Parks on the Air: Two Visits to K-1452 for One Complete Activation

With a vacation day on Friday, 4 March 2022, (ahead of the Destiny 2 raid launch) I decided to try some late shift antenna experimentation and try to get an activation in at K-1452, Governor Nelson State Park (wiki). Playing with wire and transformers on inappropriate mix toroids in the dark didn't pan out (as expected of the effort) so the late shift didn't pan out with only 4 contacts on 20m. So I resolved to go back in daylight with more antenna capabilities.

Since I had a spool of 18 AWG speaker cable just waiting to actually get committed to an antenna at home and the appropriate BNC-to-banana adapters, I went ahead and measured out the 29' of wire to trim in the field. Turns out damn is it easy. Other than not splitting cheap insulation zip-wire in the cold (risk of tearing the insulation in unwanted ways), this really is just so simple that there's almost no excuse not to build one of these whenever required!

I trimmed the radiating element to about 28.5', but that probably doesn't matter much. Checking resonance on 40m is just as easy as flopping the counterpoise end of the wire around on the ground with my nanoVNA hooked up until it looks good. Didn't check much beyond 40 and 20, but it definitely worked.

Station setup with speaker wire as sloper to my 16' fiberglass pole and speaker tripod. No external supports required!

Operating position at the table. The VX-2 didn't get much use, but was along for the ride.

Overall a fun activation with plenty of hunting. Very good to complete the activation that didn't work out on the late shift. As a field operator with limited internet, I usually only write down what I hear. To contrast, I had a nice strong signal from a net control operator who heard me, looked me up on the internet, and promptly changed antennas assuming my FCC address was my operating position. Even though I could still hear him fine, his new choice in antenna was no longer correct for my 5W of propagation from Wisconsin! Sometimes further optimization breaks things.

After deciding that was enough operation, but before headed out for lunch, I went over to the watery edge of the park. At the ice's edge beyond the small harbor of the summer swim area was a stunning reminder that ice is never completely safe, no matter the thickness. Fascinating display of the forces of wind

Fractured chunks of foot-thick ice rising like a small, human-scale mountain range on the north-east side of Lake Mendota

As of actually writing this up, the lake is substantially warmer than the beginning of the month. No longer the time of wandering around on the lake.