Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Monday, November 18, 2024
Testing my MTR-3B field kit before a weekend of SOTA (spoiler: that never happened) by Thomas Witherspoon
Two days before Hurricane Helene impacted western North Carolina (Wednesday, September 25, 2024), I stopped by the Blue Ridge Parkway for a quick POTA activation to thoroughly test my MTR-3B self-contained field kit.
This was crucial, as I had plans to conduct multiple SOTA activations during the 2024 W4 SOTA campout in north Georgia the following week. (Unfortunately, due to Hurricane Helene, I had to cancel those plans.)
The importance of a full field trial
This is something I always emphasize during presentations about SOTA, POTA, or traveling with radio: don’t assume your field kit is complete and fully functional—you must test it to know for sure.
A field test confirms two things:
- You have everything you need inside your kit to complete an activation.
- Everything in the kit actually works.
When preparing for something like a SOTA weekend or a family vacation, I usually deploy each of my field kits either at home or a local park. I power up the radio and make at least one contact, essentially mimicking a real activation. If everything works, I know the kit is good to go!
This simple process is an incredibly effective way to ensure your gear is ready for action.
Blue Ridge Parkway (US-3788)
That Wednesday, I squeezed in the activation between errands in town. The Folk Art Center near Highway 70 in East Asheville is the perfect spot—it’s a quick and easy detour.
Or at least it was before Helene. Now, with two bridges damaged—especially one major bridge on Highway 70—the two-minute detour to the Folk Art Center has turned into a 15-25 minute round trip, depending on traffic. (You never realize how essential bridges are until they’re gone!)
I parked near the picnic area, grabbed my gear, and headed for my usual picnic table setup spot.
Unfortunately, it was absolutely crawling with ants—likely a result of spilled juice or food. I moved to the other picnic table in the same area.
Testing the MTR-3B Kit in Real-Time
In the video, you’ll see me use every piece of gear in the field kit, except for the “bare bones” arborist throw line and weight. Since I had my other Weaver throw line kit with me, I used it to save time. I’d recently tested and re-packed the throw line in the MTR-3B kit, so I already knew it was in working order.
Setup was quick and easy. Once I connected the antenna and powered up the radio, I used my N6ARA Tiny SWR Meter to confirm I had a good match—since the MTR-3B LCD lacks an SWR meter. Fortunately, I had a perfect impedance match.
Time to play radio!
Gear (MTR-3B Self-Contained Field Kit)
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Radio
Watertight Case
Antenna System
- K6ARK No-Counterpoise 40M EFHW
- N6ARA MiniSWR 20-80M
- Bare-Bones Arborist throw line kit: 25 meters of Marlow KF1050 Excel 2mm Throwline, and one Weaver 8 or 10oz weight
Key
Battery
Logging
Audio
- Sennheiser earbuds with in-line analog volume control (discontinued 1999 model)
Backpack
Camera and Audio Recording
- DJI OSMO 4 action camera with Joby Telepod Sport Tripod
- Sony ICD-FX312 Digital Recorder ($20 thrift store find)
On The Air
I started calling CQ POTA on 20 meters, and within minutes, the contacts started rolling in. Woo-hoo!
I worked my first 10 stations in just 10 minutes, including two Park-to-Park contacts with WJ0L and N5ILQ. It doesn’t get much better than that.
I kept going for another 11 minutes, logging 10 more stations for a total of 20 contacts in just 21 minutes.
Not bad for three watts!
Thank you, hunters!
Logs
QSO Map
Here’s what this three-watt activation looked like when plotted out on a QSO Map (click map to enlarge):
Activation Video
Here’s my real-time, real-life video of the entire activation. As with all of my videos, I don’t edit out any parts of the on-air activation time. In addition, I have monetization turned off on YouTube, although that doesn’t stop them from inserting ads before and after my videos.
Note that Patreon supporters can watch and even download this video 100% ad-free through Vimeo on my Patreon page:
Click here to view on YouTube.
