Copasetic Flow

  Almost a year ago, I made a POTA activation from DC in Freedom Plaza. I'm discussing antennas and buildings today with Bill Meara of the soldersmoke blob and published this map to carry along the conversation. I alternately convince my myself that buildings do not matter, and then a few weeks later, that they do. QSO Map

 I was the second person to activate US-9269 Mt. Moriah BLM National Conservation Area yesterday! The gang and I are out on our annual campign trip to Baker, NV and the environs surrounding Great Basin National Park. We drove to our trailhead using the Hatch Rock Mine access road. The mine extracts quartzite for use in building. The entire wilderness area where the gang and I hiked had frequent quartzite deposits.  That second photo shows the top of a quartzite outcropping that wound up being about four stories high when viewed from below. I realized this once I got to the bottom of the outcrop as I descended the ridge I was on after the POTA activation. Google had this to say about the stone: Mt. Moriah Flagstone is a premium metamorphic quartzite sourced from the pristine Snake Mountain Range on the Nevada-Utah border. This exquisite natural stone showcases a harmonious blend of slate gray, soft mauve, and warm tawny chestnut tones, creating an aura of delicate refinem...

 I haven't tried this before, but it was a lot of fun. On this video QSL, I explained what was going on with the rig, (Project TouCans), and the Morse code within the QSO with N4GO in words on the video as the QSO was in progress. New video style for N4GO de KD0FNR The map below is for the entire POTA activation. It shows RBN spots as 'glowing' lines this time and QSOs as solid lines, (like always.) You can click on any of the signal paths to get more inforatmion about it. You can click the play button on the lower lefthand control panel to animate the map so you can see the QSOs as they occurred. QSO/RBN  Map for the 2025-05-20 KD0FNR US-0757 POTA Activation

 We moved to a web based control panel for Project TouCans a few months back. It's worked really well. Changing the network model of the system to one where TouCans uses a smart phone for network resources as a client even unexpectedly reduced the audio noise in the rig. Even though the control of the rig is now done via browser, KO6BTY and I hadn't tried to control the rig from more than one smart phone until our recent US-4578 POTA. Before I go any further, here's a brief introduction to the control panel. On a POTA activation last week, I set up the rig to talk to my smartphone via a mobile hotspot. KO6BTY then set up her smart phone to use my smart phone as as Wi-Fi source. The rig was immediately available to her at the same internet address! TouCans has almost moved into the cloud! For now, it's moved into the WLAN! The control panel doesn't have the concept of multiple users yet, so Hamie and I had to adjust keying speeds when each of us took control over fr...

 Gaaackkkkk the AM broadcast interference!!!! Gaaasssspppppppp! Still though, the POTA went really, really well and camping with the gang, (aged 14, 12, and 10), was a blast. We haven't camped in forever! The Park Angel Island State Park, US-1123, no surprise perhaps, is an island. It's just off the coast of San Francisco, Oakland, and Tiburon. It served a similar purpose to Ellis Island once upon a time. Getting There No surprise to anyone that regularly reads the blog, we, of course, took public transit to the island. The gang were carrying most of our camping gear. We took BART downtown, had lunch at the Irish Bank, the Irish pub the gang grew up around over the last decade or so, and then hopped the ferry to Agnel Island. I stopped by The Palace on Montgomery and Market before meeting the gang on the way to the ferry terminal. If you think you've seen that ceiling before in a certain movie with Michael Douglass, it's because you have. If you'd like to know what ...

 I made a livestream of my POTA activation from US-4571, Juan Bautista National Historic Trail in San Francisco on YouTube last night! It was pretty fun although the audio mostly didn't work out great. I'll be making notes here and in the video's comments on the QSOs in the vieo over time. (One of the things I learned was that there's no editing or even downloading of YouTube livestreams after the fact.) Here's the video, scroll for more details and, eventually, a map of the QSOs.  Park Details Here's a look at the QTH. The vertical antenna is taped to a carbon fiber mast that is in turn supported in a tree with electrical tape. You can see the rig on the ground by the tree. Happenings When a touchdown was scored in the SuperBowl at one point, there was a seven minute delay till the  next QSO. QSO Map: By moving the animation slider all the way to the left, you can see all the QSOs at once. Clicking on play will play the QSOs in order as grey line moves along as...

