not take a stab at CW? Another great twist? The wonderful Mastodon community around ham radio introduced #CW100Days and really fueled my progress in 2023. My skill and confidence grew and I was able to make a couple of odd contacts during my otherwise digital activations.
But now I’ve done it. I can check off another 2023 Ham Radio Goal: POTA CW Activation.
Here’s what the QSO Map looks like:
Now What?
This is the beginning of a shift in how I do my POTA activations. I plan to do mostly CW activations for a bit as I build speed and confidence. I’m never going to be a contester, but getting closer to 20 wpm sounds like a reasonable goal. If anything, it will help my hunt with more confidence. Might also get me to the point where I don’t fear a rag-chew situation. Which I do fear today.
Driving home from the park I felt refreshed. That’s how we’re supposed to feel after we do something that we enjoy. I’m not saying it’s the first time ham radio has done that for me, but it was a very intense feeling of achievement. There’s more where that came from.
