Activated on September 10th, 2025.
As is often my case, I decide to go activate at the last minute. Yes, I did check out my equipment and interfaces with the computer yesterday, however it wasn’t ‘til this morning that I decided to hit the park. I’ve got a couple of hams that have an interest in joining me, but it is unfair of me to call them and tell them I will be activating in a couple of hours. So, I normally go by myself. It is seldom that I plan several days in advance.
My modus operandi is to visit Albert for breakfast prior to heading out to the park. Today, leaving later in the day I went there for lunch around 1130. I normally listen to an audio book as I eat and browse my feed while waiting. That is when I came across the initial, disturbing news about Charlie in Utah when my food arrived. It just did not click. I continued with my day.
My intentions were to arrive at the park in the afternoon. Once there I chatted with the staff, mainly about the opening of the south end of the park. It’s coming soon, but we did chat for a while. Eventually I walked over to the trees I selected for my spot and started setting up. A gentleman sitting about 20 meters away was nature watching. His curiosity got the better of him and he approached me as I was getting up the antenna. Of course, I was more than happy to explain what I was doing.
I used my new table and chair which are lighter and more manageable and set up my rig and computer as usual. I now intended to use HAMRS the way I checked out at home. With FLDIGI in place, I could now go to the spotting tab in HAMRS and check a frequency for use. Each spot had an icon I could tap to change the radio’s frequency. I checked spots until there was an activation I could hear, then I hit another button to copy the essentials to the log entry part of the screen. I thought this was the cat’s meow.
Hunting POTA from a POTA park is so cool as each Q counts for two points! Yeah! I just hunt activators the same way I do at home, with one exception: I was outside with the shade and the breeze! Of course, I needed connectivity for this, and my phone functioned as the hotspot. I was stylin’! Now, some folks may say that I am late to the party, but I don’t care. I’m at the party! This can still be said for other things as well. That’s okay, I’ll get to the party when I get there.
Though it was easy to hunt parks, I still had issues being heard with my 5 Watts. I went through all the spots twice trying to get activators. Eventually I got six parks, and though I sent RSTs from 439 to 599 in 26 minutes, Mother Nature’s QSB was afoot! That is when I thought to myself, “Self, If I’m having this much trouble hunting what is it going to be like when I am activating?” Not good. So, I went to my digital standby, FT8. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
I decided to finish my activation with FT8. At first, I was trying to get DX and answering calls from the lands of VK, J1, CA, and VE. I then decided to SUFR (straighten up and fly right). I added POTA to my call and left FT8 do what it’s best at. I started transmitting. When I had five contacts, meaning I activated, there was no whoopin’ an’ a-hollerin’. It just was, with me eventually ending up with eleven contacts. All told I ended up with seventeen contacts at five minutes per contact. Considering that my last five attempts had a total of ten contacts, I was very pleased.
The park was beautiful, with its verdant grass, breeze, shade, and trees. Yet, it just was not the same today.
My take-away, even after all these years, is this: try new things. In this case, with FLDIGI installed HAMRS has this awesome capability of allowing you to peruse spots and check their frequencies for activity. Another button push and you are filling out RSTs. Naturally, that’s all I wanted to do. FT8 worked fine, but for a short buzz at the start of each transmission. In time I will figure that out.
All technical things considered, it was a good activation.
Activation Statistics
| Location | DM04vc13, 34.09716, -118.23382 |
| Activation Attempt | 100 |
| Date | September 10, 2025 |
| Park | US-3548 Rio de Los Angeles State Park |
| Park Activated? | Yes, #82 |
| First Activation | June 11, 2022 |
| Previous Attempts | 25 |
| Park to Park Contacts | 6: US-9231, US-3088, US-8363, US-4386, US-9503, US-1540 |
| Number of Contacts | 17: 6 CW, 11 FT8 |
| DX Contacts | None |
| Historical Contacts | 311 |
| Mode | CW, FT8 |
| Radio | Elecraft KX3 |
| Antenna | Chameleon MPAS 2.0 in the vertical configuration with SS25 |
| Tuner | Internal |
| Power | 5W using a 3Ah Bioenno battery |
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