It’s not uncommon for my wife to poke her head in my office on a Wednesday afternoon and ask, “Do you have plans for this weekend?”  My standard reply is, “POTA”.  Hopefully she follows that with, “Wanna go somewhere?”

I open three apps: Google Maps where I’ve imported the list of entities from POTA.app, Air BnB, and VRBO.  I’m looking for bundles of parks and a place to stay.  I hope to find twofers.  It’s not uncommon for wildlife areas and state parks to share a common corner.  I find this by looking at the maps from the entity’s web page and confirm it by using POTA.app.  My other confirmation is looking at entities on POTA.app and confirming other activators have logged the same contacts from both parks on the same day – meaning someone else thinks it’s a twofer.

I found a nice cluster of four parks with a twofer about two and a half hours from home.

• K‐7128 Sardis State Fishing Lake
• K‐8129 Nanih Waiya State Fishing Lake
• K‐6370 Pushmataha Wildlife Management Area
• K‐2777 Clayton Lake State Park

Twofer from the northern most edge of the Clayton Lake State Park, by the dam.  Northern lip of the lake overlaps with Pushmataha Wildlife Management Area.

I try do as much “laptop recon” as possible. I visit the entity’s web page and look at hours and rules and maps and photos to try form an idea of what I’ll face when I get there.  But you just never really know.  You won’t know about parking, tables, trees, open areas, other visitors with foot traffic patterns.  I’ve learned if you want to meet new friends in a public place, put up an antenna – it will draw people from all over the park to walk into the wire or trip over your feed line.

I try and plan with antenna options and pack four.  I bring both a long and short EFHW (a 20 and a 40), a random end fed wire, and several options for verticals.  I bring a mag mount and ham sticks for 20 and 40 (great when the weather turns sad).  I always have a WRC in the car and as a failsafe and I never leave home without Elecraft’s AX verticals.

Finally, I bring my own chair and table in the car and often include a backpacking stool and kneeboard. 

It’s misty and cool at the BnB before I start, 40F and forecast to get into the 50s by noon.  I’m an early riser and like to be an early activator, just to play on 40m a bit, but from a BnB, I have to consider the consequences of clunking around and waking my wife.

Gear List:

• Elecraft KX2
• Bioenno 6ah
• RG-316 feedline from ABR.  25 ft I think.
• 49:1 Spark Plug unun
• BaMaKeY TP-III
• Rig Expert Stick Pro

K-2777 Clayton Lake State Park

I drove the park road to the dam and from the maps, it looks like the lake twofers with K-6370 Pushmataha WMA at this point but I pushed a little farther North on foot to make sure.

I settled on an EFHW wire.  The trees were accommodating and, in my mind, the longer wire antennas have better “ears” than the verticals.  Unfortunately, I’d played with my EDHW in inverted V on my last outing, so I spent some time running the wire up and down the tree adjusting the fold-back for resonance as a sloper again.  I really wanted to bypass the KX2’s ATU all together.  With 1.16 SWR at 7.060 MHz, I was set.

RF was pleasantly quiet on 40 with the occasional lightning crash here and there.  I QRL’d, spotted, and called CQ at 5 watts. It took 21 minutes to gather 16 QSO.  Twofering this park with the WMA, it was 2 parks and 32 QSOs in 21 minutes.  It was cold in the wind on the lake.

K-8129 Nanih Waiya State Fishing Lake

On a roll now, I didn’t check each potential activation option shown on the map.  I took the first road, drove to the end, and set up across from the boat ramp.  40m EFHW in a tree again.  Same wire, same unun, but different SWR.  I saw 1:1.24 on the rig expert and went with it. 

Operating from the hatchback deck of my Outback, I picked up two quick QSOs on 40m then hit a dry spell.  I gave it 6 minutes and QSYd to 20.  SWR was a smidge better but not perfect.  Wrapping up after 16 QSOs, I struck camp, packed up and just as I was set to leave, I got a visit from a pair of Oklahoma Game Wardens.  All smiles and nods, they asked me for my Wildlife Conservation Passport, and had I not bought one at the first of the year, they’d a got me.

K-7128 Sardis State Fishing Lake.

This was the last park between me and lunch.   It’s visible in the distance from our BnB, about a five minute drive.

Discovered with map recon, I pulled into the Potato Hill campsites, paid the $5 entrance fee to a machine, and didn’t find much – a boat ramp, a few off-limits pavilions, and some fishing docks.  Starting to tire, and with less than cooperative trees, I settled for a hamstick from a parking lot.  Hatchbacking it again.

I skipped 40 and went right to 20m at a scorching 12 watts.  The KX2 will offer 12 watts on a charged external battery.

Being afternoon with the west side of the country waking up, combined with the Ionosphere warming  above me, 20 was a rockin’.  16 contacts in about as many minutes.  Who doesn’t like a hamstick?  I sent QRT three times and kept getting called back for encores, finally killing power so I wouldn’t hear.  Sorry to the hunters I left, but I was ready for lunch.

All in all, a great trip.  Beautiful country and very nice weather.  I really enjoy the “operating” aspects of POTA but in the end,  It’s the outdoors that keeps me going back.

CU AGN ES 73,

KA5TXN Mark
DitWit