This Sunday, Jayant KG5LJZ went to participate with the BVARC (Brazos Valley ARC) members for one of their many POTA park activations. Sunday’s event was held at the Brazos Bend State Park (POTA # K-2992), about a one hour drive headed SW from JSC.
The BVARC group had an impressive DX Commander Multi-band Antenna as their primary radiator, smartly surrounded by a perimeter of yellow safety tape.
This antenna is a similar to a fan dipole but in a vertical orientation with multiple quarter wave band elements allowing 2m-40m simo transmission use. This antenna system was utilizing a 4 band QuadPlexer multiplexer-bandpass filter box which provided deep isolation for 4 band operations without any self interference. Additionally, an End Fed in the trees offered another radiating options for the group. In the photo below, it’s sitting on the bench seat while feeding separate coax lines to multiple radios.
The turnout was a fun family one, with about 15 club members along with some younger children joining in with a nice day at the park. Their 4 radios and 5 computers and picnic chair made this a terrific weekend social as well with refreshments and lunch
Of note, they had detailed instructions for any new POTA operators. BVARC also had a pre-printed clip pad with a cheat sheet- a very smart and assuring manner to comfort any non-indoctrinated operator wishing to jump in immediately and participate!
Jayant reported that the bands were very poor. He got his first 5 QSO on 14.287 MHz SSB in 15 minutes but took 31 minutes for the next 6.
Gracious thanks to BVARC for hosting one of our members with warm hospitality.