Radio on CatLan.net

Kaw River State Park

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 23:44:00 +0000

25 November 2022

A Quick Outing

I had a few things to take care of before heading back home to Illinois, but also had some time this morning to sneak in a quick park activation. On the map this seemed a lot further away but once I got to the location I realized it was a spot that I had passed hundreds of times growing up and never knew it was there. This is one of the things I love about portable ops, it really helps me find cool places that I wouldn’t of otherwise gone. Some of them right under my nose for years.

Pere Marquette State Park

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 15:51:00 +0000

4 November 2022

K-1015 Pere Marquette State Park

Back On The Air!

So happy to be back on the air. I spent the last six months in Saudi Arabia on what is hopefully my last of six deployments with the Air Force. I brought my radio with me but could never get permission to actually operate. I spent most of my time listening to CW on YouTube, Morse Runner, and RufzXP.

Sam A. Baker and Mudlick Mountain

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 22:44:00 -0500

20 March 2022

POTA K-1746 Sam A. Baker State Park

SOTA W0M/SF-033, Mudlick Mountain

WWFF KFF-1746 Sam A. Baker

WWFF/SOTA/POTA

The WWFF (World Wide Flora and Fauna) Get your Park ON Spring Fling was this weekend. I hadn’t made any specific activation plans, but I was in between classes (spring break wooooooooooo), the weather was looking great, and I was dying to get out and play radio. The Virginia QSO party was the same weekend so the bands should be lively. Before this I had never made a WWFF outing or submitted a log. A quick look at their map showed that many of the WWFF sites are also POTA and some SOTA sites as well. WWFF-KFF maintains a cross reference list between POTA and WWFF locations. I really wanted to get out and hike a bit so I started comparing the maps to try to find the magical trifecta of the three major portable radio programs. I really wish there was a combined map that would show all of these together.

Falls Lake North Carolina

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 22:40:00 -0600

5 January 2022

K-3841 Falls Lake State Recreation Area NC

Rounding Out the Family Visit

This has been a reasonably long road trip. First a night at Dillon State Park in Ohio, then staying with some family near the DC metro in Virginia and last but not least it’s time to visit family near Raleigh, NC. This gave me an opportunity to activate a park one day. I chose Falls Lake just north of Raleigh (pronounced rally or ral-ee). This allowed me to get some coffee and snacks on the way.

Anacostia Park DC

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 21:21:00 -0600

31 December 2021

K-0654 National Capitol Parks Park

Family Visit Near DC

So after hanging out with some amazing small humans I decided to get up early and head out to a park. Strangely the DC area doesn’t have a ton of CW activators so I decided to bump those numbers up a bit. I didn’t end up bumping them up quite as much as I thought I would but still better than before.

Dillon State Park Ohio

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 20:37:00 -0600

28 December 2022

K-1947 Dillon State Park

Road Trip POTA in Ohio

On the road again to see family in Virginia and North Carolina. We made our drive from Illinois to Virginia over two days and stopped at a cabin in Ohio at Dillon State Park. We stayed at a cabin right in the park and it was much nicer than I was expecting from a state park cabin.

Buford Mountain Conservation Area Missouri

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 14:17:00 -0600

18 December 2021

POTA and SOTA Together

My wife was was going to be out all day hanging out with a friend so I decided to activate a park while she was gone. After some looking around I found Buford Mountain Conservation Area in Missouri about an hour and a half away. Turned out that it was POTA K-8281 and SOTA W0M/SF-002! I hadn’t done any SOTA activations yet so it took me a minute to figure out how to schedule an activation on SOTA Watch.

Julius J. Knobeloch Nature Preserve

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 15:33:00 -0600

12 December 2021

POTA with company!

My wife Alison was just getting over something so we decided to get outside and go for a nice walk. The walk just happened to be nearby in POTA K-7853. We both have park bags now so we can both enjoy getting out of the house in our own ways.

K-6498 Current River Conservation Area

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 21:48:52 -0500

3 October 2021

On my way home from K-6491 Peck Ranch I decided to try for a second activation. Another park that had never been activated before! Current River Conservation Area was about an hour away and on the way home. I had seen on the map that not far into the park was a fire tower. I decided that was probably going to be one of the highest points so I checked that out first.

2021 Missouri QSO Party

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 16:08:38 -0500

Spoiler… it was fun

I participated in the Missouri QSO party this year from in the state. Being in the Illinois side of the Saint Louis area made it an easy trip. It took a while to decide on a location though. Originally I planned on camping in a state park on a county line, but the early summer heat made me start looking for something else. I ended up renting a cabin on AirBnB.

IC-705 and AH-705

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 22:53:57 -0500

So I decided to sell of some gear and buy the Icom IC-705 and it’s matching tuner the AH-705. I initially hooked it up to my home QTH antenna, a 43 foot vertical with my existing Icom AH-4 tuner. It worked great of course, but being a home station isn’t really the intent of the radio now is it!

Icom AH-4 Mounting

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 21:04:49 -0600

For whatever reason, Icom doesn’t include mounting diameter in their specs. The included u-bolt will fit up to a max of 2.5" pole. The mounting bracket is slotted up to 4" so you could probably use a larger u-bolt of at least 3.5". I’m not sure about minimum mounting, but I had it mounted to a piece of 1/2" EMT shoved in the ground for field day one year and it was just fine.