WIPOTA 2022: Two Parks and Short 40m

Last weekend on Saturday, September 17th 2022 was the fifth annual Wisconsin Parks on the Air. Since I kicked off 2022 getting into QRP HF and identified portable park hunting as a nice niche of amateur radio to specialize in considering the lack of apartment operating, this contest is an obvious fit. For the primary effort, where else to go except my usual stomping ground: Governor Nelson State Park (contest abbreviation GNSP, K-1452, wiki).

Arrival at Governor Nelson after the errands of the morning.

Of course, getting there wasn't the only thing to do that day. As the contest rules specify, appearing with Green Bay Packers branded apparel is part of the outreach bonus and I didn't have any. Fortunately, the Middleton Goodwill was able to provide an appropriate prop on short notice! In addition to getting food and set up in the park, my timing wasn't perfect to operate the whole contest period. Still, the rain was holding off and I had all my gear.

Having operated at this park the night before at the first parking lot (labeled for pet swim area), I decided to mix it up and head down toward the lake in the hopes that it wasn't too busy. Fortunately, the crowds were limited and the groups were mostly toward the lake-view grills. So, I set up at one of the west-most picnic tables in this area, off the lawn-crossing path between the parking lot and the popular areas.

Rigs and gear setup at GNSP. No tuner necessary on the 40/20m EFHW (radiator length adjusted by wrapping around the board of the tabletop). Water bottle and contest park list close at hand.

My equipment at GNSP was the Yaesu FT-818nd, stock microphone, earbuds, and an inverted-checkmark 20/40m EFHW supported by a 26' telescoping fiberglass pole and speaker stand. I used the Yaesu VX-2 to monitor 146.55 for contest activity and used it to call a couple times to no response.

Running on my primary smartphone was a high-flexibility, minimal structure logging technique. Since I couldn't find any decent text editors, I just went with using the Dropbox app built-in text editor to record QSOs in Fast Log Entry style with some additional data to cover the contest exchange, plus POTA park code and any other contest information (there were at least four state QSO parties overlapping). After cleanup, this would feed FLEcli (on MacPorts) back at home.

Alternate view of my operating position toward the lake.

One characteristic of following the WWFF motto of "Make Nature Your Shack!" is that nature joins you in your shack. As it turns out, this area of the park is inhabited by quite a selection of jumping spiders. Siting relatively still with a selection of equipment out means being acquainted with little distractions looking to explore the new geometry in their environment.

This tiny jumping spider crossed my wireless keyboard from top to bottom, residing long enough on my spacebar for a couple shots. Excuse the cat hair, I just cleaned that out writing this post.

Somewhat larger than the spider friend of the keyboard was this jumping spider that took up residence on the coax out of the right-angle BNC I use on the FT-818. It took a slow adventure along the coax and eventually departed after leaving a stain on my park list printout.

After plenty of operating, a selection of multipliers, and a jog to the bathroom at the beach, I decided that it would be more fun (if not strictly more productive) to change parks for the less-than 1.5 hours of the contest.

And thus I was off to the Ice Age Trail parking lot that services Cross Plains State Park (CPSP, K-1448, wiki). The park complex is fairly large, but you have to cross the road to actually get into the state park land itself. (The trail, K-4238, also isn't actually at this parking lot, either!) There were some rain drops on the way over, but nothing enough to turn me off of continuing the contest with the light weather radar signatures.

Yours truly, the radio operator, packed up for the quick hike across the street. Less than 50 minutes left on the clock.

Packers come to CPSP as well. The shirt was already part of the kit, of course.

My operating location at CPSP just inside the woods on the east side of the central field. Just shaded enough from the sky. An old hand towel as a seat was definitely a good decision.

With no time for 2m monitoring, the VX-2 remained tucked way while the choice of antenna was the trusty 29' split speaker wire run up the same 26' pole as the EFHW at GNSP. For the most part, this late, I was here to give a couple more stations a multiplier and have some fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get a POTA activation out of the contest period. Fortunately, there was still an hour left before late shift to shift back the gears and play radio for some additional QSOs out of contest mode. On 20m, this park net me some more EA contacts! Extra thanks for the excitement from Spain!

Nearing sunset behind the clouds across the wild fields on the way out of CPSP.

And that was the contest (plus a few QSOs more). With tree canopy cover at both operating locations, I didn't get any direct raindrop hits while on the air. Though the humidity was certainly up. Recovering at home revealed that I hadn't applied bug spray well enough to my left ankle, which was thoroughly bitten by the mosquitos at Governor Nelson. For 5W QRP SSB, I had a great time and achieved a score I'm proud of. Getting on 75m phone will be a challenge for future antenna exploration.

Until next year (and all the intervening parks), 72!