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The activation that almost didn't happen. POTA at US-2808 Oklahoma

This was a bit of a rough one. I landed in Missouri today and since our goal is to activate as many states as we possibly can, we decided to head over to Oklahoma to activate a park and get another state in the log.

The drive was pretty relaxed but it was a fair bit away and took us slightly out of the way on our way to our hotel for this work trip but it was well worth the drive.

Arrival and setup

Arrival at this park was fairly uneventful. I will say I wish other states would take this state’s approach to payment. Give us some digital options. A QR code on a sign enabled me to make a payment for access to the park and we were on our way. Most parks, particularly in my home state of Delaware, are all cash and I just don’t carry cash much these days. Usually this means I need to remember to hit the ATM before heading to a park. In this case, this worked out perfectly and only took a minute or two.

Setup

Set was uneventful. There were a great deal of trees and I probably should have went to the EFHW, but I decided to give the Buddie Stick a go. Unfortunately, the Buddstick has been a bit painful to work with recently.

My quick thoughts on the BuddieStick

To clear the air, I own an older version of the Buddie Stick. It’s a great antenna. It’s well made and has suffered through some serious abuse over the years. This is of course true right up until you get down to the mount.

I really can’t understand how anyone uses the mounting options provided by the original Buddie Stick. The mounts consist of either a tripod or a clamp both of which are made of decent plastic. However, the issue stems from the ball joint on these mounts. The ball joints are attached directly to the mounting base itself and feature a locking “clamp” to form a ball joint.

This ball joint has a tendency to slip and because of this the antenna almost never stays up.

Over the years, I’ve avoided using these mounts. In my Guam article, I discussed using a photography clamp to clamp the buddiestick to things. I didn’t bring that this time because it didn’t have any articulation options, meaning there was only one way to mount the antenna.

I decided I’d give these mounts another try since I dismissed them over 12 years ago.

Unfortunately, I wasted quite a bit of time and had a fairly annoying activation. The antenna just didn’t want to stand up on the clamp. Maybe it’s me.

Getting started

I decided to get started on 15 Meters. This would prove to be a less than ideal idea. After making just 3 contacts in about 10 minutes, I fell into the repeating CQ with seemingly no one out there. I’ve found this recently and decided to test the theory at another activation. I find for some reason, operators discount 15 meters. The band was clearly open as I worked both a VE station and several 6 and 7 calls. Further I could hear others on the band with great signals. Finally, my signal reports were decent, except into Canada.

Given the situation, I decided I needed to jump bands. Chris was down on 20 meters and I decided to see what 17 might have had to offer. Unfortunately, we’re still flushing out our filter collection. Since we operate so closely together, cross station interference becomes an issue sometimes and we just need to be careful. So 40 is where I ended up.

Coming down to 40 took a bit of effort to get the antenna setup and standing up. It was also getting rather dark by this point. Just enough light for me to see the taps of the coil. Fortunately, my fridged fingers were able to get the tap positioned correctly with only minor tweaks needed. I’m ashamed to say but I probably tapped the wrong location and could have gotten a bit more efficiency out of the antenna, but it was getting dark.

Down to 40!

Getting down to 40 things were much better but now my antenna is considerably less of a winner as it’s a short 40 meter vertical. Fortunately, I bring along a lot of radials compared to what I imagine most operators would have.

On 40 I managed a few more contacts to TN, GA, WV, NC, and MS.

MS rounded out number 10 just in time as I looked over and saw Chris was packing up. Just as well, my hands were getting fairly cold by this point.

Packing up is something I’ve been working on. I find activations much easier and smoother is everything is where it belongs and try and put everything back where it goes when packing up. This is much more challenging in the dark though.

Pack up took a few minutes and we were back on the road for our drive to our hotel, and some dinner.

Summary

All in, I made exactly 10 contacts required for an activation. This activation is making me really think about my antenna options. I like the speed of a vertical, and it’s great to not need trees. I do like the EFHW, it’s small and lightweight but verticals have the advantage of not needing supports. Something I’ll be thinking about going forward.