A beautiful Friday, sunny and about 80 – there won’t be many more like this and I’m glad I got out to a park.  I tried Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge but found it under water from the recent rains.  Really underwater.  I didn’t even stop, just turned around and headed to Ike.

I was greeted by an empty picnic area, found a table out of the way and dropped my gear.  I had the place to myself.  I wanted tree shade because the trunks are too far apart to raise my sun fly.  The problem I faced is that trees close enough to offer shade are too close for an antenna.  But, there’s a whole lot of trees to choose from so I strolled around weighing the prospects.

No sooner did I get a throw line in a tree than a man and two women walked up and sat down at the table next to me.  There’s acres of picnic area and tables as far as you can see but they chose to plunk down right next to the only other human in sight.  I mean they had to step over my spaghetti-pile of yellow throw line to sit down. And not even a Howdy do. People are funny sometimes.

I switched gears, retrieved my trusty tripod bag with WRC and set up a vertical and radials about 15 feet from my table.  I left the coil in the bag, no chance of 40m this late in the afternoon, used my Rig Expert Stick Pro and found about a 1:1.3 SWR.  With everything the best dressed ham needs for portable ops, I was ready for QRP fun!

Gear:

• Elecraft KX2
• BaMaKeY TP-III Paddles
• 6Ah Bioeno Battery
• Wolf River Coil w/ Chameleon stainless whip
• Ice water, a can of snuff, and pack of smokes

Activation:

I went straight to 20 meters, 14054.3, listened, called QRL, spotted, and sent CQ Pota with 5 watts. I called maybe four times before N8RVE, John Morris, came back from Lorain, Ohio.  Take that, sun farts!  CW don’t care about solar tantrums.  Well, it does actually.  I had several dry spells calling CQ to myself and finished the day with just 16 QSOs. 

Here’s a funny thing.  I had a woodpecker light in the tree behind me and start sending 5’s and H’s at about 35 WPM.  He was pecking out his dits so enthusiastically I couldn’t tell if my own code was coming or going.  Then another came in and they really started to rag chew.  Now, no QRP operator is surprised when someone parks on their frequency – they just can’t hear that you’re there.  But woodpeckers?!  They were so loud and sending close enough to the speed I was operating that it really messed with the code side of my brain.  I let them have the frequency.  I sent QRT ES TNX FER FUN, and called it a day. 

I made the last four contacts with 3 watts, which is pretty cool to me.  Then it just dropped out – maybe there’s something to these sun farts everyone is talking about. They won’t stop me from trying – hope you neither.

TNX ES 73
KA5TXN
DitWit