Today's Projects by K7WJV

Today we made our way out to Fort Worden State Park to do another POTA activation.  Being a Saturday it was pretty busy.  I found the most out of the way spot that I could and set up the Sota Beams Tactical Mini, Band Hopper. and Yaesu FT-891.  I was hoping to make some voice contacts but the people visiting the park had other plans. About 15 contacts in and a minivan pulls in next to me, one of their kids jumps right out, grabs a stick and starts hitting my antenna.  Asking the dad to not let them do that his response was “you’re in a state park…”. Yup guess that means all rules are off and I can beat your stuff with a stick.  Luckily the kids mom had an ounce of sense and explained to the boy why he should respect other people’s property.  The boy was able to apologize which I appreciated mom actually being a parent. Then the out of the way parking lot that I had found started to fill up.  No longer in a secluded spot and irritated, I decid...

Today I decided to try and activate two parks.  I loaded up the FT-891, Mini Tactical Mast, Bandhopper 2, filled the cooler and headed to the hills.  First stop was Kanasket-Palmer State Park, I got there just after opening and there was only one other car in the lot.  I got everything set up, and started running FT8.  From the time I started setting up until I had the park activated and was packing the truck was roughly an hour and forty minutes.  From there I headed to Nolte state park, unfortunately they had a triathlon that was going to take place so I decided to about the hassle.  I set the GPS to Federation Forest and made my way through Enumclaw. Federation Forest State Park is small, not much room at each parking spot to set up.  But I managed.  I bungee corded the mast to the tailgate of the truck and ran my radials to a couple nearby downed trees.  With the truck smack dab under the antenna my SWR was a little high at roughly 1.6:1....