Five in the morning, Eastern, which he puts at about 10:00 UTC. Dark enough that the trees are a guess. Cicero Swamp Wildlife Management Area, US-9061, and the Erie Canal corridor, US-6532, in the same chair. He likes that corridor because a New York activation can be a twofer, a threefer, or a fourfer without a second setup. He is already on 80 meters. FT8 is in the speaker.
The cab is the 891, the computer, and a log he has already tested. One contact, Trinidad and Tobago, so the book is synced. WSJT-X, Grid Tracker so he can see who is there. He spots the activation, adds POTA to the CQ text, picks a quiet spot at the bottom of the activity, and wants the odd cycle. The first cycle goes out. A few figures he reads off the spotting screen are not clean enough to repeat.
Power, Then Nobody Answers
The EcoFlow sits behind the seat and runs the radios and the accessories. Under the laptop stand, next to the passenger seat, a 110-volt strip with USB ports is plugged into it. A DC-to-DC charger fills the EcoFlow while the truck is running, which is how an all-day stop stays powered. Starlink is on the roof for a spot and a propagation check when the phone has no service.
Nothing comes back. He switches the view to FT8 only. PSK Reporter shows him across the United States and down into Chile. A hear report from Iceland, at -1 dB, is the one he reads out. WSJT-X feeds Grid Tracker, and Grid Tracker feeds HAMRS, so a completed contact lands in the log without him typing it. Then the list collapses. He is calling on the same slice as a lot of those stations. He takes CQ-only off. After the cycle he moves to the even side, waits one cycle so he does not step on someone who was already answering, and watches the cycle clock at the bottom of the window.
A California station he reads as AE6CH comes back. Two transmit cycles. The ATAS is on the 891, so it can tune itself. He was going the wrong direction. SWR was getting a little high. He bumps it. The station calls again. Maybe they were busy, maybe power, he has had a battery die in the middle of a contact. He can hear them. They are not hearing him. They may have seen the spot and tried. He is impatient, and he knows the contact often completes in the minute he is about to give up. He does not think this one will. Another station is in and out. He is only out here a couple of hours. A second park would turn into a rove, and he promised his wife the rest of the day. She is still asleep.
Five Hundred, Then Three Thousand
When completions will not finish, he assumes the station is wrong. Another station gets a couple of cycles and nothing. He looks at the radio. The filter width is the mistake. It is at 500. He opens it to 3000. The audio in the speaker should have told him. It sounds right after the change. A completion. Then the next one. He says a bad FT8 bandwidth will wreck the contact, and the check is the first thing to do when the exchanges loop. Third contact. He goes back to it.
At 5:45 he has the 10, and he thinks he is past it. HAMRS will flag a possible duplicate. The same station is in from the start of the activation and from a couple of minutes ago, same mode, same frequency, both rows marked. If he had been sitting on exactly 10, that flag is the difference between an activation and a log POTA would bounce. The raw number is 13. Knock out the duplicate and it is 12. He sweeps the other bands and hears no FT8. A storm is on them. He does not know what everyone else is hearing. The place he can operate is 40 meters.
Fifty, After the Duplicates
It is light. About three and a half hours, 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and the log says 50. He has been on FT8 and FT4, not calling the whole time. Propagation maps, seeing how far, playing. At least two duplicate pairs are in the book. He wants 52 lines so that, after those come out, both parks get 50. He tries to catch a park-to-park that is already piled up. He thinks he needs two more park-to-parks for the next award. The other station is busy with someone else. The CQs he can see are people he has worked. He could type one in. He would rather call. A frequency he tries does not stay in the caption cleanly. He jumps on a park-to-park, gets partial cycles, and lets it go.
CQ again. Two stations answer. One might be KO4EZX, already in the log. Duplicates have been constant this morning. He usually sees one, not a pile of them. It logs, and it is not a duplicate. That is 51. Another call he already has. The one he was thinking of from a few minutes ago, the one that felt like number 50, is AK9B. He works two at once when he has to. It slows the completion, and WSJT-X does not always log both sides of a split, so one of them is typed. At 52 lines the duplicates are covered. That is 50 for the parks. 8:39 a.m. Inside the window he gave himself.
He is going to see if she is awake. Lowe’s, flooring for the house. The opening of the video is dark, and he did not narrate every contact. A livestream can do that. A filmed version would have been about three hours, and he does not think anyone would sit through it. Sunday. Family, not the shop.
Transcript
He is out before the sun and before the birds. 5:00 a.m. Eastern, about 10:00 UTC, early for this park. A twofer. US-9061, Cicero Swamp Wildlife Management Area, inside US-6532, the Erie Canal corridor. The corridor is why so many New York spots are twofers, threefers, and fourfers. He is on 80 meters and can hear FT8. Outside is almost black. In the cab, the 891, the computer, the log. He has already made one contact so the log is synced. WSJT-X and Grid Tracker. That contact was Trinidad and Tobago, so the path is working. He spots. A few of the numbers on the spotting screen are garbled. He adds POTA to the CQ, finds a hole at the bottom of the activity, chooses the odd cycle, and the first CQ goes out.
