After violating the First Rule on Sunday’s Summits on the Air expedition, I replaced the black Apache case that housed the Yaesu FT-897D with a bright yellow Apache case Monday morning (Labor Day). After hiking The Girl in the morning and then working around the house for a bit, I decided I had enough and wanted out of the house.
We left at 1500h and headed back toward Spooner Summit and King’s Canyon Trail. I drove us down the trail from US50 and found a shady spot at the staging area. I got The Girl out to burn off some energy and then assembled my station, anchored by the Yaesu FT-897D radio.
This old radio is solid, that is, built like a tank. It does everything I want from a radio and will do more than that as well. I have filters for CW and Phone modes, which improve the signal-to-noise ratio on receive. I have the LDG antenna matching unit that is integrated well with the radio and has a better range of matching than does the factory unit.
I can have a working radio station setup and on-the-air in about ten minutes if I try. Recovery of the station takes about the same amount of time and can be shortened if I just toss everything into the back of the 4Runner.
While The Girl sniffed about for chippies (chipmunks), I deployed the Chameleon MPAS antenna in the vertical configuration and laid out my three-wire counterpoise. (I built this to improve antenna performance.)
I recently decided to move away from Big Tech to improve (slightly) my privacy and security. Part of that was purchase of a new phone, a Pixel 9a. I immediately flashed GrapheneOS to the phone (to reduce/eliminate Google tracking). I installed an amateur radio logging app, PoLo, on my phone for this outing.
So, while activating the park (Parks on the Air), I was also learning a new software. It is relatively easy to use. They keyboard will take some repetitions to master, but it is doable. I have yet to check the output ADIF, but I am confident it will be readily uploadable to the POTA logging portal.
I played radio for the next couple-three hours, keeping one eye on The Girl. I made enough contacts to get my quota on Monday and then we crossed the 0000Z date change and I also made my quota for Tuesday.
I chased a bunch of other POTA activators so I have many park-to-park contacts in my log. I mostly operated CW mode, but made and took a few phone calls.
Satisfied with the activation, I recovered the station and put things away. The Girl watched me expectantly.
After stowing my equipment, The Girl and I made a circuit around the big staging area, but most of the chippies had retired for the day. The Sun was falling behind the Sierra Crest as we humped it back to the rig. She settled into shotgun as we headed back down the hill. We had a lovely, cool afternoon/early evening outdoors with the wind shushing in the pine trees and the crackle and snap of HF radio.
It was a good day. Life is good. I am grateful.