A Rainy Independence Day Weekend POTA of Ballard State Park K-4872

For reasons too personal to discuss, AA1F and I needed to stay near the QTH despite the rare long weekend. And it so happens that the Fourth of July is also my favorite holiday. Despite our heavy hearts, celebrating a little freedom by sitting in my van with a wire in a tree seemed in order. We headed to New Hampshire for a Third of July POTA.

Buckets full of water were falling from the sky when we pulled into the Ballard State Forest parking lot. This property in Derry NH hosts the historic Taylor Mill, which is also a separate POTA site.

We slung AA1F’s rebuilt 20M dipole into the trees. This particular model does not have sufficient strain relief for its radiator, therefore I needed to reattach a separated ring terminal. It had been working fine since I fixed it.

I struggled a bit to make my 10 contacts on 20M. The temperature had dropped too from a 100 degrees Fahrenheit a few days ago to 55F today. I bundled up in the back of the van.

All of the cinder blocks are left over from Field Day. Eventually AA1F will bring them to our farm. In the mean time, well, we just worked around them…

In total AA1F made 19 contacts with more than half of these on 80M. The 20M EFHW proves itself over and over again to be an awesome NVIS antenna around 3800 MHz. My total on 20M was only 12 QSOs. Nellie waited patiently for us to finish up.

We headed to our favorite ice cream shop afterwards. It seems ice cream and radio is starting to be an Independence Day tradition.

Yours as always,

KM1NDY

(Don’t worry Kitty. In due time he’ll play the tunes for you again.)