POTA Activation #2

[VA3KOT John]

This Parks On The Air program is getting to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. XYL, dog and I spent 3 days in our trailer up at Grundy Lake Provincial Park (85km south of Sudbury, off highway 69) this week. I took my portable kit comprising a Yaesu FT-891, homebrew L-match tuner and my End-Fed-Half-Wave antenna (electrically a half-wave on 80m but physically shortened with a loading coil).

I operated in two sessions, one on Monday afternoon and again on Tuesday afternoon. The objective was to get 10 contacts within the same UTC day (i.e. between 00:00 and 23:59UTC). The fun thing about POTA is that once you get "spotted" you get a pile-up of "hunters". It only takes a couple of CQs, if you are a CW op, to get spotted. The Reverse Beacon Net (RBN) spot is picked by POTA and re-spotted to the POTA site. That didn't seem to work on the first day, but fortunately Grundy Lake Provincial Park is close to the highway so I used my cellphone to self-spot directly to the POTA site.

It was quite cool in the park so I was operating from inside my trailer and putting out 100 watts. The signal reports I received were generally better than my received signal reports. Maybe the FT-891 sensitivity isn't so good, or my antenna (up 30ft in a tree) didn't have good ears. Anyway, I logged enough QSOs each day to qualify for the activation so I was very pleased with that. My log is attached below.
John VA3KOT

[quote pid="377" dateline="1600358381"]
Good stuff John, I did Restoule PP the week of September 6 to 11, I had 79 Qs for the week. Once you get spotted Qs start to pile up. 
I used my Icom IC7000 and the T2FD antenna running around 100w. 
Lot of fun. I don't think I'll do anymore this year but look forward to more next year. 
73 VE3FP

Thanks Adam. I just missed you when you were up at Restoule. I saw the spot for you on the POTA site just before you went QRT. I activated Restoule myself a couple of weeks ago. I thought the campsites at Restoule were very small - and I only have a 19ft trailer. I am planning to activate Arrowhead and MacGregor parks during October. I am also going to operate on 80m while I'm there to hopefully get more local QSOs. I will listen out for you.

We were @Kettle Point 495, good size but bit of a slope. I will likely go up there again.

We were also at Kettle Point #436. I see you use the Bulldog clip paddle key that you showed us at the club meeting!
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Adam, I submitted my log to POTA and was credited with 2 activations - one for Monday 14th Sept (13 QSOs) and another for Tuesday 15th Sept (11 QSOs). Your 79 QSOs for the week may give you several activations.