Trip Report: 8 Feb 2025 - Lockhart State Park US-3033
Lighting up 10 Meters
Introduction
I had just finished building a moxon antenna for 10 meters and wanted to test it out. Actually, I needed to test several things out. I had never placed a mast on my homebrew hitch mount attached to this new car.
My pattern over the last year has been to simplify my kit. I had been using U-bolts to attach the mast to the long threaded bolt extending from the hitch. This was problematic for two reasons. First, I was concerned the U-bolts would eventually damage the mast. Second, they took time to tighten. My solution was to use zip ties.
I set up everything in my driveway the night before to see if the antenna needed any adjustments. The nano-VNA showed the antenna was just a little long, so I removed about an inch from each side of the driven element, as well as an inch from each side of the reflector. It showed the Moxon to be centered right around 28.300 MHz at with SWR at 1.15, which is right were I wanted it.
I headed out to Lockhart State Park the next morning, arriving around 7:30 am. The sun had been up for about 30 minutes and my car reported it was about 65º outside. Perfect weather.
The Setup
My plan was to set up in the parking lot (Google Maps) on the hill where the refectory is. The stalls are long, leaving plenty of space for setting up the antenna and a chair. It took about 15 minutes to get the antenna up. I’ve learned that it is best to store the wires left-to-right on a wire winder. This is so when you set up, you can just move from one side to the other for the 12-14 ft length of the antenna. The antenna went up without much fuss. I was even able to leave the Subaru hatch open during setup. (This was not possible with my VW.) I estimate the antenna was elevated about 15 feet above the ground.
BTW, here’s the equipment I’m using today:
Rig: Yaesu FT-891
Antenna: Homebrew 10 meter moxon with a RG-316 pigtail.
Feed line: 35’ RG-58 with a homebrew common mode choke attached to the pigtail.
Battery: Homebrew 100 Ah camping monster, charged to about 30 Ah. I’ve been testing it at the house. This was its first time out in the field.
Other stuff: Yamaha CM-500 headphones, homebrew mic spliltter and PTT grip.
The Activation
In the past, the most European DX I’ve had was about 5 contacts. I’m pretty sure it was there at Lockhart and I would have been using my homebrew buddie-pole on 20 meters. Knowing that 10 meters has been a hot band lately, I was hoping improve on that. I would have been over the moon with 10 DX contacts.
Tuning around the band at 8 am I could hear lots of activity. I found an open spot at 28368 kHz, spotted myself and keyed up. My first contact was a UK station. So was my 3rd and 5th. In fact, 9 out of the first 20 QSOs were DX. I was pretty excited. Things went on like this for the next 40 minutes or so.
Other Hams
Around 8:45 a few other cars came into the parking lot. One of them had what looked like a 2 meter whip. I had ran into other hams here before, but usually as I was leaving. I could see them coming over to chat, so I announced I would be QRT for break and took my headphones off.
The other individuals were indeed hams. I had the pleasure of meeting Jim KA6J and Gary W5GW. We chatted for about 15 minutes. They come up to Lockhart regularly, but often during the week. We’d never met but were aware of each other from the park leader board.
They let me know about the Hays Caldwell club so I could get connected there.
The Rest of the Activation
The next 40 minutes were much like the first. Plenty of domestic stations, but lots of DX too.
Some notable [near] QSOs…
There was a QRP station from Equador I tried to complete a QSO with for several minutes. I could make out everything but his call sign. At the time I didn’t know where he was. If I did I could have rotated the antenna so that he wasn’t on my backside. Maybe next time.
The other was with a ham in New Hampshire operating at 1/4 watt. Nice!
Aftermath
I ended up with 89 QSOs for the day, 34 of them were DX. Pretty amazing. I had set the antenna up pointing abuot 40º from my azimuth location, which would put Europe in my crosshair. The map of QSOs certainly agrees. All the QSOs were in that direction.
Here are the entities I ended up working:
Austria
Bulgaria
Canada
Croatia
Dominican Republic
England
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Sweden
I never expected to have a morning like this. It exceeded my expectations by an order of magnitude.
This antenna is a keeper! Be on the lookout for another post containing build instructions in the next week or so.