 And I still haven't activated this POTA site! Still, it was fun and the view was nice. Only two QSOs this time, but I think that's about as many as I've every managed on this trail. Next time maybe :)

  US-4571 at City College San Francisco, around sunset is one of the best propagation spots in the city for Project TouCans and a Stick. I discovered this a few months back when I had a little time to kill before Cantonese class. Given, TouCans isn't quite as compact as a KH-1, but it's not much bigger than some people's water bottles, and therefore pretty easy to carry around for just-in-case POTA activations. I haven't made any calls to Europe or Sweden from this QTH yet, but I did wind up with two QSOs to Maine in my log from my latest afternoon POTA activation.  I hit the park, quite unintentionally, at the sweet spot for racking up activations. The first activation ran from about 2300 UTC till midnight. The second one started immediately afterwards and lasted about another hour. Park Details: Getting to the park is a piece of cake since it sits near five different transit routes, specifically, the 29 , 43 , 49 , K-train , and the 8 , not to mention the Balboa Park ...

 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...

  Gate mounted vertical at US-4551 on the west side of the Organs. KOBTY and I tried a few different things with TouCans that had never happenned before First, we operated on the Western slope of the Organs by Dripping Springs. Second, we mounted the tent pole antenna mast to a steel gate piling at the edge of the Dripping Springs area. We were still completelylwithin the Organ Mountains National Monument for those keeping score. A note about gates: I grew up in New Mexico. Almost every gate in the state has one or more parking spots next to it. It's just assumed that when the gate is closed, you'll park and walk in. I personally believe the parking spots are there because people tend to just park in front of the gate if there's not a space. We parked in the spot near the gate because we needed an antenna mount, but sure enough, about a minute after we'd started transmitting, the parak ranger turned up and closed the gate. If you're worried that we'd have been l...

 I was able to hop over to this park twice, once before, and once after work. Operating portable with a vertical antenna netted me almost no foot traffic attention which was kinda surprising and also kinda nice. This will all get updated as I go (or not) Park: US-0795 World War I National Monument Getting There: I walked to the park from my Mt. Vernon Square area hotel. I took transit back though! I walked up a few blocks to the nearest metro station and took the Red Line east where I connected with a northbound Yellow Line to Mt. Vernon Square, the end of the line for that train. Radio Details: I used the rig's new configuration that's getting me into  so many urban parks: TouCans and a Stick. Trees on the East Coast seem to have more branches that the ones in San Francisco, so I was able to just place the vertical in the tree with no tape. The branches held it up. The tree still had most of its leaves and was quite wet. I suspect this was the main difference cause of propag...

 I made it back out to Candlestick Park on Saturday morning, and this time, more than a year and a half later , pulled off an activation. I made four QSOs to British Columbia, three of them in rapid sucsession. Park: Candlestick State Recreation Area, San Francisco, CA This park is accessible via public transportation and a short hike via two different bus lines, the MUNI 54 and 29 . I took the MUNI 54 to the North Shore of Yosemite Slough portion of the park. I wandered back home on the 29.  54 29 To me, the whole city is gorgeous. The bus ride down did not disappoint with the rising sun beaming through the windshield of the 54. When I hopped off for my short walk down to the park, I found myself in one of the last remaining light industry portions of the city. By the end of the block I was presented with the view of the park you see above. The tall brush you can see in most of the park photos is fennel. It smells like black licorice, which thankfully I like,...

