A Mixed Bag

A week with both good radio news, and aggravating radio news.

With the opportunity to hit a state park on Friday, I took my POTA antenna out to a city park last Wednesday for a portable trial run. Bands seemed light but I quickly made two contacts, both to the south west of my location. Then things dried up. I could hear several stations on the east coast, but they couldn’t seem to hear me. I assumed it was propagation.

After about 30 total minutes I decided to wrap it up. I was operating from my car with the antenna behind me. When I stepped out to break it down I saw the whip had tilted over, with the tip lying on the ground. No wonder no one could hear me! That’s what I get for not glancing over my shoulder to see if all was well. A couple bolts in the mirror mount weren’t tight, which caused it to rotate, so it was purely gravity that took the whip down. Lesson learned for next time. I made sure those bolts were snug as soon as I got home.

Thursday I was discussing my home QTH noise issues with a friend. He suggested a few troubleshooting ideas I had not tried. I reattached the feed line to start running through his list and was amazed to find the bands noise-free and 20 meters hopping with DX. The bands have remained noise-free since. Our best guess is that it was a power line/transformer issue that had been resolved. Naturally I’ve either been very busy or propagation has been awful since, so I haven’t been able to jump back in with both feet. Fingers crossed that dreadful noise does not return.

Finally, on Friday I was headed south to bring daughter #2 home for the weekend. This was the window for my first POTA activation, at Monroe-Morgan State Forest, US-4215. I scoped out a site that has been featured in both YouTube videos and a couple blog posts by other operators. I triple checked that I packed everything I needed to activate. I made a quick scan of the bands Friday morning at home to ensure there was activity on 20 meters. I even took the IC-7300 so I could operate QRO and give myself the best chance of success.

Once I got set up, though, I found basically silence on the bands. 20 meters was dead quiet, with barely even any background noise. Other bands had a slightly higher noise level but I still could not hear any stations. I pulled up a local SDR and was able to hear a few operators, although most were very light. I checked and re-checked all my connections, adjusted the whip. Nothing improved reception.

Crap.

After multiple attempts I realized if it was an antenna or connection issue, it wasn’t something I could fix at the park. I started breaking everything down without even attempting a contact.

When I got home I set everything up in the yard and was able to hear a few stations. Maybe a solar flare hit just when I arrived, shutting the bands down? More likely some error in my construction of the antenna. A frustrating first attempt.

This failure proved the old adage “Two is one, and one is none,” as I did not have a second antenna with me, so had no way of testing if the bands were open and the POTA PERformer antenna I built was faulty. At least it was a gorgeous day and I got to take a leisurely drive through the hills and trees of southern Indiana before picking up my daughter.

This was prom weekend for daughter #3 so I’ve had no time to get on the air. It doesn’t seem like I’ve missed much as most of the email summaries of net activity have cursed the propagation. I have a radio club meeting tomorrow and will run my POTA experience by some more experienced members to see if they have an idea for what I may have messed up.