Keystone Activation

 Here is my version of the trip: I had everything planned out including charging the battery and putting it in my van. When Steve came by we decided to take his truck and I completely forgot about the battery being in the back of the van. After we arrived Steve went into the office and checked in with our Greazy Geezers discount card, (a driver's license with his BD on it). We found a nice spot under an unoccupied shelter and started to set up the antenna. Steve hammered a stake made from a piece of angle iron about 25" long into the ground where the mast would be duct taped to it. I connected the long wire spooled up in an old fly fishing reel and Steve hoisted it up but got it tangled in the trees and we had to break the wire to get it down. I think I had done the same thing at another activation because there was a soldered splice where it broke. About this time I realized there was no battery. So we had to pack it back up and go back home to retrieve the battery.

When we returned we were already late for the activation but set up anyway. This time we put the mast out in the open and away from any trees. That is when another aggravation came up. The battery was an old car battery and had lost it's charge down to 9V. Well I hooked up a computer speaker to the battery and after a few QSO the voltage dropped down to 8V. So I had to disconnect the speaker and put on the head phones which meant Steve could not hear what was going on. But he looked up POTA on his phone and was able to see what was happening and seemed to enjoy hunting my QSOs while I was sending.
Our furthest contact was a fellow from Alaska AL4KC...pretty good for QRP. Steve was ready for another activation and mentioned, "The 25th" which made me happy. We made 13 contacts all together and when I got home and started logging them on the POTA activation page I found that my previous activations of this park were not entered. So I spent the rest of the evening logging in past POTA activations.

The rig we used consisted of:

  1. YouKits HB1B QRP transceiver
  2. 30 ft telescoping mast MFJ
  3. Long wire... 39'
  4. Ballun...rf jumper to tuner...1.5'
  5. QRP Labs tuner kit
  6. Counter poise
  7. Ameco straight key (my novice key) with skcc cable

  8. 12 Battery with pwr cord

  9.  Duct tape

10. Knife

11. Hammer

12. Field log book & pen

13. Clock with 2400 hr display

14. Cell phone

15. License

16. Code for park

BTW on the way home Steve offered to buy me a more appropriate size battery. :) Thanks Steve
And thank you everyone who answered our CQ POTA call. 73s Mike

In the excitement we forgot to take any photos....next time.