Our first POTA activity for 2025 landed up back to San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Site, aka US-3511 (POTA designation).This was our first Sunday AM POTA outing, which is mostly unpopular because of the events and obligations that are typically reserved at this time.
We had a last-minute cold spell run through Houston, so the forecast was chilly and uncomfortable. A no-show by the club members was expected, so I arrive late only to find John AB5SS already parked at the usual location. We chatted a few minutes while sitting in the comfort of the car heaters in our respective cars. Within a few more minutes, Paul KJ5JIO unexpectedly popped up to support the POTA activation.
John kindly setup about 100 feet away, to make sure we didn’t cross interfere with each other, while I worked with Paul to give him a taste of his first POTA.
Fearless, is the word that best describes Paul. Being only licensed since November, Paul barely knew the phonetic alphabet, but courageously worked, albeit slowly and patiently, his first 3 Park-To-Park stations using the Hunt and Seek technique. He did GREAT. After his initial exposure, he eagerly agreed to try calling “CQ”. He learned how to ask for a clear frequency and then began the anxious process of calling “CQ POTA” and seeing what might happen. Well. it was disappointing. I told him it was like fishing. He was initially convinced he didn’t have good bait, but after about 6 calls, with no response, suddenly, the pileup began. One call after another kept him continuously busy. In between calls in the pileup, he told me “I wish there was some way I can pull back the bait”.
Paul easily worked over 25 QSOs for his very first outing. This was on 20m using an IC-7300 on SSB. Our antenna was a Sotabeam Band Hooper III linked dipole using a surveyors tripod. Overall, the propagation was very good, which accompanied a nice sunny yet chilly day.
Paul also created a POTA account during this outing and was taught how to manually log his entries into the POTA upload log. This early training will make the next club POTA outing smooth and even more fun- that’s coming up on Thursday. Congrats to Paul.
In the meantime, John unselfishly stayed on the CW portion of the band to give us a clear channel on SSB. His versatile KX3 allowed him to easily setup and activate from his car seat while radiating to his PAC12 portable vertical setup adjacent to the car.
See everyone at the next one!
73 Dave W5OC
Thank you David. I appreciate you allowing me to work thru my first contacts and helping me work out the kinks.
Paul