Reflections
While preparing this video and field report, I couldn’t help but reflect on how profoundly Helene has impacted our lives—my family, friends, and community. As I mention in the video, we were braced for flash flooding and up to a foot of rain, but we never anticipated experiencing a 1-in-1,000-year rain and flood event. The scale of the damage has been overwhelming, and recovery will take time.
That said, there’s hope. The Folk Art Center has reopened, and I’m already planning my next activation there—a small but meaningful step toward returning to normalcy.
Things are improving bit by bit, and I’m grateful for your patience as I work to catch up. I plan to share another long update later this week, time permitting. Free time remains scarce, and I appreciate your understanding if my replies to correspondence are delayed.
Thank you
Thank you for joining me during this activation!
I hope you enjoyed the field report and activation video as much as I enjoyed creating them.
I also want to thank you for all your kind messages and comments. While I read and appreciate every one of them, my time to respond is quite limited right now. Please know that your support means the world to me, even if I can’t reply personally at the moment. As things settle down, I look forward to being more available. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Of course, I’d also like to send a special thanks to those of you who have been supporting the site and channel through Patreon, and the Coffee Fund. While not a requirement, as my content will always be free, I really appreciate the support.
As I mentioned before, the Patreon platform connected to Vimeo makes it possible for me to share videos that are not only 100% ad-free but also downloadable for offline viewing. The Vimeo account also serves as a third backup for my video files.
Thanks for spending part of your day with me!
Have a brilliant week ahead!
Cheers & 72,
Thomas (K4SWL)
“Precedent…Doesn’t Matter Anymore”: Democrats Dispense with Pretenses and Principles in Pennsylvania by JONATHAN TURLEY
Below is my column in The Hill on the growing distemper on the left after the loss of both houses and the White House in this election. In Pennsylvania, the politics of despair has stripped away all principle and pretense. There is a concerted effort to reelect Sen. Bob Casey by any means necessary. Even the Washington Post is now criticizing the effort.
Here is the column:
“People violate laws any time they want.”
Those words, shrugging off an alleged unlawful move last week, did not come from some Chicago gangbanger or Washington car thief. Those words of wisdom came from Democrat Commissioner Diane Marseglia in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
They came in response to the fact that the Democratic majority on the election commission had decided to ignore a binding state Supreme Court ruling in an attempt to engineer the election of Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
Rather than prompting a degree of introspection, the loss of both houses of Congress and the White House has had a curious effect on many Democrats, dropping any pretense of protecting democracy over partisanship.
Despite polls showing that the public trusted former president Donald Trump more than Vice President Harris in combatting threats to democracy, Democrats made “saving democracy” the thrust of this election.
The polls reflected a certain common sense of the public when harangued with predictions from President Biden, Harris and a host of politicians and pundits that this would likely be our last election. Few believed that after over two centuries as the most stable and successful democracy in history, all three branches would collapse in unison and embrace dictatorship. Even fewer believed the predictions of the rounding up of homosexuals, journalists and political critics for camps in what some described as an American Third Reich.
American voters are not chumps and what they saw were strikingly anti-democratic positions from those claiming to be the defenders of democracy, including:
• Seeking to strip Trump from ballots under an unfounded theory rejected unanimously by the Supreme Court.
• Fighting to block opponents of Biden from ballots in the primary and general elections.
• Suing to keep Robert F. Kennedy on ballots after his withdrawal in swing states, in order to confuse voters and reduce the vote for Trump.
• Calling for blocking dozens of incumbent GOP officials and legislators from ballots as “insurrectionists.”
• “Protecting democracy” through the most extensive censorship in history and the blacklisting of opponents.
• Engaging in open and raw lawfare in the prosecutions of Trump in places like New York.
Each of these efforts ultimately failed to stop Trump and was opposed by a majority of voters even before the election. So now, Democrats are dropping the pretense for open partisanship.
That was evident in Bucks County, when a motion arose to reject a challenge to count provisional ballots, including undated or invalidly dated mail ballots.
It should have been easy. To its credit, the majority-Democratic Pennsylvania Supreme Court had already refused a Democratic push to change the rules shortly before the election and to ignore the plain language of the election laws.
