I took my new mobile antenna out today to do some more POTA. I wanted to try doing a “run” of activations, where you hit up a string of parks, one after another, without having to do a bunch of setup and teardown. The timing was perfect, as the warm weather officially departed today – it was about 60 Fahrenheit when I woke up, and around 20 Fahrenheit just a few hours later.
I stopped at the Dr. Frederick Marshall State Conservation Area (US-10579), as well as two “State Conservation Areas” (US-10578 and US-11226) that are really just boat launches for fisherman (and not particularly inspiring ones either). US-11226, in particular, is about 50 by 50 feet and filled with trash and dead possums.
The conservation area was actually pretty beautiful – the parking lot had a beautiful view over a sweeping tallgrass prairie field, which was particularly dramatic with the sleet and gusting winds. Maybe some day I’ll go back and take my dog.
The new screwdriver antenna worked pretty well – it is definitely not as efficient as the MC-750, but it’s certainly serviceable, and I was getting calls and decent signal reports from both coasts. I’ll post another blog post tomorrow with some more information about the new antenna.
