Mt. Tamalpais POTA: Confusing Quantity for Distance

I needed a data set to try out the new ham radio QSO/spot mapping features I built today so I loaded in the Mt. Tamalpais POTA data. I was busy that week, so this is the first chance I've had to look at it, and wow!

Park:

Mt. Tamalpais State Park, K-1178

Our station was located at the highest camping site in Pantoll Campground. To get there, we headed to the ferry building early that morning, caught the first ferry to Sausalito, and from there caught the Marin Stagecoach 61 up the hill to the campground.

On our return trip, we try to synch back up with the ferry, but we're not at all above just catching the GGT 130 in Sausalito near their ferry terminal, and taking the ride back into town over the bridge.

Radio Details:

We made perhaps one of our highest tree mounted antennas to date. If you look at the first picture of the post you'll see the radio up in the antenna as usual. I was able to bring the keyer into the tent for night station operations.We made perhaps one of our highest tree mounted antennas to date. If you look at the first picture of the post you'll see the radio up in the antenna as usual. I was able to bring the keyer into the tent for night station operations.

QSO/RBN spot map:

and here's the interactive map

Happenings of Interest

As I mentioned, implementing new mapping features led me to a better understanding of the activations. I'd been convinced Pantoll wasn't a very good spot for playing radios because I didn't make many QSOs, but look at how far some of the QSOs went!

QSO Log

Table containing QSOs in text

Callsign	rx RST	tx RST	Time (GMT)	Frequency
WB9PRG	559	599	18:19	14058.3
NI9E	519	599	01:03	14058.3
AI7BM	579	599	01:51	14058.3
W4BAB	559	599	02:18	14058.3
KB9J	339	599	02:20	14058.3
KF0R	559	599	14:27	14058.3
N9QB	449	559	16:41	14058.3
W6KC	559	579	16:42	14058.3

(Add callsigns as post tags?)

Unschooling Highlights

Oh my goodness! We did so much hiking, and got hang out with out buddies! Years ago—before the pandemic—Daize had presented a two bit binary adder she'd built at a junior engineering conference, and in the process met two kids from LA. They were up for the weekend on vacation, and we got to hike Muir Woods with them. The gang had made the hike years before—complete with packs—but it was my first go on the Soutwesterly pointing Dipsea trail down to the Muir Woods Visitor Center. The trail was gorgeous! On the way back, we hiked up Bootjack Trail with our friends. There's a lot of up-down to BootJack, but it was a really fun trail.

As an aside, mapping out radio calls helped me to understand why Bootjack was a challenge. Checkout all the up and down, especially for the purple path to AI7Bm's station that happens to go through Van Wyck Meadow, which is also intersected by the Bootjack trail.

POTA tx QSL:

QSL rx album:

References

POTA (Parks on the Air)

Local Ionograms

https://lgdc.uml.edu/common/DIDBYearListForStation?ursiCode=PA836

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