In ordering the rejection of ballots without dates, Justice Kevin Doughtery (joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd) wrote a concurrence declaring “This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election.’ We said those carefully chosen words only weeks ago. Yet they apparently were not heard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation unfolds.”
It is apparently still not being heard. In the Bucks County hearing, Marseglia spoke as she and Democratic Board chairman Robert Harvie, Jr., dismissed the earlier rulings in order to accept ballots without required signatures or mandatory dates. She declared that she would not second the motion to enforce the rulings “mostly because I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws any time they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”
That was a lot of words to say that she does not really seem to care if this is lawful. For his part, Casey has shown the same abandon as he clings to his Senate seat at any cost.
That cost, in this case, was an alliance with Marc Elias, the controversial Democratic lawyer at the center of the infamous Steele Dossier scandal. Elias has been sanctioned in court and criticized for his work to flip elections. He is known for baselessly blaming voting machine errors for electing Republicans and pushing gerrymandering plans rejected by the courts as anti-democratic.
Casey is unlikely to change the result without counting defective or challenged ballots. Fortunately, law and precedent “does matter in this country.” There are still officials who can transcend their political preferences to maintain the rule of law. After the last presidential election, many Trump appointees ruled against the former president, and many Democratic judges rejected the effort to strip Trump from ballots.
That does not mean that Democrats who value the weaponization of law will not continue to embrace lawfare warriors like New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).
Others will use the rage of these times as a license to ignore legal and ethical obligations altogether. They are arguably the saddest manifestation of our political discord. They are people who have not just lost faith in our system but in themselves. They have become untethered from any defining principle for their own conduct. This election has left them adrift in a sea of moral and legal relativism, with only their rage as a following wind. They cling to that rage as reason vanishes like a distant shore.
For the rest of us, there is work to be done as a nation committed to the rule of law. We cannot win at any cost when that cost is the very thing that defines us.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The Menace of Tariffs - LewRockwell
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Socialism: Evil and Stupid by Dan Mitchell
In 2016, I wrote that socialism was both evil and stupid.
Today, let’s look at a practical example, starting with this video about Norwegian taxation that is both funny and tragic.
The tragic part of the video is that it is true.
Norway’s leftist government imposed a big increase in wealth taxation, which is causing successful people to flee the nation.
The socialists in Norway (like their counterparts in France) are upset that their intended victims are not being cooperative. Indeed, the Socialist Party even has a “Wall of Shame” identifying these tax-motivated expatriates.
One of the people on that Wall of Shame decided to tell his story.
He explains that he loves his country but he could not remain in Norway because his annual tax bill was more than 100 percent of his yearly income. Several times more than 100 percent!
By the way, it is very easy to wind up with 100 percent-plus tax rates with wealth taxation.
I showed the math a couple of years ago, and I’ve also cited real-world examples from France and the Netherlands.
There are two main takeaways from today’s column.
- First, Norway is lucky to have lots of oil, which helps to offset the damage of the aforementioned crazy tax policy.
- Second, Americans can breath a sign of relief that we won’t be subject to the backdoor wealth tax proposed by Kamala Harris.
P.S. I’ve joked about 100 percent tax rates in America, but let’s hope that never becomes reality.
P.P.S. If you want another real-life warning about socialism, click here. Or here. Or here.
The Great Dangers of Statins - LewRockwell
Friday, November 15, 2024
Navigating the Fiscal Storm: A New Course for U.S. National Defense - LewRockwell
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Freedom and Property: Hans-Hermann Hoppe Talks About the Essence of Anarcho-capitalism - LewRockwell
Six Weeks and 7300 Miles: Activating on the Road from Thomas Witherspoon
Many thanks to Brian (K3ES) who shares the following guest post:
Six Weeks and 7300 Miles: Activating on the Road
by Brian (K3ES)
This article gives an overview of a driving trip across the United States and back that included activation of Parks on the Air (POTA) entities in 21 states along the way. We left our home in northwest Pennsylvania on September 18, 2024, and returned on Halloween. During our time away, we spent about 3 weeks driving and 3 weeks visiting with my parents at their home near San Francisco, CA. With such an epic scope, I plan to write several articles about various POTA activations completed during our trip. In fact, I completed one article early, and it has already been published on QRPer.com: K3ES’ Unplanned activation of Yellowstone National Park. This report provides the background and a broad overview of our trip.
