Activated on November 27th, 2024
I woke up, but never heard it. I never heard it because it was not set, my alarm that is. So, I woke up fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be at IHOP for breakfast. Focusing on getting ready to leave the house, I managed to get everything I staged by the door the previous night into the car and getting to the restaurant ASAP. The sun was about to rise. I did well as I arrived only 15 minutes late according to my self-imposed timeline. In my haste to leave the house, I left my cell phone behind causing a fly-by to pick up the device. I made another pit stop to top off on Dino Juice and get snacks. I was on my way to the desert by 0715, still fifteen minutes behind schedule. There was a two-and-a-half-hour drive ahead of me.
When I left Alhambra, the skies were overcast with mist in the air. As I drove east to Joshua Tree National Park the weather condition stayed the same but for the mist. Driving under dark, heavy clouds gave me pause as to the conditions at the park. A little over two hours into the trip I needed to make a pit stop. Coffee. Even with the stop I made it to the turn off and entered the park ten minutes late at 0940. Not bad. The conditions improved as the overcast was high and much more of the sunlight was coming through.
Not far into the park, and before the spot I intended to use was a sign about paying at the visitor center. My seven-mile trek would wind through some nice rock formations eventually opening up at a higher plain, and the turn-off to the visitor center.
As always, I try to engage the folks in charge and educate them on what I am doing. As it turned out, the ranger was a Marine during the last war, and as a fellow vet she hooked me up with some bennies I was not aware of. She signed me up for life-time free entry into all national parks under a vet program. I’ll take it! I also got me a camping spot that was not due for use that day, considering I just needed a few hours for the activation. Yes, I was being hopeful. So, I ended up at spot A8 at the Cottonwood Campground. Nice.
The first thing I did was to set up the antenna. I have a new drive-on mount for my telescopic mast that I used for the first time. I deployed my Chameleon Lightweight End-Fed Sloper (LEFS) roughly oriented north-south. It is supposed to be twenty-five feet in the air, but after stretching out the sixty-three-foot wire, the mast leaned over putting the connection to the antenna about twenty or so feet in the air. The twenty-five-foot feed line sloped down to the picnic table, reaching the radio quite nicely. However, I did use some strain relief (rock) so as to not damage the feed line or connector on the radio.
Yes, I was going to activate from the inside my transport, however, the conditions were so nice I decided to set up outside on the picnic bench. And I am glad I did! It wasn’t cold, even with the nice breeze caressing the spot I was in. I realized after I set up that except for the drive-on mount and the mast, everything else came from my backpack. Nice.
I was about ready to start sending QRLs when a ranger stopped by due to curiosity. For the next twenty minutes or so, he had all his questions answered and I was off to calling CQ POTA. Because of a Stupid Human Trick I performed, like trying to transmit with zero Watts, I lost about seven minutes calling CQ POTA on 20 meters with no response. I realized this after I QSYed to 10 meters due to lack of response. So, I set the power to 5 Watts and remained on 28.063 MHz for the rest of the activation.
So, my first contact was at 1146, a little under two hours after I was to start my activation. Time was eaten up by a lot of things I did not account for like all the driving to get to the visitor center, the time there with the ranger (I am not complaining), finding my spot, chatting with folks and other rangers, and Stupid Human Tricks.
Don KC0DWZ, one of our instructors in LICW, was my first contact from Minnesota. He came in quite nicely as I gave him a 559. However, although he heard me with good audio, my signal strength was weak. Don gave me a 519. Awesome! It’s a contact and I will take it.
Most of my contacts, except for three of them, formed a straight line from Minnesota down to the Texas-Louisiana border. Of the others, one was central Michigan, the last two were from eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. About 45 minutes after my first contact with Don, I called QRT as I was conscious of my two-and-a-half-hour drive back home.
The conditions at the park were wonderful. However, it seemed later than it actually was. The timing was off, as I kept thinking it was two hours later than it actually was. So that 45 minute span for 12 contacts turns out to be a rate of 3 minutes, 45 seconds per contact. Considering the speed I was sending, and the repeats to make sure I got the call correctly, I probably completed a QSO in a over a minute. That means I was waiting about two minutes or so for the next call. I’ll take it.
I felt I did better copying calls this time around as I was conscious of my getting calls on the first shot. I also did not make as many mistakes sending. Of course, there were the times when my timing went to hell in a hen basket.
I went back to the visitor center to give my thanks to the ranger and say good bye. On my way back home, I stopped in Indio to get a well-deserved double-double at In-N-Out. I still needed a pit stop afterwards because, coffee and tea. I arrived home just after sunset. I was tired. I was also quite satisfied with my day. My antenna performed well, and I was also happy with my performance. It also felt good to scale down the tech and log by hand. All in all, I can describe the day in one word.
Nice.
Activation Statistics
| Location | DM23er28, – 33.74441, -115.81190, -118.23472 |
| Activation Attempt | 80 |
| Date | 27 November, 2024 |
| Park | US-0041 Joshua Tree National Park |
| Park Activated? | Yes |
| Previous Attempts | None |
| Park to Park Contacts | 1 |
| Number of Contacts | 12 |
| DX Contacts | None |
| Historical Contacts | 12 |
| Mode | CW |
| Radio | Elecraft KX3 |
| Antenna | Chameleon Light End Fed Sloper (LEFS) |
| Tuner | Internal |
| Power | 5W using a 3Ah Bioenno battery |
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