On November 22nd, 2025, I did my first POTA activation outside of Illinois, where I live. While visiting family in Las Vegas, NV, I made some time to visit Ice Age Fossils State Park in Clark County, NV. Temperature was about 60°F, overcast, and windy. I flew Spirit Airlines to Las Vegas from Chicago, so…
Category: POTA
Hamstick Camera Tripod Adapter
I typically will use hamsticks (40m, 20m, 10m) for POTA activations. Until now, I have been using a large aluminum roof tripod and a 5ft steel pole to mount the antennas. This has been rather cumbersome to transport out into parks. My idea to solve this problem was to adapt the 3/8-24 mount to work…
POTA Go-Box
The goal of this project was to create a sort of go-box for my ham radio. I was getting tired of filling my back seat with my radio equipment and lugging everything out one by one. I used an Apache 4800 weatherproof padded case from Harbor Freight. I got the extra large one to accommodate…
2024/09/06 – POTA Activation at US-1024, Silver Springs State Fish and Wildlife Area
This was just a quick activation at US-1024 after work on a Friday. This was my first activation on SSB using my Kenwood TS-120V radio and a 20m hamstick antenna. Logging was done through HAMRS. The Kenwood only draws about 3-4 amps, so I was able to easily use my EV for power. I was…
2024/08/10 – POTA Activation at US-1024, Silver Springs State Fish and Wildlife Area
On 08/10/2024, Calvin (KE0DIT), Ed, (K9QW), and myself (N8PIC) activated US-1024 as WJ9UNK, our club. We made a total of 239 contacts over FT8 and SSB on 15m, 20m, and 40m HF. Weather was 75 °F with very light cloud coverage. We operated FT8 using a QRP-Labs QDX (5W) and a Kenwood TS-140S with Signalink…
POTA Dry Run – 2024/08/3-4
This time, I made sure to clean my setup with less wires and a more logical layout of the equipment. On 2024/08/03, Ed (K9QW) stopped by with a NanoVNA to test my antenna. As it turns out, I was using a 1:64 balun with a length of wire meant for a 1:49. The next morning,…
POTA Dry Run – 2024/07/27
First dry run for a POTA activation. Seen here is a QRP-Labs QDX, my bench power supply fed with a battery, my laptop, and a EFHW antenna. 9 contacts were made this session. The setup seems good, although I would like to clean it up a bit. There are wires going every which way and…