POTA K-4423 Spring Creek Forest State Preserve
Successfully activated K-4423 gain today. This was my first time to activate using the mobile set up in my Jeep with the new-to-me Yaesu FT-100D and ATAS-120a antenna. The FT-100D doesn't support headphones, external MIC or digital voice recording. You can connect an external speaker. Something to consider for future operating comfort.
Also I logged all contacts using HAMRS on my iPhone. Works fine, but the iphone keyboard layout is awkward - you have to toggle between letters and numbers which slowed my down when logging call signs. I'll stick to the ipad version with external keyboard for future activations.
Overall I made 40 contacts with 100% SSB including 10 P2P. The first 25 were on 17M with good signal reports. I had to fight thru a bit of QRM, with whistling and others tuning up on my frequency during the activation. Was even told by someone who failed to identify their callsign that contests were not allowed on 17m. I simply replied, this is not a contest, if it was I'd be calling CQ You Know What instead of CQ POTA.
The rest of the contacts were made on 20, 15 and 10m. I was able to work a few DX stations since the South America 10M contest was underway this weekend Adding a few radials to the ground post on the Jeep resulted in a definite increase in performance.
The ATAS-120a again proved itself to be a good little performer.
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