The short version: A beautiful July day, POTA, K-1000, 34 contacts, Hamstick stabbed into the ground.
After the hot, wet, smokey weather we’ve had lately in the Chicago area it was a good great day to take a trip up to Illinois Beach State Park for a quick POTA activation. Sunny, 75 degrees F and a light breeze off Lake Michigan.
In the interest of packing light, I brought a Xiegu G-90, a small LiFPO battery, an Evolve III mini-laptop, an antenna analyzer, and a 20m Hamstick. This wasn’t a DX-pedition.
On the radio end is the Xiegu G-90 interfaced to the small laptop via the flawless DigiRig external soundcard. My plan was to focus on F4 and FT8 operations today, but I did make a couple of SSB Park to Park contacts too.
The 20-meter band was hoppin’.
The antenna system, (sounds fancy, right?), was a 20m Hamstick screwed into a SuperAntenna UM3 SuperMount attached to the SuperSpike. The helically wound whip, AKA Hamstick, was screwed into the SuperMount and the whole thing stabbed into the ground. The moist, sandy soil made pushing the stake into the ground a breeze.
I attached a set of four ground radials and proceeded to tune the antenna. The ground radials are just laid out in four directions from the antenna. Nothing scientific. Whatever space and obstructions permit.
The results after tuning weren’t spectacular, but there comes a point of diminishing returns. The 80/20 rule applies. It usually takes 20% of the time to complete 80% of a task while it takes 80% of the effort to complete the last 20%. I tuned the antenna for 20 meter FT8 and called it good. The G-90 has a great internal tuner BTW.
In his book Successful POTA: The WV1W Illustrated Guide to Parks On The Air, author Don Dickey suggests replacing the Allen wrench setscrews on your Hamstick “stinger” with thumbscrews. Mine are 10-32 thread, but bring the stinger with you to the hardware store just to be safe. No more misplaced Allen wrenches. Yay!
The final outcome was picture-perfect day spent at the lake with 34 contacts in the log, including a Park to Park contact with K2L, one of the 13 Colonies Contest stations. Max power today was 15 Watts.
As far as the bare-bones station goes, I feel like it was a winner.
Next time I’m going to try a locking plier setup similar to the SuperMount. The park has an abundace of heavy duty metal BBQ grills scattered around the park.
Seven Tree
KD9TWA.com 
Bill, I will have to remember to bring my Evolve laptop with me for the next upcoming event.
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