Got up early before the family to activate another local park for my first time. LBJ Memorial Grove sits between the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the Pentagon, on Columbia Island. I’ve biked through here many times, but this was my first attempt at a POTA activation here. I parked in Virginia by the Pentagon, walked across the pedestrian bridge, and found a convenient picnic table near the water. This spot is a POTA 4-fer:
- Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac National Memorial
- George Washington Memorial Parkway
- Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail
- Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail
There are 3 other POTA trail entities that pass nearby, but I haven’t found a convenient spot close enough to include them as well.
I setup the 1/4 wave vertical, IC-705, and Micro PA50+ amp. Then fired up wfview, MacLoggerDX and WSJT-X on the mac. Worked FT8 on 20 meters at around 30W.
The wind was blowing and it was a bit chilly, but still pleasant. I made 23 QSO’s in about 50 minutes before packing up, hitting Dunkin Donuts, and delivering breakfast to the family.
The vertical antenna I’m using is from Wolf River Coils. It’s their 213″ whip on the larger of the two tripods. It’s quick and convenient to setup, especially when there is limited space. But it doesn’t seem to reach as far as the SotaBeams inverted V dipole I use. But the dipole antenna requires a lot of space and either ground stakes or sandbags to hold down the guy lines.