Pony Express POTA Activation with Project TouCans After all the Rain

Happy Holidays!

It's been a rainy few weeks here which, with the holidays, has led to less playing radios. I finally got a break in the rain one afternoon this week and headed out to play radios and to try my new Christmas present, a Lumix DC100 camera. I've been playing both with how I want to use the camera and how I want to publish the results. Expect to see more notes on both of these things.

Park: US-4578 Pony Express National Historic Trail

I headed to the end of Pier 7 which is on the Pony Express National Historic Trail. The pier was crowded, what with the sun being out and the really nice view back towards town.

I took the BART downtown, made a brief stop at The Palace near Montgomery Station for a cocktail and to make sure I knew how the camera remote control via smartphone worked, hopped back in the BART tunnel, popped back up at Embarcadero, and walked the rest of the way from there. Here's a look at exiting the BART.

Radio Details:

I was still using a tent pole as a mast. TouCans did great though! It chugged along with very little noise and reached LU4HK in Aregentina, making a greater than 1000 mile per Watt QSO.

QSO/RBN spot map:

Happenings of Interest

I played with what output levels the camera needs to do speaker to mic audio transfers. They're kind of high. Everything worked well in the end.

It was fun getting to watch ferries and cargo ships come and go.

Comments

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