Pursuit of Early Shift award
Over the weekend I was catching up on logging duties and glanced at my POTA awards. I saw that I was getting close to an Early Shift Activator milestone. Decided it was time to give that some focus! So I loaded up the night before and hit the road at a little before 7am local.
When the park gate rolled open at 7:00 I was ready. Drove to my usual spot and set up the antenna: a 44' doublet fed with twinlead and a 4:1 balun at the base. Rig was the KX3.
I started out on 40 and knew I'd set up an Activation at pota.app -- the RBN would be spotting me. Several rounds of CQ without a return call gave me that "Hm... I hope" feeling. And then the calls started coming in. Whew! I worked a dozen stations on 40 and then switched over to 20. It was a lively morning!
I heard several familiar calls along with a few new ones and a few surprises. I sent F1BLL an honest 529 and he sent back a 539. Longest continental station was W6LEN in Huntington Beach, with W1KX in ME a close second.
Summary: I made 27 QSOs in 29 minutes -- a pretty good rate given my sometimes-chatty exchanges. Twenty-seven steps closer to Early Shift and a good way to start the day.