Here’s a YouTube video of my travels this weekend.
Planning
I’d never attended a Rocky Mountain Ham Radio’s TechFest and received an email about one that was coming up recently. It was to take place in Albuquerque over a weekend that I had free.
I packed a few days worth of clothes in my backpack and then also packed my G90 radio, GoLabs portable battery, my SuperAntenna MP1-C kit, 15 feet of coax just in case, drone batteries and charger and Yeasu FT5D HT. I already had 20 and 40 meter hamsticks as well as a 2/440 NMO antenna on a magmount and a CB mount in the car.
I also printed off a repeater map as well as a map of parks on the air parks in New Mexico.
Road Trip Down
I headed out around 7:45AM and didn’t run into much traffic on I-25 in Denver. It was overcast for much of the time and it even snowed a little in Colorado Springs. The sun came out south of the Springs and by the time I got south of Pueblo, it was time to refill myself and the car. I stretched my legs in Trinidad, got coffee, and then fueled-up.
First POTA in NM
After I got into New Mexico I headed over to my first POTA activation which was Maxwell National Wildlife Refuge. There wasn’t much wildlife right now but I did find a quiet spot in front of a lake after driving around the dirt roads. I logged 15 QSOs and ate some lunch. It was pretty boring and windy there so I left and continued down I-25.
I continued on south on I-25, passing Santa Fe and some potential POTAs which I would maybe hit on the way back up in a few days. The hotel was pretty nice and located in a neat area. I didn’t know Rt 66 ran by here. The businesses along this stretch looked pretty nostalgic.
It was early afternoon so I decided to go to old town Albuquerque and walk around. I’d purchased a great Ham Radio – themed book the prior year in a bookstore there. Maybe the author wrote another? Here’s her website https://www.patriciasmithwood.com/murder-on-frequency/
Old Towne was pretty dead. A lot of the stores had closed for dinner. I snapped a few pictures of the church and headed to a place I’d not been in a very long time.
After eating a #1 – way too much food for me to handle – I headed off to do a POTA. I drove by a nearby park but the neighborhood looked sketchy. The doors of the park were closed so I’d only be able to park at the roadside, on the park grounds. I decided to nix that idea and head to a different park.
A few minutes later I was at Petroglyphs National Monument. I setup in the parking lot and had about 95 contacts in a short period of time.
TechFest
I woke up and went down to breakfast in the hotel. They had lots for breakfast but I curbed my enthusiasm due to the indescretions of the previous evenings meal.
I drove a mile or 2 to University of New Mexico’s Continuing Education building.
I love being on campus. As an academic spending nearly half my life in academia, being in that setting where students (of all ages) are there for 1 purpose – learning – give me tingles.
The TechFest itself was amazing. The talks were absolutely worth driving down for and seeing in person. I felt out of place because I am not an engineer and these talks were highly technical in nature but given in a way that laymen like me could understand. I hope they release the videos or at least the abstracts. The hams that gave the talks were inspiring to say the least. I was motivated to go home and experiment, myself.
After the TechFest it was time for POTA.
POTA #3
I headed down I25 to Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge. It was closed but there was a parking lot at the entrance so I setup and did a quick activation. We were probably 100 feet from the road so I didn’t want to stick around as it wasn’t very scenic.
It was still early in the evening so I started driving down i25 to my next POTA, until I saw it…The sign said “VERY LARGE ARRAY”. What? A gentleman that helped build it gave an amazing talk that morning, about how solar activity affects ham radio. I didn’t have a clue how far off it was. Surely if there was a sign for it, it couldn’t be that far.
So I turned off, forsaking the next POTA activation. I would drive just far enough to see the array and then quickly turn around. I was already an hour south of ABQ and didn’t want to get in too late, lest I ruin the activations for Sunday on my way home.
I drove and drove and drove. There was very little to see except mountains. Little cell reception on AT&T but hey, I have a HT and a HF radio – I didn’t care that I didn’t have cell service.
After a while driving through stunning scenery I saw them.
I continued on to the Visitors Center which had closed for the day. Stopped when a railroad crossing came and one of the telescopes were near the roadside. I got out to take some pictures and video, absolutely giddy.
The telescopes looked majestic, all pointed at the Heavens, waiting to discover what God chose to reveal to humanity that day.
I took more pictures and sent one to my little nephew in New Jersey who would appreciate this crazy level of science which culminates and seeks to find the answer to the question “Why?”
It was getting pretty chilly and I had to stop taking photos and filming. I really wanted to come back when the visitors center was open, someday.
I got back in the car and went no further. I traveled back east to I-25. I still had plenty of time left in the evening so I headed south on I25 to do a late shift POTA.
Night Shift POTA
I drove east through darkness to Bosque Apache National Wildlife Refuge (NM sure has a lot of them!). It was very dark. I parked near the sign and setup. Band conditions were tough on 20 meters but hey, it was dark and 20 meters were still open. I got 20 contacts and got out of there. The pitch black scared me as didn’t know what wildlife was watching me. I pictured alligators coming out and chewing on my tires or something. Completely silly.
I found I25 and drove north for a little over an hour and hit the hay, thinking about the adventures today.
Sunday
I woke up and went down to breakfast, as per routine. After eating, I walked around the hotel and shot video of the grounds. Then I packed up and left, heading north towards Santa Fe on the back road which I highly recommend.
But first, another side trip.
Instead of turning north to go up the 14 – the tourquoise trail, I went south to do another POTA that was on my printout.
