Activated on November 15th, 2024
This was an impromptu activation. After the last activation in Chino Hills State Park, I wanted to try something new. A few days prior to the last activation I received the part I needed from Chameleon to set up a Lazy Sloper. It is simply a 60-foot length of 26-guage coated wire with stress relief and a clip on one end. The other end has a plastic isolator. The clip is meant for the end of the 17-foot-tall antenna’s corona ball. I was excited to test this out. Also, my intent was to activate from inside the car. This is all new to me.
I got to the southernmost end of the park and parked. This is misleading because the southern half of the park is fenced off due to construction. The state/county is renovating the park, and the work is still in progress. So, I parked at the southernmost spot I could, right next to an empty field. Considering it was a Friday, there was no one around, except for those folks entering and leaving the construction area with flagrant disregard for their own safety, taking their lives in their hands, as they went on their walks or runs. I just watched.
Setting up the antenna was super easy. Spike, coil, and whip. Connect the wire, uncoil its length, extend the whip, and finally secure the far end of the antenna with plastic spike in the ground. Connect and deploy the counterpoise, and voilà, a Lazy Sloper. I ran my safety cones under the wire for its entire length. This antenna is not meant for areas with a lot of people because it is a major tripping hazard, especially the further away from the vertical portion you get and impedes their enjoyment of the park. Deploy as you would any other wire antenna.
Setting up inside the car was more awkward than I thought. Once set up, it reminded me of those old NASA videos of astronauts in the Gemini capsules. It was quite tight. In order to get out of the car, I had to move my Surface Go above the instrument panel above the steering wheel, and then remove the “desk” hanging on the steering wheel. There was no place to put my notebook, let alone do any writing.
The “weather” conditions were what I wanted them to be. I had a reflective windshield screen in place so there were no issues with reflections. If it got stuffy, I rolled down the windows, or rather lowered them. Too hot? A little A/C handled that. Too cold, or dusty due to trucks going by to the construction area, raise the windows. Electric everything…nice.
Okay, but you say, “That’s nice, Savi, but how did the antenna perform?” Based on Friday’s conditions, pretty good! The antenna was oriented north/south, with the major lobes radiating east/west. Based on the plot of the contacts, there are generally two arcs of contacts. The first arc sits at about 900 miles radius from my location. The second arc reaches an average of 1,600 miles in radius. A little over a third of the contacts were on the first arc, while nine of the fourteen were made on the second arc. I think this was quite adequate when you consider the real antenna length was 77 feet or so. It’s the length of the whip, 17 feet, plus the length of the antenna, 60 feet, and then of course there was propagation. There was one contact that faded on me, thankfully after I got the info I needed. Most of the contacts I heard were all above 449, but two. Did the conditions limit my number of contacts? I would not know, as I am so used to getting a low number of contacts that I cannot say.
As I remember, three Qs stood out. The first one was with Shawn N4DXS. Unfortunately, I did not recognize the call. Sorry, Shawn. Then there was Jim N0IPA. He sent an “M”, paused then sent his call. I now know that “M” was a mistake, therefore the pause. Not getting the entire call, I was trying to make sense of the MN0 prefix. Eventually I heard his call completely, and as I was entering it on the computer, I realized it was Jim N0IPA. My sending was not so good, sorry Jim, but I was jazzed I got him in the log. The last one I recognized right away was Shantel AA4SB. She came in loud and clear, and as I was entering the call it dawned on me it was Shantel. Hells bells, I thought, it is so hard to get Shantel, or Ed W4EMB for that matter, that I was a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’. Tennessee is a hard spot for me, especially in QRP.
After it was all said and done, I was on three bands, 10, 15, and 17-meters. From the first contact to the last was a total of one hour and eight minutes. That is an average of one Q every 4.9 minutes. I have to say that I was pleased with the antenna, and the contacts I got. My intention now was to switch modes to SSB. However, I could not find my microphone! Were the CW gods trying to tell me something? The human writing this simply did not put the mike back in the case after checking out the radio at home. Ahem…it happens to the best of us! :/
My next attempt at a different mode was Winlink. Evidently, I have a few more tweaks to do before I get that right. And that’s okay because there will be other days. I then was getting low on gas, so I skipped FT8 altogether. It was fun doing this activation. Many different things were afoot so there were things I did not think about. I will have to do this again and tweak. That is as good a reason as any to go out and activate.
It was a novel experience. I had a lot of coding errors, mainly because of key positioning to which I am not accustomed. However, I did manage to make the contacts needed, and then some. Further, since I used to live in Hollywood, I would like to take a line out of the Oscars…
I would like to thank the Academy (CW Academy) for getting me started, my antenna set-up, propagation, the 14 folks who contacted me…
(Big hook pulling me off the stage…)
Activation Statistics
| Location | DM13dw51 – 34.09828, -118.23472 |
| Activation Attempt | 79 |
| Date | 15 November, 2024 |
| Park | US-1139 Chino Hills State Park |
| Park Activated? | Yes |
| Previous Attempts | 19 |
| Park to Park Contacts | None |
| Number of Contacts | 14 |
| DX Contacts | None |
| Historical Contacts | 250 |
| Mode | CW |
| Radio | Elecraft KX3 |
| Antenna | MPAS 2.0 in the vertical configuration |
| Tuner | Internal |
| Power | 5W using a 3Ah Bioenno battery |
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