Go activate this park!  My activation here was very short, because the real reason for this trip was a family vacation, so I had to sneak in my contacts after everyone else was tucked into bed.
     Why should you activate it?  Well - for one, the park is open 24 hours so you can operate as long as you want.  Secondly, this park boasts the tallest coastal mountain on the eastern seaboard - and you can drive to the top - Plus it's an island, so if you're into the islands on the air thing it has that going for it too.  Think about it like this:

• You can camp in the park if you want 24 hour fun - Great!
• Reasonably tall mountain (Cadillac Mountain)  - Great!
• Easy Access. Drive right to the top, and park at one of the many convenient pull-offs, or right at the parking lot at the summit - Great!
• You're surrounded by salt water - also Great!

Because of these reasons, I can't believe that my activation was only the 8th one from this park so far!

     Part of the reason that I want you to activate this park is so that you can take advantage of these things - I wasn't able to for a couple reasons, so my contacts ended up being right inside the park on Seal Cove Road, right down the road from the place we stayed during our trip.
     The main reason I had to do my activations this way was because I wasn't in my car - halfway to Acadia my brand new car broke down and had to be towed, so we finished the trip in a rental.  I pulled the radio stuff out of my car so that I could still activate, but it wasn't my normal arrangement, and I had some equipment trouble to boot because of the shuffle, but I still managed a successful activation (We picked our car back up on the way home - that's another story for different blog though...)
     I made a few contacts on 40, but for some reason at one point on 40 something completely detuned my antenna and I started getting all kinds of RF in my audio.  I switched to 20 meters and changed microphones and was able to make a few more contacts before needing to call it a night - thanks to all those that worked me!

     Aside from the radio fun, Acadia is just an awesome park!  This wasn't our first visit there, because we really like the area.  If you go in the off-season it's easy to get around and park.  If you go during peak tourist season consider yourself warned!

     One of my favorite things to visit in Acadia is Thunder Hole.  Basically, it is a "hole" in the rocks, and when the tide is coming in the waves crashing into the hole make some impressive booming sounds - hence the name Thunder Hole.  I also like it because every time we go there and I see this sign, it brings out the 12 year old boy in me:

      Once I get the giggles out of my system after seeing this sign, I can really enjoy the sights from all over the park.  You have to visit yourself to really appreciate it, but here are just a few of my pictures from this trip:

     You're still reading?!  Why aren't you already packing your gear to head out and activate Acadia?!

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     My work got me reasonably close to another National Park recently, and I finished my meetings in time to get in an activation at Saugus Iron Works.  

     According to the National Parks on the Air website, my activation will have been the 9th activation at this park.  In addition to only 8 prior activations, there have only been 246 contacts with this park.  While I didn't add many to that count, I did make enough contacts to earn the activation.  Although I didn't have many contacts, I did contact more countries in this activation than I have in any other single activation.  In all my previous activations I had contacts in the US, and maybe 1 DX (for the non-ham readers, DX is the abbreviation we use for a contact outside the country.)  During this activation I made contact with stations in:

• The United States
• The Czech Republic
• Germany
• Ireland
• Spain

     Considering how challenging the day was, I was pleasantly surprised by this little tidbit when I realized it!

     One of the things that I think is awesome about National Parks on the Air, is visiting the parks!  I poked around Saugus before I even started playing radio - part of that time was a nice chat with Ranger Mike, who definitely knew his stuff about this park!  The short version, is that these iron works started because the Puritan settlers needed iron tools for their work and lives.  The Iron Works went through several phases of success and failure (which included some tense interactions between the Puritan settlers and the non-puritan workers, some of which were prisoners of war!)  Eventually, the Iron Works was closed, and lost to time.  In the 1940's archaeologists began excavations, and in the 50's they rebuilt the Iron Works into the site it is today.  

     Because most ham radio operators are technology geeks, I'd say every ham in the area needs to check this place out - what's cooler than historical technology!

     After poking around, I decided to start playing radio!  Before I left for the business trip, I had actually thrown some temporary stuff into the car.  Part of the semi-secret project that I'm working on (there will be either a series of posts, or one massive post on that project when it is done) involves some of these bits and pieces, so I figured I'd use them on this trip to test them out.  This consisted of a pair of big batteries in the trunk (110ah total capacity) and a couple other tidbits.  

     It worked out great because I was able to do my activation without the need to sit in a running car!  Here's the equipment temporarily thrown in my car - stay tuned for the actual project that this stuff will ultimately be used for.

