New Park!  Now, last time I went to Paris, TX, I came home with a brand new Yaesu FT-991A so I avoided that side of town.  The town has a population of about 25,000 and boasts both a Brookshire’s AND a Kroger.  By rural North Texas standards, that’s purt-near metropolitan.  Drive 10 minutes in any direction and it is metropolitan no more.

Unbeknownst to me, the Pat Mayse Wildlife Management Area is reclaimed from a WW II training site.  At the hunter check-in area (a pole barn), there’s a map of the WMA with the training base superimposed over it.  The grenade range and booby trap area were of special interest.  Most eye catching in that pole barn was the poster describing how to safely enjoy this WMA.  Specifically, how to deal with any unexploded ordnance, “If you didn’t drop it, don’t pick it up.”

It’s a 75 mile drive to Pat Mayse and I took about an hour and a half.  Lot’s of farm roads, so count on slow.

LoadOut:

• FT-891
• Bioeno 20Ah LiPo battery
• MFJ-904 Travel Tuner
• Sparkplug EFHW
• Weaver throwline, 10oz weight, and bag.
• Begali Expedition

This WMA offers several nice trees in the vicinity of the check-in barn so I opted to throw a line instead of raise a mast.  The orientation of the tree sent my feedline about 40 feet from any shade so I chose my longer, 50ft, feedline from ABR Industries.

With chair, table, and rig established in the shade of a giant oak, I called QRL, spotted, and called CQ POTA with 30w on 40m at about 0920 central.  No joy.  I called into silence for 10 minutes and QSYd to 20m at 0930.  WA6GFE came back at 0933 and the race was on.

All told, I made 25 contacts in 35 minutes.  Not gang busters, but even the slowest day at a park beats any day at work.

Lessons Learned:

1. My SWR was about 3:1 from my very dependable EFHW.  I fiddled around with things, then just put the tuner inline and trimmed it down to 1:1.  Odd.  That is until I closed my station.  At that point, I realized I’d run my wire over and along part of the metal side of that pole barn.  I assume I might have gotten a little “return” from that building when transmitting.
2. One dot of cell coverage wasn’t enough to open the pota.app spots page.  I spotted with an SMS text. 

1-866-870-5797.  In the text message say, !YOURCALL POTA US-PARK FREQ MODE COMMENT.  Mine looked like this:

!KA5TXN POTA US-6591 7046 CW CW

As always,

TNX ES 73
KA5TXN
DitWit