The Players
My mom and dad have made the Bay Area of California their home for 40 years. They left Pennsylvania on their own great adventure in the mid-1980s, while I was attending graduate school in Pittsburgh. Dad accepted a transfer, so they packed up the house, committed their belongings to a moving company, and drove their car across the country in 4-1/2 days to meet the movers. I was able to go along on that driving trip (I returned to Pittsburgh by airline), but I have always wanted to do it again, spending a bit more time to see the sights.
My dad is a hero to me. I have never been able to match his work ethic or his ability to plan and execute projects. From home repairs to electronics projects, Dad was always working on something, and generally had several projects going at once. His workshop was well equipped, and he spent a lot of time there. Now, approaching his 90th birthday, Dad has been slowing down. He is no longer able to make use of the shop, but he remembers how important it has been to him. So, we planned this trip to help Mom clean out the shop, and to let Dad see his trustworthy tools moving to a new home where they can be used and appreciated.
Having retired in 2021, my calendar is more open than it was during 31 years of employment. I am grateful for this. My wife, Becky, and I were able to arrange other commitments to give ourselves time for an adventure. So the two of us packed the back seat of my 2015 Toyota Tundra pickup truck for six weeks of travel, being careful to leave seat space for POTA dog Molly. We kept the truck bed empty, so that space would be available to bring home tools and shop supplies from California. This would be our opportunity to travel across the American west. Forty years after my original cross-country driving trip, I would finally get to stop and see sights along the way.
The Plan
In another article published on QRPer.com earlier this year: K3ES Travels: Ten Days of QRP with Compromised Antennas, I explained Becky’s great idea: that I should activate all 50 of our United States. At that point, I had activated parks in only 6 states. By the time we left on this trip, my total had inched up to 11 activated states. So our goal would be to activate as many of the western states as possible. Ohio, Indiana, Washington, Oregon, and California were already in the done column, courtesy of some previous travel, but that left a lot of territory to cover.
Since we were leaving in September, we were confident that the weather would be favorable for driving across the northern tier states. Leaving California to return home in late October, we knew that snow was possible in the mountain passes, so we planned to take a more southerly route. What remained was to adjust the route to cover all of the states along or near our intended travel path. In total, including a side-trip to activate a new California park during the Autumn Support Your Parks event, we traveled 7300 miles: 3800 miles traveling westward, 200 miles for the California side-trip, and 3300 miles traveling eastward on the return home.
When we left our driveway, we had the broad outline of the route. We also had an idea of some of the parks that I might activate on the trip. We did not have a detailed itinerary. In fact, though we knew the basic route, and we had reserved rooms for only the first two nights. I encouraged Becky to leave things a bit open-ended, despite her penchant for careful planning. This was kind of important, because I would be doing all the driving. Don’t get me wrong. Becky is an excellent driver, it is just that she is intimidated by my truck. We needed its cargo capacity, but I became the sole driver. So we needed to have the flexibility to stop sooner, or press on longer, depending on my ability to continue driving safely.
After stopping for the night, we usually set our travel goals for the next day or two. If we were tired, we would cut the next day’s travel shorter. If not, we might decide to go further. We also settled on the parks we would visit during the next day’s travels. Even then, we allowed ourselves to make changes if an opportunity presented itself, and more than once, it did.
Keeping our travel plans a bit loose worked really well for us, particularly after we discovered that almost all hotels welcomed Molly as a guest (for a nominal pet fee, of course). We had expected more difficulty, and were very pleasantly surprised that nearly every hotel along the way was “pet friendly”. The additional freedom let us alter our plans at times, like adding Yellowstone National Park to the travel route, when we had originally expected to miss it.
