Parks On The Air Kanasket-Palmer and Federation Forest

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.  But it worked.  I cranked out quite a few FT8 contacts then decided to give voice a shot.

This is when I realized I left my forms at home to log on.  So I found a scrap sheet of paper and got to work.  I’ve only done a couple voice SSB contact for POTA so this was going to be an experience.  I found an activator and answered their CQ.  Whew, that wasn’t so bad.  Then I found a spot to call home and started calling “CQ POTA”.  Once the contacts started rolling in I was starting to get into a groove.  I definitely need more practice!

Once I was all done and back home I went to fill out my log and realized that I forgot to write down the frequency where I made my SSB contacts.  After posting about it on the Parks On The Air Facebook page I was steered toward the Slack page for POTA.  A couple searches and I was able to see historical spotting information that I was able to finish out my log with. 

In all it was a great day, I gained some experience, and learned a couple things along the way.
73s
~K7WJV
 

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