Saturday 14 November 2020

Another POTA...

Today was one of those beautiful sunny fall days, +7C under a deep blue sky...so, it was perfect for another Parks On The Air activation.

I chose to go to Fort Henry Hill National Historic Site, VE-4864, and operate from the parking lot.  Now that they have broke all of the plasma TV's they had set up in their information building it, once again, has a S0 noise floor....let's hope stays that way.

The Fort is actually closed for the season but the parking lot is still open.  I was surprised that there were so many people walking around the site trying to get some exercise, while still trying to stay safe with social distancing.  

The propagation today wasn't too bad:  SFI=82, SN=24, A Index=3, and the K Index=1 at 1600 UTC.


A new antenna was in use today.  I recently took possession of a Wolf River Coils Mini, and I had found in my garage an old AT-271 whip antenna for the AN/PRC-25 radio.  It's 113.5 inches long and is a perfect match for the coil.  I have it all mounted on a 6 inch mag-mount on the roof of my van (for stationary ops only), and it certainly worked well today.

I had the site officially activated in about 10 minutes after I arrived there, and I had 52 contacts in my log when I wrapped things up after 45 minutes.  Radio of the day, as usual, was my KX3 with a screaming 10 watts.  Stations were worked from New Brunswick to Kansas, and all done on 40m.  

We have a bit of heavy weather coming in for the next few days, but I'm hoping things will have settled down enough to get back out on Thursday and try out the same antenna setup on 20m.  

Thanks to all my chasers today!

The coil and whip mounted on the roof of my van.


The AT-271 whip antenna.

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