On our return trip, we realized that stopping for a park activation worked really well as a break during long days of driving. We could stretch, eat lunch, take Molly for a walk, and CW would help me to clear my head before the remainder of the day’s drive. In fact, we scheduled additional activations in IL, IN, and OH for just that reason, even though I had previously activated parks in those states.
The Parks
In the end, I completed 34 activations of 32 distinct POTA entities during the trip. I activated in 18 new states during our travels, and finished with 29 of 50 states activated. When I completed my activation of Mesa Verde National Park, I was within the activation zone of the Park Point SOTA summit (W0C/SJ-019), yielding a simultaneous SOTA/POTA activation. The following Table lists the activations completed during our trip. Before leaving, I had already activated OH, IN, and CA, so they do not count among the 18 new states.
Table: Parks Activated During the Trip
| Date | State | Park ID | Park Name | QSOs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/19/24 | IL | US-4099 | Moraine View SP | 12 |
| 09/19/24 | IA | US-2311 | Pikes Peak SP | 27 |
| 09/20/24 | WI | US-1471 | Perrot SP | 11 |
| 09/20/24 | MN | US-2466 | Afton SP | 14 |
| 09/23/24 | ND | US-5748 | Fort Abercrombie SHS | 27 |
| 09/23/24 | ND | US-4239 | North Country Trail NST (2-fer with US-5748) | 27 |
| 09/24/24 | SD | US-0850 | Minuteman Missile NHS | 23 |
| 09/25/24 | SD | US-0005 | Badlands NP | 11 |
| 09/25/24 | SD | US-7487 | Buffalo Gap NGL | 34 |
| 09/26/24 | SD | US-0786 | Mount Rushmore NM | 11 |
| 09/26/24 | SD | US-4524 | Black Hills NF | 22 |
| 09/27/24 | SD | US-0786 | Mount Rushmore NM | 49 |
| 09/27/24 | NE | US-7478 | Oglala NGL | 18 |
| 09/27/24 | WY | US-0920 | Devils Tower NM | 15 |
| 09/28/24 | MT | US-4502 | Custer Gallatin NF | 16 |
| 09/29/24 | WY | US-0070 | Yellowstone NP | 11 |
| 09/29/24 | ID | US-4475 | Caribou Targhee NF | 13 |
| 09/30/24 | UT | US-3075 | Great Salt Lake SP | 11 |
| 10/01/24 | NV | US-2640 | Washoe Lake SP | 12 |
| 10/19/24 | CA | US-0651 | Point Reyes NS | 11 |
| 10/24/24 | AZ | US-0030 | Grand Canyon NP | 33 |
| 10/25/24 | AZ | US-0057 | Petrified Forest NP | 18 |
| 10/26/24 | CO | US-0051 | Mesa Verde NP | 23 |
| 10/26/24 | CO | W0C/SJ-019 | Park Point SOTA Summit (joint with US-0051) | 23 |
| 10/27/24 | NM | US-0933 | Fort Union NM | 17 |
| 10/27/24 | NM | US-4579 | Santa Fe Trail NHT (2-fer with US-0933) | 17 |
| 10/27/24 | OK | US-7481 | Rita Blanca NGL | 14 |
| 10/28/24 | KS | US-9191 | Pawnee Rock SHS | 19 |
| 10/28/24 | KS | US-4579 | Santa Fe Trail NHT (2-fer with US-9191) | 19 |
| 10/29/24 | MO | US-3345 | Confederate Memorial SHS | 14 |
| 10/29/24 | MO | US-3356 | Mark Twain Birthplace SHS | 14 |
| 10/30/24 | IL | US-4097 | Kickapoo SRA | 17 |
| 10/30/24 | IN | US-10247 | Lawrence Creek SNR | 23 |
| 10/30/24 | IN | US-2256 | Fort Harrison SP (2-fer with US-10247) | 23 |
| 10/31/24 | OH | US-3515 | Lake Milton SP | 30 |
| Shading denotes my first activation in the indicated state. |
Activation Experience
One of the amazing things about our beautiful country is that each state has a seemingly different character than all of the others. While there can be similarity, topography, geography, climate, and vegetation combine to make something unique. From a POTA activator’s perspective, this uniqueness means that you must be ready to deploy antennas using a variety of different techniques. Living in Pennsylvania (Penn’s Woods) means that I am able to find a tree at almost any location where I choose to activate. This is definitely not the case in many other states.
