#DISCOVERY LIFE GO COM ACTIVATE UPDATE#

I’m looking forward to spending a weekend with the TX-500 and connecting with my POTA family on the air! If you’re reading this report on the day it was posted, you’ll no doubt see spots for me at K-4510 later today through Sunday.

Thank you for joining me on this trailside activation and reading through the field report.Īs I finish off this field report, I’ve actually loaded the TX-500 in my car for a short weekend camping trip with friends in Pisgah National Forest. As always, these videos have no ads and I don’t edit out any contacts–you experience the activation as I did:Ĭlick here to view on YouTube. Here’s my real-time, real-life video of the the whole activation. The 20 meter band pretty much afforded me a tour of the entire continental US and a short visit to Canada:

Here’s what 5 watts into the PackTenna EFHW yielded during this activation. I continued operating 10 additional minutes and logged 9 more stations.Īll in all, it was a load of fun and the 20M band was very kind to me. I started calling CQ POTA and within 11 minutes, I had accomplished a valid activation with 10 stations logged. If needed, I could have also used a harmonic (15/10M) or employ the Elecraft T1 in my pack to load 17M and possibly 30M. Using a 20 meter EFHW, I planned to complete my activation on one single band. I’ve since packed a toothpick in my SOTA pack to help when I need to do a little field connector cleaning. The flip side is that they’re not as easy to clean as, say, a PL-259. I love BNC connectors because they’re so easy to use in the field. I tried cleaning it a bit more, but it looked like a job for better tools back at the QTH, so I made do with the dubious connection point being careful not to force the connection too much and pack the dirt in tighter. I could only barely get the antenna to connect to the feed line. I thought I’d cleaned out the BNC connector, but evidently not enough. I did run into one problem: last time I had used the PackTenna EFHW, I dropped it in some thick mud. Sony ICD-FX312 Digital Recorder ($20 thrift store find).Camera: OSMO Action Camera (affiliate link).Rite In The Rain Notepad (affiliate link).Rite In The Rain Weatherproof Cover/Pouch (affiliate link).Mini Arborist throw line kit: Tom Bihn Small Travel Tray, Marlow KF1050 Excel 2mm Throwline, and Weaver 8 or 10oz weight.Bioenno 3 aH LiFePo Battery (Model BLF-1203AB).Packtenna Mini EFHW antenna & PackTenna 20′ RG-316 BNC/BNC.Knowing it could rain again at any moment, I was happy I had the weather resistant TX-500 and my Rite In The Rain log book. When I reached the end of Clear Creek, I deployed my field kit. I started my hike and was overall pretty lucky it only rained on me once as I recall and lasted only about 5 minutes. I had packed the TX-500 knowing the weather was iffy and I’d have no covered shelter. You know what? The rain stopped maybe 3 miles before the exit. I thought about throwing in the towel then, but I made a promise to myself that I would continue driving to the park if it wasn’t raining when I approached the park exit on the interstate. On the interstate, I got caught in a proper downpour and traffic slowed to a crawl. The weather? Man oh man was it was fickle. I had enough time to make a little detour to the Clear Creek Access of South Mountains State Park (K02753) and had two things in mind: a good hike and trailside activation. It was Wednesday, February 16, 2022, and I was driving to my parents’ house to help them with a few projects. Here’s the report and video from that activation: Clear Creek Trail I accumulated a small backlog of videos then and this one was lost simply lost in the shuffle. I was in isolation for a week (thanks Covid) and had a very hectic family schedule. That bit of time between mid-February and mid-March was crazy for me. I checked my YouTube channel and, sure enough, buried at the bottom of my video list was the activation video marked as “unlisted.” For the life of me, I couldn’t remember writing the field report for that activation.

#DISCOVERY LIFE GO COM ACTIVATE UPDATE#

I pulled the TX-500 yesterday to do a firmware update and found my logbook for an activation I made on February 16, 2022. I still haven’t quite decided which radio will accompany my Elecraft KX2, but the lab599 Discovery TX-500 is on my very short list. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m starting to sort out the gear I’ll take on a long road trip this summer.

Discovery life go com activate