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Of Stationery Stickers and a Ham Radio POTA from Mt. Tamalpais State Park K-1178

 The little Rockmite and a sticker this time once again prove that the crotchety old hams of my youth whor wrote, "You've got to solder your RF out!!!" were just crotchety, not  correct.

While I'll give you that soldering, done well, can make for a better connection, I wish ten year old me, who wasn't allowed to solder yet, had realized that it wasn't such a big deal. I could've gotten passable results on a lot of projects that I didn't even attempt.

This is the second time the rf out to antenna coax solder joint has brokenn  while I was out and about with the 12, 10, and 8 year-old gang. This time we were camping at Pantoll Campground north of San Francisco. Last time, we were at LA State Historical Park hanging out in the mornings before taking the Gold Line over  to AlienCon in Pasadena.

On both trips, the Rockmite also reached far further West than it usually does. On the LA trip, before the washi tape patch, the RM was spotted in Japan on the RBN. 

Wednesday night, when the Rockmite went mysteriously quiet on recieve, while making sucking noises over the headphones on transmit, I immediately knew the rf out wire had deatached again. I, however, had no washi tape, and was forced to work with the next best thing, the stationary stickers picdured above. The second night of our trip, with the sticker still in play, radio was spotted on the RBN for  the first time ever in Hawaii.

Soldering indeed! Some of this stuff can just be stickered together!

 

Park:

Mt. Tamalpais State Park, K-1178

Getting there, public transit route(s)

We took a variety of routes. The gang had hoped to setup camp on their own with me meeting them later in the day. They set out to take the GGT 130 from downtown that morning, but it ghosted on them. Consequently, they wound up taking the later GGT 101 and hanging out in Sausalito waiting for the next Marin Stagecoach 61 up to the campground. By then, I'd made it over to Sausalito on the GGT Sausalito Ferry, and we all headed up to the campground together.

Radio Details:

Same old radio with a little more adhesive :) The radio was about 10 feet off the ground on the very edge of a slope that plunges down from Pantoll Campground into, eventually, Muir Woods.  


QSO/RBN spot map:

In the maps below, a blue map marker indicates a QSO while a yellow marker with an 'R' indicates a reverse beacon network spot.

First night out:



Second night out:

Notice the Coast to Coast P2P with W2AEW!!!



Happenings of Interest 

Turkeys mobbed the campsite! The 8 year-old, Tawnse spotted about a dozen turkey hens in the woods while she was making oatmeal. They stayed for most of the morning.

QSO Log

I'll pop this in in a bit.

Callsignrx RSTtx RSTTime (GMT)Frequency
KBTEST53955916:4214058.3 kHz



Unschooling Highlights

Did I mention it was the first day of public school and we were out camping? We didn't know either, and certainly didn't set up the trip that way on purpose, but it was a nice little giggle when we found out.

POTA tx QSL:


QSL rx album:



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