This Support Your Parks weekend was looking like it was going to be a cold one. The forecast at the start of the week was predicting below zero F temperatures. I was seriously considering staying home this weekend.

Fortunately, when I woke up and checked the forecast I was pleasantly surprised. I saw that the high today was going to be 48F. That is practically balmy.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and started charging my battery. While I was waiting, I thought I’d hunt some parks for folks that woke up earlier than I did.

I noticed that the radio had a pretty high noise floor. What is that? I unplugged the charger and the noise floor dropped to its typical levels. Whelp, I guess I’m in the market for a new battery charger. Here is a picture of my charger so that you can avoid it. Fortunately past Eric charged the battery after their last activation, so the RFI didn’t last long. I hunted a couple parks while I finished my coffee.

I packed up my car and headed out to US-1596, Seneca Creek State Park. This park is shaping up to be my, “I just want to go to the park” park. It is easy to get to, and during the off season, there is no entrance fee.

Getting to a new park in Maryland is starting to take planning. I’ve activated all the accessible parks within 1 hour of me. If I just wanted to drop by a park, make some QSOs, and go home, it’ll likely be US-1596.

I stopped and got a chicken sandwich at Sheetz. While I was finishing up my lunch it started to drizzle. Dang it, this activation might not happen… I went to the park anyway. The afternoon was supposed to be clear, so maybe it’ll pass.

When I got to the park it continued to drizzle. Seneca Creek has covered pavilions, but they are by permit only. The park was very empty and there was no chance anyone was renting one of these. I walked over to check it out.

The snow on the ground was still pretty thick. I am glad I wore the waterproof boots. I had to walk past a roped off area to get to the pavilions. These pavilions were definitely not being rented out.

The shelter would work to keep my radio dry, but I was worried that the rangers would kick me out. I didn’t want my activation to be cut short as I sulked and took down my antenna under the scornful eye of a ranger. So I guess I was putting an antenna on the roof and operating from my dirty car today. It was the right decision because as I was setting up the radio, a group of rangers pulled up in their trucks and had some kind of meeting in front of me. I’m sure I would have been kicked out of the pavilion if I was using it.

Perhaps I should start notifying them that I will be operating from the park so that they wouldn’t have to waste their time checking out why some weirdo is putting an antenna on their car.

Some folks on Mastodon asked if I’d try activating 40m. I promised that I would give it a try. The only antennas I had with me that could do 40m was the EFHW and Gabil. I considered the EFHW, however the parking lot was arranged in a way that would require me to drape the wire across the road. The Gabil it is then. I was worried this little antenna wouldn’t work well on 40m. It seemed to work, but the reports were all over the place. When I was hunting in the morning, the band was a little iffy. I chalked up my reports to be due to the wrath of an angry sun god. Even with the band conditions, I was able to get 11 contacts in about 20 minutes. After I made enough contacts to activate the park, I decided I’d give 10m a go again. The last time I activated 10m was in this park with my technicians license back in April. I didn’t have much luck back then on 10m, but that could have been from inexperience. Let’s see if a season of activation gave me the experience to has success on 10m.

I have a friend on Mastodon that lives in Colorado. I was hoping that I might be able to get out to him on 10m. I tuned the Gabil to 10m and gave it a go. The reports weren’t great, so I thought I’d give the 17’ a chance to shine.

I could make it resonant on 10m without a coil. I shrunk it to be a 1/4 wave antenna. In retrospect, I could have tuned it for a 20m 1/4 wave and had a 1/2 wave 10m antenna. I guess all that “experience” didn’t teach me too much. That 1/4 10m tuning didn’t do much better than the Gabil. My reports were still pretty low. 51s and 53s. I guess it is just the band or maybe the radials. I should have tuned it as a 10m 1/2 wave. You live and you learn. I like doing these activation retros, because it helps me think about what I could have done better.

It really felt like pulling teeth to get 10 contacts on 10m. They seemed to have been all on the West Coast. I thought maybe my air waves were hitting the water waves. It was also only 11am on the West Coast. Perhaps folks just weren’t on the radio yet. Despite the struggle, I got ten more contacts in 20 minutes. I wasn’t ready to go home yet, so I thought I’d give 15m a go. I don’t think I have ever been on 15m. I might have made some on FT8 while messing around with the ATU at home, but never at a park. This was my first go around on 15m, but I figured if I had the 17’ whip up I might as well try.

I called CQ a few times with no responses. I was starting to think that 15m was going to be a bust, but then I heard, “November Lima Seven Victor”. It was a station from Alaska! My first AK contact! They gave me a 22, I gave them a 53. Oh, this is going to be an exciting band.

It was definitely an interesting band. Some local contacts, some in the Midwest. After about 7 minutes, I got 9 more contacts. The final contact was a 3 operator park to park activation that I struggled to log. After that frustration with the logger, I decided it was time to pack it up. This was a very Park to Park heavy activation. Out of 30 QSO, 11 of them were in parks. It was a “Support Your Parks” weekend after all. I expected more pile-ups because of the event. I don’t think I got any. To be quite honest, the contacts were pretty spaced apart. This could be all because I was using bands other than 20m. I didn’t even attempt 20m because I assumed the band would be packed with activators.

I had two parks that were multiple operators. I need to practice logging multiple operators. It was cumbersome with Smart Logger. When I save the contact, Smart Logger clears the fields. This makes entering a second operator harder because I have to find time to re-enter the data. During a rushed subsequent operator contact, it sent me into a minor panic on how to do that.

After I got home, I discovered that there is a clone QSO button under the gear icon. That would have made entering multiple operators easier. I’ll have to give that a try during my next activation to see if that streamlines things.

I really like Smart Logger. Its ability to be nearly fully operational without an Internet connection is great. It’ll look up parks and look up call signs completely offline. It is pretty amazing.

I like that it is browser based. I can use it on my Laptop, my phone, and my tablet and the logs are all seamlessly synced between the devices. I don’t have to worry about moving ADIF files around.

After I packed things up, I thought I’d take a stroll through the woods of The Blair Witch. The snow from a couple of weeks ago had not melted, so it was quite beautiful in the park. I am really glad I made it out to the park. I would have missed this experience if I stayed home.

I’ll leave you will some beautiful shots I took while hiking the trail near my car. I hope this encourages you to get out to the park even if the conditions are looking dire.