North Dakota POTA Day 2025
I just wrapped up my activation for North Dakota POTA Day, 2025. I wanted to post a field report from the activation to share with others in my local ham radio club, as well as give myself some notes for future activations.
Since getting active in ham radio again in 2022, POTA (Parks on the Air) has been huge for me. POTA stations have made excellent targets as a new CW operator with its very familiar exchange, and activations feel a lot like a mini field-day event, which is another activity near and dear to me.
For the past few years, November 2 has been North Dakota POTA Day, an event that encourages folks to go out and activate parks and help get N.D. into hunters’ logs. Last year I activated Fort Abercrombie State Historic Site US-5748. I decided to hit this one up again this year since it’s close to home, and I only had until the afternoon to play radio. Also, as a bonus, this park counts for two designations, as it’s shared with the North Country National Scenic Trail US-4239.
Like last year, the late-fall weather was setting in, resulting in a cold, windy, and overcast day.
My setup was a new-to-me Elecraft KX2, paired with an Elecraft AX1 antenna on a BNC mag-mount on the roof of my car. In addition, I had an old Acer Chromebook with Pop!_OS installed, a Bamatech TP‑III CW key, and an 8 amp-hour LiFePO4 battery powering everything.
I started with FT8 to get my ten contacts and make the activation official. One very nice thing about the Elecraft KX2 is the ability to key it from VOX on the mic input. This let me connect my laptop to the radio with no CAT control required — I only needed two cables between my sound card and the radio. In past POTA activations with my Icom IC‑705 using CAT control over USB or Wi‑Fi, gremlins invariably surfaced, forcing me to reset WSJT‑X to restore radio control. I think the IC‑705 just needs a very well-filtered USB cable, which I don’t have.
I appeared to be getting out well with my 5 W, and after an hour or so had racked up about 30 contacts.
After that, I swapped to CW and tried calling CQ for a bit. My gear continued to perform flawlessly on that mode; however, my brain was just not wanting to decode call signs well. I appreciate the patience of all the hunters who tried calling me, as I had to ask for many repeats. I began to suspect another station was transmitting on my frequency that I couldn’t hear. With my anxiety up, I switched to hunting and started searching the band for stations to call. I was able to reach several, including a fellow Red River Radio Amateur club member, Kent (KA0LDG), who was also activating for ND POTA Day.
After finishing on CW, I moved back to FT8 to work my best friend in California, Mia (KO6AEE), as well as a few tailgaters who called me after working her, and wrapped up the activation.
Overall, I finished the day with 54 QSOs: 43 on FT8 and 11 on CW — all on 20 meters. I was very pleased with the performance of my gear. I’m looking forward to doing many more activations with the KX2. Lessons for next year: I need to do a lot more call-sign-copy practice before my next activation.
73s! Erica, W7WXR