 And that'll be my submission for the year's most acronyms in a title award (MAIAT.) On the Ham Radio Work Bench discord, NK8O mentioned this following spiffy looking Python script for tracking the parks near you that you haven't activated yet. The creator of the script is Ian Renton, MØTRT. He has other cool looking stuff !

  This a follow-on to the crashing wave post. While activating POTA US-0757 with TouCans and a Stick , (the vetical antenna version), during the wind storm, the first call in was from SM0GJN! It was very cool because it was from Sweden, but also the signal had aurora flutter! I got the idea for recording POTA activations from K4SWL. I haven't quite perfected my method yet, but I'm getting better at it. Here's what I'm doing. I'm dialing my phone into the Utah SDR, then turning on the screen recorder to record the screen as well as any media audio output, (the Utah SDR), and the phone's microphone. I listen to TouCans' audio ouput via a pair of Bose Bluetooth noise canceling headphones. the sgnal audio you'll here is from Utah. The waves crashing were under me in San Francisco. Here's the QSO recording. \ And here's the map of the aurora from  https://aurorasaurus.org/ for that morning Along with the QSO map. I'll try to get these superimpos...

 The second time TouCans Vertical activated Juan Bautista Trail, US-4571, it was from near the top of Russian Hill in San Francisco. The longest, (distance-wise), QSO was to Alaska which became a bit of a thing last week. The Park and My Forgetful Journey to It: For this activation I was in a city park within the POTA Park. To be specific, I was perched on the side of Russian Hll in George Sterling Park at 10 in the morning. I'd intended to be at the park much earlier in the morning, but I had.. well... I forgot to pick up the radio in my hurry to get to the bus stop. So, I finished my early swim at Hyde Street Pier as intended. The area is gorgeous seated just below and to the East of Ghirardelli Square. And then, I headed back to the house for the rig. In a testament to the public transit around here, I was back up on Russian Hill a mere hour later after taking the MUNI 30 to Powell St. BART station, then the BART back into Excelsior, taking another bus to the house, grabbing t...

 TouCans Veritical activated the Pony Express Trail from Pier 7! Here's the map. Blue markers are QSOs. Yellow markers are RBN spots. Colors indicate relative signal strength using the resistor color scale, (violet is second biggest, black is lowest.) Once again, the rig reached Alaska from downtown San Francisco. In it's usual thumbing-its-nose at conventiatonal wisdom way, the path to Alaska, (the orange line in the map detail below), from the location of the antenna is straight down the metal railing the antenna was mounted in Here's the antenna setup QSOs Callsign rx RST tx RST Time (GMT) Frequency kj7dt 559 579 2024/11/06 21:48:00 14057.4 wx7or 559 559 2024/11/06 21:56:00 14057.4 k0yo 449 559 2024/11/06 22:10:00 14057.4 k5ohy 229 559 2024/11/06 22:18:00 14057.4 kc4cr 229 559 2024/11/06 22:25:00 14057.4 al7kc 449 539 2024/11/06 22:27:00 14057.4 k7esq 559 599 2024/11/06 22:30:00 14057.4 ak6fq 539 459 2024/11/06 22:43:00 14057.4 ve7atj 339 559 2024/11/0...

 Through a timing miscalculation, I found myself arriving early to my Cantonese class at City College San Francisco. I'd taken my time getting there, even stopping for dinner on Mission at the Recovery Room, where some of the customers were carrying on about elections while others at the other end of the bar were avidly watching sports. Me? I was studying for my upcoming Cantonese quiz. However, after taking time for a nice dinner, I still found myself on campus at 01:10 UTC. I studied for a bit, then decided I needed a break. I'd been out all day carrying TouCans around town in a tote sack with its new carbon fiber pole compacted down to two and a half feet or so. Then, it occurred to me! Inspired by K4SWL 's many Ham Radio Work Bench tales of activating parks while out running errands as well as W6CSN 's treatises on activating parks in San Francisco with a KH1 and a vertical, I looked up the map for Juan Bautista National Historical Trail. Sure enough, it was locate...