I drove into Cibola National Forest to find a spot to operate from. There was a road that led to the peak so I decided to take it. Now I know that these roads are dirt and really no one should be on it without a high clearance vehicle, but I’ve been up some sketchy roads in my Subaru back home in the front range so I wasn’t spooked.
I turned off-pavement and went up the dirt road, noting places that might be good for POTA. About 1/2 mile from the peak, the ruts were too big for me to get stuck in. Normally, if I saw other people on the trails, I’d continue, because I know if I got stuck, they could pull me out. Alas, I turned around and went to the nearest open area and setup.
I tried 10 or 15 meters with no responses. I didn’t have service so that probably was the problem. I switched to 20 meters and did 20 QSOS, finishing off with a DX contact.
Continuing on, I went north towards Santa Fe and drove past the entrance to Sandia Peak which was closed due to bad weather. Too bad. No SOTA/POTA attempt. I’ll be back!
I stopped in Cerrilos and quickly did an activation at Cerrilos Hills State Park from the parking lot. No one was there when I got there but by the time I was done with my 12 contacts, the parking lot was nearly full. So, not having a State Parks Pass for NM, I vacated my spot and continued north. It seems to be a nice park and I kind of wished I’d paid for a day pass and hiked a little.
I made it into Santa Fe in the early afternoon. Found a parking spot by St. Francis Church and started walking around. I looked around for lunch and went to a cafe that didn’t seem to have tourist prices. The bulk of my afternoon was spent on Canyon Road. That’s where the art is. I walked around the Canyon Road district for a few hours, ogling the art, trying not to get caught up into getting back into oil painting (how many hobbies can one have?).
I headed out of Santa Fe and had an uneventful 6 or so hour drive back home and made it in the door at 9PM and promptly hit the hay.
Post-Trip Observations
My GoLabs battery says its at about 80%. On the tin it say it has about 23 amp hours so this roughly translates to me using 20% of that which is about 4.6 amp hours or very, very roughly 1 amp our per 1 hour POTA activation on my G90 at somewhere between the lower side of 10-20 watts. It only took about 1 1/2 hours to recharge the GoLabs to 100% which also jives since the charger outputs 3.2 amps.
The power usage seems to jive with my other activations recently where I am using a small (high-discharge rate?) drone battery that claims 3ah, 3s geometry at 11.4 nominal volts along with my g90 at a full 20 watts and stopping while I still have juice left. Of course I could just use my in-line cheapo meter to see what and how much I used.
What Went Wrong?
I’m ambivalent about bringing the SuperAntenna over a set of hamsticks. While I really like its compact carrying case that enables you to operate in almost any condition because of unlimited configuration opportunities, for this car trip, it was overkill. Now, had I successfully operated on bands other than 20 meters, I would have felt differently.
I tried to record QSOs without reading the manual. K6ARK talked about recording QSOs but his (cheaper) Sony has a setting for line-in. I purchased the other more expensive one he mentioned but its settings don’t have a line in. When I went to listen to my first activations, I was not impressed with the sound.
Mountains made POTA operation difficult. A vertical’s take off angle is about 5 degrees on paper. This certainly showed when operating in Cerritos for example.
Lack of internet access in some places. This means I wasn’t able to spot myself which made activation more difficult.
Not having a mental list of areas/DX prefixes/etc. When there’s a pileup, I wish I could focus better on if there are DX stations so that I can QSO with them. I can and often do take YLs if I hear them (and they’re always so appreciative because they know I’m being chivalrous around then 100 OMs in the pileup and the OMs always stop transmitting on top of the YL and let her through. I love this courtesy!)
QSO party going on. This made it slightly challenging to operate while also not having internet.
Sketchy neighborhoods. Maybe its me but parts of ABQ looks sketchy, even moreso in the evening when the POTA park is closed and you want to park your car and activate. I literally left one easy park because I feared for my safety. While it was probably all in my head, until this trip, I’ve never locked myself in the car while doing a POTA, out of safety reasons.
Most of the above items are actionable. For example, I should learn how to spot myself using CW or APRS. Or, as I did, depend on the kindness of hunters to spot me. Or maybe I can get out of my car and hold my cellphone up in the air or something.
JunkaPOTAmous keyboard not backlit. It’s a $70 laptop so I can’t complain. But during a few night shifts, I had to use my cars overhead light which I didn’t like – for 2 reasons. 1) not being inconspicuous 2) thoughts in the back of my head about my car battery dieing in the middle of nowhere and being eaten by wolves overnight.
POTA (well, ham radio) for me is spontaneous and 1/2 thought-out so I don’t really like to plan so I don’t want to schedule anything on the POTA website. I use POTA to motivate me to get up and so something (just like geocaching). If I have an endpoint then I’m more likely to do the thing. Unfortunately, I didn’t walk around in any of the parks I POTA’ed so this is a failure. I’m addressing this by getting a small CW radio and learning CW. This way, I walk into the park and find a place to activate the park, rather than sitting in my car.
What Went Right?
Using earbuds instead of relying on the speaker was a game-changer. I was able to pull out very weak signals because I could hear them. This was great because some of them were DX stations like Alaska.
Charging the JunkaPOTAmous using 12v was fun. I charged it once or twice in my hotel room using my drone battery. It was cool to do this and instead I wish I used a solar panel to do it – just because.
It was a great trip. Reflecting back on it, it was good to be alone, take things in, and not talk (well, except during POTA pileups).