Power is an EcoFlow behind the seat. Radios, accessories, the laptop. A 110-volt strip with USB sits under the laptop stand by the passenger seat and plugs into the EcoFlow. A DC-to-DC charger refills the pack while the truck runs. Starlink on the roof is for spotting and propagation when the phone has no data. Nobody answers. FT8 only. PSK Reporter shows the United States and Chile. Iceland heard him at -1 dB. He says he likes PSK Reporter for digital because it shows where you are getting out. WSJT-X feeds Grid Tracker, and Grid Tracker feeds HAMRS, so the log fills itself. The list shrinks because he is on the same slice as many of them. He turns CQ-only off and, after a cycle, moves to the even side. He waits a cycle so he does not cut off someone who was answering. The cycle clock is at the bottom of the screen. A California station he reads as AE6CH. Two cycles at them. The ATAS on the 891 can tune. He was going the wrong way. SWR was a little high. He bumps it. They call again. He can hear them and they cannot hear him. Maybe they saw the spot. He knows he gets impatient right before a contact completes. He does not think this one will. Another is sporadic. He will be here a couple of hours and he will not start a second park. That becomes a rove, and he promised his wife the projects. She is asleep.
Completions that will not finish make him suspect the station. Another contact, a couple of cycles, nothing. The radio is the problem. The width is at 500. He opens it to 3000. The speaker audio should have told him. It sounds right, and a contact completes. Then the next. A wrong FT8 bandwidth will wreck the exchange. Check it. Third contact. He goes back to operating. At 5:45 he has 10 and thinks he is past it. HAMRS flags duplicates. The same person from a couple of minutes ago is also in from the start, same mode, same frequency, both rows marked. That flag matters if you are at 10 and about to submit a log that is not an activation. He is at 13, so 12 after the duplicate. Other bands are empty. A storm is overhead. He does not know what other stations are hearing. He settles on 40 meters.
Light out. About three and a half hours. 8:30 a.m. Eastern. The log says 50. He has moved between FT8 and FT4 and has not spent the whole time calling. Maps, range, playing. Two duplicate pairs are in there, so he wants 52 lines to have 50 real contacts for both parks. A park-to-park is piled up. He thinks he needs two more park-to-parks for the next award. Partials. The station is busy. CQs he can see are people he has worked. He would rather call than type one in. He tries, jumps on another park-to-park, and lets the partials go. CQ on a clear frequency. Two answers. KO4EZX might already be logged. More duplicates than he usually sees. It logs, and it is not a duplicate. 51. Another is already in the book. The one he was thinking of is AK9B. He works two at once. WSJT-X does not always log both, so one is manual. 52 lines cover the duplicates. That is 50. 8:39 a.m. He is going to see if she is awake, then Lowe’s for flooring. No play-by-play of all 50. Fine for a livestream. A three-hour cut of it, he says, nobody would watch. Sunday is family.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where was the twofer?
Cicero Swamp Wildlife Management Area, US-9061, which also sits in US-6532, the Erie Canal corridor. He says the corridor is why operators in New York can stack two, three, or four parks in one chair. He spotted himself and put POTA in the CQ. A couple of digits he read off the spotting screen did not come through cleanly. The parks he named at the start are the ones he activated.
What was wrong at the beginning?
People were not completing. He had called on top of a busy slice, turned CQ-only off, and moved from the odd slots to the even slots. The actual fault was the filter width. It was at 500. He opened it to 3000. The speaker audio should have told him before he looked at the radio. After that, contacts completed. SWR on the ATAS had also crept up. He was tuned the wrong way, then nudged it. He does not give the reading.
How did he get to 50?
HAMRS flags possible duplicates. One station was in the log twice, same mode, same frequency, a couple of minutes apart and also from the start of the activation. At 5:45 the raw count was 13, so 12 after that duplicate. By 8:30 a.m., three and a half hours in, the book showed 50 lines and at least two duplicate pairs. He wanted 52 lines. He tried a piled-up park-to-park because he thought two more park-to-parks would hit the next award. It did not complete. KO4EZX logged clean and was not a duplicate. AK9B was already in the book. Working two stations in one cycle sometimes means typing one of them by hand, because WSJT-X does not always catch both. 52 lines at 8:39 a.m. is the 50.
Why did he stop?
A couple of hours was the deal. A second park would have turned into a rove, and he had promised his wife project time. She was still asleep when he started. At the end they were going to Lowe's for flooring. It is Sunday. He skipped a contact-by-contact replay. He says that works on a livestream and would have been about a three-hour video.