Activated on April 7th, 2025
I played myself.
I went to Chino Hills State Park on the 5th and spent a couple of hours by the Discover Center. In all the time I was there, I failed to make even one QSO. Not one. Zilch. Goose egg. Nada. Naught. Ad nauseum. However, I was recording video and running my Surface Go the entire time. You see, I was operational for a few hours without a single contact.
So, this morning I decided to sneak up on Mother Nature and run out to US-3548 Rio de Los Angeles State Park, six miles away, to surprise her propagation, and activate. In my defense, I equated a total lack of contacts on my last outing with a lack of battery use (huh?). So, I went to the park this morning, with drained batteries on my Surface Go and my camera. I played myself. However, this demonstrates my conjecture that the more tech you take to the field, the more can go wrong. Or…it was plainly just another stupid human trick. Did I really need that extra battery power?
I took some videos, and I took some pictures. At least I would have something to show for my efforts. And that started at about twenty to one in the afternoon. I began on the 17-meter band with my paper and pencil ready.
As I was setting up, I kept looking around at the beautiful contrast between the direct sunlight and the shadows I was enjoying under the trees. Vibrant greens and blues and the soft breeze. Yes, it was a good day to be at the park. There was a dog training class about 20 meters from me. The pups were cute; however, I think some of the dogs were too young for the class. But, back to the task at hand.
It took a little bit for the band to start serving up contacts, and those it did had good strong signals. I made contact with Texas, Idaho, and Washington before the band dried up on me. I waited a bit then QSYed to the 20-meter band. Where I quickly picked up my only two California contacts. In all I had a 12-minute lull, wherein I went back to 17 meters, where I picked up Texas again, Michigan, and British Columbia. I was having a good productive day so far.
Eventually 17 meters dried up and I needed to look for another band. This is where I QSYed to the 15-meter band. Now this is where I would pick up my next ten contacts to round out my activation. My furthest throws in my last group were New York, Tennessee, and Alabama. During that last stretch I was tired as I did not sleep well the night before. And I started to make a lot of mistakes.
These mistakes were compounded by one of my QSOs and another interfering with each other. To be sure I had the frequency, but Mother Nature was throwing a challenge my way. Those last 10 Qs took 20 minutes. Now that is a rate to which I am not accustomed! It could have taken less had I not made so many mistakes. Hells bells, I had three contacts after I called QRT! However, in the end I prevailed.
After I got home and started transcribing my log, I performed my second stupid human trick: bad conversion. As is my custom, when I log on to paper, I always record the local time leaving the time conversion to the post activation workflow at home. This time was no different. However, I used the time conversion for daylight savings time. Yes, I added eight hours instead of seven to my local time and proudly uploaded my log to the POTA site, along with Club Log, eQSL, LoTW, and QRZ! So, not one of my QSOs were going to get confirmed.
Eventually, I fixed the logging problem and all is well now. It just goes to show that even the simplest things can throw your game off when you take things for granted. In the end, I did sneak up on Mother Nature and surprised her, and me, with an eighteen-contact activation. Being outdoors under the shade of that tree was wonderful. Being at the park on a Monday was great as this park is quite well visited on the weekends!
Did I mention the 5P Principle?
Activation Statistics
| Location | DM04vc13, 34.09973, -118.23608 |
| Activation Attempt | 91 |
| Date | April 7, 2025 |
| Park | US-3548 Rio de Los Angeles State Park |
| Park Activated? | Yes, #79 |
| First Activation | June 11, 2022 |
| Previous Attempts | 21 |
| Park to Park Contacts | None |
| Number of Contacts | 18 |
| DX Contacts | 1 – Canada |
| Historical Contacts | 279 |
| Mode | CW |
| Radio | Elecraft KX3 |
| Antenna | Chameleon MPAS 2.0 in the vertical configuration |
| Tuner | Internal |
| Power | 5W using a 3Ah Bioenno battery |
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