Work sent me on a quick trip to California. During all the covid business, I made some long work trips to Mississippi and Maryland and my boss has taken it easy on me ever since. I could ‘ve easily ducked this one, but it would have been a bad idea. One, because my skills can contribute on this one, and two, because there’s a California State Beach right by the hotel.

By the way this is why I learned CW. No way would I fly a 20Ah battery and QRO rig for a three-day trip. But, a small QRP rig. Damn tootin!

I immediately went to google maps, imported the POTA parks list for California and discovered US-3425 Dockweiler State Beach was between LAX and my hotel.

I booked an early flight that would leave a space of time between arriving and checking in, and hit the road…err…air.

First of all, I didn’t see any fire or any smoke. I’m sure it’s burning, but it’s fine where I am. Second, the beach is beautiful – just the perfect mix of white sand, blue water, and gang banger graffiti. I found a picnic table, tied my mast to a bicycle rack, raised a 20m EFHW from Packtenna and got busy.

Loadout:

• Elecraft KX2
• 6AH Bioenno Battery
• POTA20 Carbon fiber mast
• Packtenna 20m EFHW.

I thought – I fully expected – the activation to just catch fire. I mean, it’s California and everything’s better there, right? No. It was a tough activation in Texas terms.

I called into silence on 20 meters with 10 watts for probably 10 minutes. This is an eternity when you’re worried about becoming the first man ever mugged for his KX2. “That’s a nice rig, vato.”

So, the activation never took off, but it was active, folks heard me and folks came back, one at a time. I think at one point I heard two hunters zero beating, but nothing came of the second one. So I hopped around.

Here’s the weird thing – the Packtenna 20m EFHW worked like a random wire. I called and made QSOs on 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meters. I don’t know if it was the fantastic tuner on the KX2, something magical about beach-ops, or if that’s just the way a 20m EFHW works.

After about 45 minutes I noticed the beach crowding up with walkers, joggers, and street folks. I heard a guy behind me singing to himself. We made eye contact and he asked, “Are you making videos?” I wasn’t and said, “No, this is a radio”. He started singing “Video Killed The Radio Star”, made a few loops around the tables on his bicycle, then sang in parting, “Then you’re Radio-Active, man.”

California

I packed up.

I have to work here tomorrow with a subcontractor where I’ll try to convince them to give us access to designs they prefer to keep proprietary. No telling how that will work out, but for today, I’m glad I came.

I got outside and ran my radio in a place I’ve never been. Considering I packed my entire station – rig, battery, wire, and mast – into a space suitable for air travel, found a park on foreign soil, and made 20 contacts from 7 different bands, I’m pretty pleased with myself.

This is exactly the kind of flexibility and dexterity I envisioned back when I bought my first Baofeng for emergency preparedness.

As always,

TNX ES 73
KA5TXN
DitWit