A Hunting I Will Go

I have been hunting POTA activators in my spare time for the last few days.   There seems to be a lot of interest in QRP operations on the POTA pages, so I thought I'd drop some stats here.  I run a K2 to a attic dipole for these contacts, SSB are red, and CW are green.  SSB is 10 watts, and CW is 5 watts.  Admittedly this is not a really great setup for getting on the air but I make do.  

In the last couple days I have made 24 contacts, mainly just watching the POTA spotting page at https://pota.us - this page is updated every 60 seconds, so when a new activator gets on the air, RBN can spot them, or other hunters can spot them.   No super DX but I think this shows that QRP is a usable tool for hunting park activators.  Tomorrow I will be connecting my K1 back up and putting the K2 back in my POTA activator Apache case. I'll miss out on the SSB contacts with the K1. 

Since June 22 I am now over 100 unique hunted parks, all QRP and almost all CW. 

73 es Best DX to you! 

de KB9BVN

Hitting the Milestone

Last night Wayne AC9HP came by and we went to Atterbury Fish and Wildlife again for several reasons.  One, I needed 6 more QRP CW contacts from there to break 100. Two, we were meeting another POTA activator down there (Tim NW9F). Three, the weather was beautiful so why not? 

I got set up with Wayne's K2 (SN 313) and started calling CQ POTA at about 4:50PM EDT on 7065.  About 15 minutes later I had a dozen contacts, enough for an activation, and more than enough to break my goal of having 100 contacts from this park on QRP CW.  Wayne just got his K2 a week or so ago and boy it is a nice one.  

The band was in pretty good shape: 

And my 12 CW QSO's covered some territory: 

After I was done, Tim NW9F fired up his setup and started working 40m SSB.  I think he had about 25 contacts in less than a half hour.  He was knocking them down right and left.  One of the highlights was he contacted Kerri KB3WAV and worked her Park to Park....then Wayne worked her Park to Park...then I worked her Park to Park...so she got a three-fer from K-4183! 

Wayne then fired up the K2 and started his activation on 7065 Khz and almost immediately after being spotted on the POTA spotting page, he began making contacts.  He had logged about 25 or 30 contacts when we decided to pack up and head for pizza. 

POTA is so much fun, and when you are doing it with a friend or two it's even better.  By the way, this evening we were using a Paul W9PDC homebrewed end fed antenna strung through the trees about 15-18 feet off the ground.  It worked GREAT. 

So as of today I have 101 logged Hunter QSO's, and 106 logged Activator QSO's from K-4183.  I think I will start going out further to other activation points.  The next closest for me is Morgan Monroe State Forest, then maybe Brown County State Park.  They are both about an hour away. 

Best 73 de KB9BVN