     Even though the equipment was working out - the contacts weren't coming.  It was raining cats and dogs, so I was just using the hamstick that is normally on my car, and even after a couple hours, I had only netted 9 contacts - 1 short of what I needed!  When I was getting frustrated to the point of almost giving up, the rain finally let up.  I took advantage of the break in the rain to take a short bio break, and set up my buddipole Antenna.  I also hooked up my computer to switch over to digital modes.

     If you're curious about my digital setup in my car, check out this post from March when I got myself set up to be able to mobile digital in Shenandoah National Park - this is a temporary arrangement, which will eventually be integrated into the "secret project."  

     Once I switched over to the buddipole, and digital modes, the contacts flooded in!  I made as many PSK31 contacts in the last 30 minutes before the parked closed, as I did in the 2 hours leading up to that!  That means I had enough contacts to count, plus some for insurance (I already uploaded my logs!)​

     I have now successfully activated 5 different parks, and I've had 1 complete failure (Delaware Water Gap.)  For those keeping score, this puts me in a tie with a bunch of other people for 160th place out of 660 for park activators.  I'm assuming the people leading the charge have multiple activations at the same park, but I am going to make it a personal goal to try to activate as many different parks (without repeating!) as my travels in 2016 will allow.  Maybe the ARRL will add a 3rd point category for unique activations - if they did, where would you rank?  Leave a comment and let me know!

Seems like every activation gets harder for me :-( 

     I only had a short time for this, but band conditions seemed completely dead; not a single contact in the short time I called CQ.  I tested everything out and my equipment is fine...just a bad day, but heck, a bad day playing with radios is still better than a lot of the alternatives!

     Even though I didn't get to make any contacts on my very brief attempt at an impromptu activation, I did snap a couple pictures and a GPS screenshot. Being in a valley, I figured my odds might not be great, but I figured if I looked for signs like "Scenic Lookout" I might be able to find a place with some elevation.  As it was, I made a sudden turn onto Chestnut Hill Road, because it looked like a steep climb, and the word "Hill" in the name seemed promising.  This road is barely a road, and even includes warning signs like "road not maintained" and "travel at your own risk."  Almost as if by fate however, at the crest of the hill was a small pull-off where I stopped to try and make my contacts.  If only the bands had gotten the memo that fate was supposed to be on my side....

     My local club, the Red Rose Repeater Association, is having an event today!  We are setting up at Welsh Mountain Community Park as a way to play on the radio, participate in the ARRL Rookie Roundup, and generally have some radio fun.  Pull it up on google maps and come join us from 2pm - 8pm, EST.  One of the club members will be monitoring the repeater if you need a talk in:

 Freq: 147.015     offset: +0.6     PL:118.8     Echolink Node: 380019

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     This activation happened when I was on one of my trips for work.  I was starting out at our Cleveland, Ohio office, and then finishing up the trip in our Pittsburg PA office.  Since Cleveland is about a 5 hour drive my home, I drove out there, and then stopped to do this activation on the drive between the two offices.  I stopped for a quick photo op as I entered the park....little did I know what the afternoon was going to bring...

     The area in the park where I decided to set up was at the Wetmore Trailhead.  I picked that location, because based on the maps I could find on the park's web site it seemed like a decent place where I could park my car, set up my Buddiepole beside it, and operate similar to the way I did at Minuteman National Park.  I also thought it was a good spot because based on elevation maps I looked at, it also seemed like this parking area sat at a relatively high area, and it had bathrooms (well, a seat over a hole in the ground, in one of the new style of "composting" toilets that are in a lot of the parks now.)  

     I set up my equipment in my traditional method, except instead of a standard flat dipole I set up my Buddiepole as an inverted V.  No reason in particular - just figured i'd do it that way to see how it played.  

     When I set it up it didn't tune with the same taps on the coils that it normally does, so I assumed that this had to do with the different impedance at the feedpoint because of inverted V format.  I made the adjustments to get decent match (using my RigExpert AA-54 analyzer), I started transmitting and.......nothing.  I called for a looooong time and got no responses.  
     I reached the point where I was going to give up, but figured I'd try a different band first.  When I started to re-tune for the other band I got some weird fluctuations on my analyzer, so I started fiddling with connections, and actually changed out my coax and presto - things started tuning up like normal.  Conditions still weren't great, but at least I started making some contacts!
     All of this led me to what many of you probably already knew.  Cheap coax goes bad fast.  I had grabbed some coax when the Radio Shack stores were going out of business, and this is what I had been using with this antenna.  I now have some decent RG-8X on it's way from DX Engineering, to replace the Radio Shack stuff in my portable kit.  Lesson learned.

What ham radio lessons have you learned the hard way?  Leave a comment and let me know!