Week 14

This week, my kids were off from school for spring break. We went on a family trip. I was preparing for a POTA weekend on April 18th and decided to do one this Saturday to test my skills. I had some trouble and learned a lot, so overall I had a pretty productive radio week.

Interesting or Notable Contacts

I got a couple of interesting contacts this week. I had my first contact with Italy (I think anyway) as well as one in Maine, which was surprisingly missing from my list of US states. I was also able to make my first 1.25-meter contact on FM. I had prearranged it and coordinated with the person on the other side, but I was still happy to know it would work.

POTA Activations

This week was spring break for my kiddos, so we made a trip to Casper, and I decided to activate a park. We went to Edness Kimball Wilkins State Park, which has amazing walking and biking trails, a playground, and a disc golf course. It is also located on the Platte River and is an important bird habitat. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing around 40 to 50 miles per hour, and we didn't really get very far from the car. But we did manage to get our stamp for our state parks passport. We now have 5 of the 37 required (a few are only available during the tourist season when visitor centers and such are open). If you live in Wyoming, I recommend you check out the program. If you visit all 37 parks in the passport program, you will receive a free annual pass for the following year. That is our goal for this year.\

I also had a second activation at Sinks Canyon in preparation for the support-your-parks weekend on April 18th. I was met by a couple of our radio club members, and one of them brought his radio and antenna to test out. I didn't have as much luck as I would have liked, but I was able to get a complete activation, and I was also able to get contacts on 2M, 70CM, and 1.25M I only made a few contacts via HF (one FT8 and two via SSB voice).

I found that the location should work, and I think we can spread out enough to avoid too many problems or interference with each other. I didn't have much luck with the club radio, and since I don't have a resonant antenna, I wasn't able to properly test it during my activation.

Totals

Here are the current week's total and the running totals for the entire project.