Success! The JSCARC successfully completed our second 3PP this year. This was our first route towards the south- activating Galveston Island State Park, the Justin Hurst Wildlife Management Area, and the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge.
It’s hard to plan an all-day club event due to everyone’s busy schedules and the fickleness of which Texas weather you’ll get- especially during this time of the season. For this Saturday, weather forecasts were threatening our plans, as we were confronted with a warning of scattered yet heavy thunderstorms. Note: a bad weather forecast was the reason we cancelled an earlier August attempt along this same 3PP route.
Despite the possible rain- we pressed ahead.
Park 1- Galveston Island State Park
A few weeks before the event, Joe K5KUA, advised that Galveston Island (our first POTA stop) was scheduled to host the largest motorcycle biker event in the state at the same time we were doing our POTA. This meant potential heavy and arguably dangerous traffic congestion and disturbances as we travelled to Galveston and possibly within the park as we planned to setup our radios.
Again, we pressed ahead.
As luck would have it, few bikers were seen in the morning when we started at 0800 and operated until 1000. Luckily, the scattered rain worked in our favor and likely thwarted some of the bikers from coming out to the park. But for us (K5KUA, W5OC, and visitor OS4K), it was an ideal setting by the bay, with a cool breeze and only an occasional rain shower, while we operated under individual picnic table shelters overlooking a picturesque lagoon.
Our equipment:
Ben used his Icom IC-705 radio which he transported from Belgium, along with a telescoping 20m metal whip antenna jaw clamped to a crusty park BBQ grill installed for public use.
Joe operated with his trusty FT-991A and reduced power to avoid RFI for us. He used a CB- “hamstick” antenna mounted on the ground. It worked great.
I deployed my Elecraft KX-2 and used my homebrew end-fed random length antenna, raised up in the air with my 20ft ultra lightweight carbon fiber portable mast.
The band conditions were hot! This allowed us to spread out on different bands, while each having terrific propagation to make many QSOs. Also, to avoid Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) between each other, Ben parked on 20m, I settled on 15m, and Joe on 10m.
The highlight was Ben’s 10W 20m SSB CQ getting answered by a 10 dB over S9 VK station in Australia! Wow that was exciting.
Click below to hear Ben’s QSO with Australia.
We all made our 10+ QSOs which is required to fulfill a formal activation, before heading out to the next park.
If you read an earlier blog post, Ben OS4K was a visiting ham from Belgium and sought us out for a ham shack visit. We extended an offer for him to participate in our 3PP and it turns out he’s an avid portable operator and he gladly agreed to accompany us. Ben shared that WWFF (World Wide Flora and Fauna), an alternative outdoor portable operating event, was very popular in Europe but much stricter than POTA.
Park 2- Justin Hurst State Park
For all 3 parks, our area guide was Joe K5KUA. Joe and his XYL live in Jamaica Beach, literally right next door to Galveston Island State Park. Being a super POTA operator and extensively familiar with the south Texas POTA sites near Galveston, we were fortunate to get scouting reports from Joe regarding access and spots to operate within these parks. Of greatest concern was if there were any issues between ham operators and the park rangers, which Joe assured “no”.
For this park, we met up with Jayant KG5LJZ who planned to borrow a radio that I brought along- my FT-991A at 100W. Ben and Joe settled at the picnic tables located immediately near the front entrance, while Jayant and I drove down the park road a few hundred feet to again avoid RFI. As we setup our equipment alongside the road, I was shocked to discover that I forgot to bring the 20aH batteries that were to power up the FT-991A. To add insult to injury, the FT-991A power cable (Molex to Powerpole) needed to power the FT-991A was also left at home. 99% of the time, it would have been packed with the radio, in which case I could have powered FT-991A directly from my car battery by using a compatible powerpole cable fed from the car battery into the front seat (used previously to power my VHF rover radios in the passenger’s seat).So, the final backup plan was to setup Jayant with his first exposure to QRP- my Elecraft KX2 at 5W. We fired it up on 20m CW and Jayant had a nice string of QSOs with enough to attain his qualifying 10+ contacts for activation credit to the park. For an antenna, we used his new PAC-12 vertical which worked great! After we got 15-20 QSOs, we met up with Joe and Ben and decided to give Ben a chance to visit one of Texas’ revered highway oasis- Bucees!
While at Buccee’s, we each grabbed brisket sandwiches and then headed off to …
Park #3- Brazoria National Wildlife Management Area.
At this point, we were like a traveling pack of gypsies who picks up new gypsies along the way. we started off with 3 @ Galveston, grew to 4 @ Justin Hurst, and we now met up with gypsy Ken K5RG at this Brazoria Park. Our merry band of POTA gypsies were now up to 5 and we spread out over a very nice location which had picnic tables across the grounds and well as a few on a boardwalk structure built over the marshy water (a great ground?).
Ken got there first and had already had his station mostly set up. As we entered the park, we spotted his well anchored Buddipole horizontal dipole. He set inside a sheltered building adjacent to the outside picnic tables. Ken brought his portable IC-705 setup that he famously took to his Nepal trip last year.
Ben decided to operate at a picnic table on the boardwalk above the marsh of water and alligators.
Joe spotted a very large gator, but didn’t announce it for fear of scaring our visitor, Ben 😉
Jayant and I setup across the dirt road on a lone but sheltered picnic table by a field of wild grass. Again, because I couldn’t power up my FT991A, Jayant was left with making QSOs with 5W QRP power and his Pac 12 vertical antenna. At first something seemed wrong- we had great issues making contacts. Our first contact was with John AB5SS who was tracking our progress from the W5RRR shack. He messaged us that we were very weak. A few minutes later, after not having any luck, we noticed that we forgot to deploy the PAC12 radials!
After we deployed the radials, our fortunes turned and the late opening on 20m got us our 10+ activation QSOs. We stopped our operation to allow Ben a chance to get his 10+ qualifying QSOs, after he had no luck operating in his previously spot above the water. We both suspected his telescoping whip antenna was misbehaving. We both suspected that his antenna, a Chinese knockoff copy of an MFJ whip antenna, was likely exhibiting varying resistance between extended telescoping segments.
So, we used my Sotabeams Bandhopper 20m dipole mounted on a survey’s tripod which worked fine for Ben as he quickly got his required QSOs for park activation credit.
Joe had left us a bit earlier since he needed to get back home by 1500. So, this was our time to leave too.
Ben and I finished the last leg of the all day 3PP by driving north to downtown Houston to drop Ben off at his hotel- The Hyatt Place.
The visit with Ben was actually the real highlight of the 3PP. We all had a great time hanging out with him and sharing the experience of doing an American POTA for his memory book. As a carpool partner, I had the wonderful opportunity of chatting with him about his career, his ham radio adventures in Belgium, a bit of politics, and mostly having a great time with a great guy. For me that was a reminder how small the world really is. Having a visitor from Europe was really no different than hanging out with any other passionate and fun-loving hams next door. Hams are really good folk all over the world. We’ll be on the lookout for Ben in future international contests like the CQ WW or WPX as he’s a regular operator par excellence at OT5A– an international world class ham club station. 73s to Ben!
Great activation and thanks Dave for a great blog post. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the company of all who participated in activating this 3 Park POTA. I’m looking forward for the next one. Thanks – Joe K5KUA