The Support Your Parks Summer event was an absolute blast.
Geat weather, camping and radio with friends made for an great long weekend.
"Shacking Greg" made the trip up from Indiana to camp out with me at two different local parks. Interstate Park, located by St. Croix Falls, WI and at the campground in the Governor Knowles State Forest, near Grantsburg, WI.
Check out Greg and his brother Norm's YouTube Channel "Shacking Off"
Both campsites offered locations where we could toa 2'fer POTA activation. POTA Park K-4238 Ice Age Trail has its Western Terminus located within Interstate Park K-4249. K-0673 Saint Croix National Wild and Scenic River makes the western boundary of K-4350 Governor Knowles State Forest.
I took the day off of work that Friday and enjoyed the morning hiking along the trails within Interstate Park. Taking some great views of the St. Croix River, that forms the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota.
After the hike, I had time for an park activation before Greg arrived.
Friday's 2'fer activation
In the woods behind the park's visitor center is a little clearing that has a nice shelter that is also alongside the Ice Age Trail. With the shelter and adjacent clearing, this makes an ideal location to set up a portable station for a POTA activation.
With some time to kill, I started off by hunting other parks on the already busy 20 meter band. Few things bust a POTA pileup better than the magic words: Park to Park. I got the parks activated fairly quickly with just doing some hunting.
Then I hopped over to 15 meters to call CQ for a while. The band was a bit noisy and I only made two contacts in about 10 minutes of calling. Both contacts were faint signals, so I decided to give 40 meters some attention. Made a few more regional contacts on 40 and then moved over to 20 meters to finish off the activation.
Ended up with 60 contacts total. Used my Yaesu FT-891 with the PackTenna Linked EFHW suspended from my Ham Radio Dude's GigaDude 25 carbon fiber telescoping mast.
Park Information
K-4249 Wisconsin Interstate State Park Website
Setup Camp
When Greg arrived we proceeded down into the bottom of the park to where our campsites were located. We setup our tents and unloaded our trucks. Then made a quick run to nearby St. Croix Falls for a little last minute shopping for camp supplies.
Once settled back in at camp, we got a fire going and made some beer brats for dinner.
There is a downside of Interstate Park for portable radio. The majority of the park, including our camping area is down in a step valley, so getting an HF signal out is not an easy feat. Combine that with the campgrounds layout is fairly compact with the sites somewhat small and close together.
With those factors, we skipped bothering with a nightshift activation and just enjoyed our time around the campfire catching up.
Saturday's POTA Activations
Greg and I broke camp mid morning and went back up to the shelter I used for an activation site the day before. This time for a station we used Greg's Icom 7300 and my N9SAB QRP Offset Dipole on the Gigadude 25 mast.
For this activation Greg and I were joined by Steve KM9G and Aiden KD9VUK. Aiden made the roughly 1.5 hour trip down from the Twin Ports area to hang out with us for a few hours.
The four of us passed the mic for an activation that netted another 57 total contacts for me and Greg. 40 for the other two operators. Greg and I did some hunting before the others joined us.
After we all chatted a bit and took down the station; Aiden and Steve head off and Greg and I moved on to our next campsite at Governor Knowles State Forest.
Round 2
With camp set up, Greg and I put our station together. This time using Greg's Icom 7300 and my PackTenna Linked EFHW. With near perfect timing, RJ K9ZIE arrived at our station when Greg and I were just about ready to start playing radio.
We starting calling CQ on 40 meters and had a nice steady pile up going for about an hour or so. When "the well went dry" the three of us took out our H/Ts and made a few park to park calls to ourselves. Not "real POTA" but still a fun thing to do for the heck of it. After a little more talking RJ hit the road to continue is nearly insane POTA rove that start on the other end of the state!
If you're on Twitter or X or whatever it's called now, give RJ a follow. He posts some great portable radio / POTA content there and on his blog.
After RJ left, Greg and I hit 20 meters for the fun of it and made a fair number of more contacts to round out the night. With 94 total for the two of us on the late shift. Roughly the first half with RJ on 40 meters and the rest on 20. Pretty good night.
Next morning we broke camp, for Greg had to get moving to pick up his wife. Since this campground is just a few miles from my home. I plug the antenna into my Yaesu 891 and worked a few more park to parks. My total contacts for the weekend was 221 individual contacts, 442 POTA contact since all activations were in 2'fers.
In summary, just like how I opened this blog. Geat weather, camping and radio with friends made for an great long weekend.