Similarly, the number of people present in a park can bias antenna options. For example, in the highly visited National Parks, I chose to use my stealthiest antenna deployment options – consciously sacrificing gain to keep my operation invisible. I took with me, and used: several different antennas, my arborist throw-line kit, and a selection of telescoping masts. The tiny AX1 antenna gave me a very stealthy option, when needed, and it pulled in contacts like a champ.
Because most of my park activations were fit into a travel day, I tried to keep them short. I worked to get a minimum of 11 QSOs at each park, but I tried not to call QRT when there were hunters still actively trying to make contact. While the 20m band has been hit and miss for me in the past, it worked extremely well on this trip. In most cases, I completed the entire activation on 20m.
I guess I should note that my style for field operations is to keep my gear small and light, so that it can serve me in a variety of settings: from activating in the truck, to picnic table operation, to hiking to more remote sites that lack developed infrastructure. Two choices help me to meet the small and light objective. First, I operate at 5 watts or less, which enables an efficient transceiver to operate for a long time on a small, light battery. Second, I operate using CW mode, which often lets me choose small, light transceivers. CW also gives me a more effective signal at QRP power levels. With a set of earbuds, I can reduce the audio signature of my operations to practically nil. This significantly improves operational stealth.
Gear
Note: All Amazon and eBay links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.
- Elecraft KX2
- SideKX end-panels and cover for the KX2
- Bioenno 3 Ah LiFePO4 battery
- Elecraft AX1 antenna
- Elecraft AXE-1 40m antenna extender for the AX1 Antenna
- ProAudio Engineering AM1-2 clamp-on antenna mount
- Maxpedition Fatty organizer pouch
- Tufteln EFRW antenna with 35 ft radiator and 17 ft counterpoise
- Packtenna EFRW antenna with 71 ft radiator
- 15 ft RG316 feedline with BNC male connectors at each end
- 2 ft, 3 ft, and 5 ft homebrew RG316 feedline with BNC male connectors at each end
- Homebrew VK3IL-designed, pressure paddles
- Generic earbuds
- Rite in the Rain No. 946 notepads
- Pentel Twist-Erase mechanical pencil in 0.9mm
- US M7 Army Light Weight Service Mask pouch: WWII vintage, canvas construction
- Packtenna 10m Fiberglass Antenna Mast
- Goture 6.3m Carbon Fiber Telescopic Fishing Pole
- Arborist kit with 2mm Marlow Excel line and Petzel 9 oz (250g) throw bag and Tom Bihn Small Travel Tray stuff sack
More to Come
Having activated so many different POTA entities across the country during this trip, this article barely scratches the surface. Since I am not the best at remembering to take pictures during my activations, I was fortunate to have Becky along as designated photographer. With her pictures in hand, I plan to write several more field reports to give QRPer.com readers a more complete sense of the experience. Some upcoming reports will undoubtedly focus on the spectacular scenery at particular parks that we visited. Some reports will focus on antenna choices and configuration, with an eye toward antenna performance during the activations. I am honestly not yet sure what other topics may suggest themselves, so stay tuned.
One thing I can say with certainty. Even three weeks of travel through more than 20 states leaves me awed by how much more there is to be seen and done than there remains time to do it. This adventure has created resolve to do more trips like this, not only to continue our quest to activate 50 states, but to see more of the states we have already visited.
Best 73 de Brian – K3ES, XYL Becky, and POTA Dog Molly
A Few Pictures from the Road
We arrived home on Halloween. Kindly neighbors watched over our house while we were gone, and they even decorated the porch for the holiday.