While Rhode Island is sort of small (Yellowstone can hold TWO Rhode Islands), it is a beautiful place, and is currently host to forty Parks On The Air entities. One of them, Arcadia Wildlife Management Area covers a broad area on central west RI, and is the largest recreational area in the state. Surprisingly, no one has ever activated Arcadia, K-6979, according to ParksOnTheAir. That changed today!
I drove into Arcadia and parked near Browning Mill Pond. I was intending to test a couple of antennas, and chose to begin with a 20-meter HamStick attached to the roof of my truck with a 5″ MagMount. I used an Icom IC-7000, a small all band/mode 100 watt rig (idle since the 2016 ARRL NPOTA). The HamStick was tuned to slightly favor the SSB portion of the band, with a SWR of 1.3:1 (it was 2.0:1 at 14.001 MHz and 1.8:1 at 14;349 MHz).
On-air operation began at 17:45 UTC, and ceased at 18:59 UTC; that’s 74 minutes. Oddly enough, I completed 74 contacts in that period, coast to coast and a few into Europe. Signals were unbelievably strong into the Southeast, with TN and AL booming in well over S9 (these states are a single F-layer hop away from RI). During that time, I consumed 9.1 AH from my 30 AH battery (or a rate of 7.4 AH per hour of “pileup” use).
In the end, I never did try my new end-fed half-wave antenna, as the pileup was quite deep with just the HamStick. Thanks to all Hunters who made the activation fun!
Entrance to Browning Mill Pond, part of Arcadia
Rig was an Icom IC-7000, with 100 watts. It was run by a 30 AH LiFePO4 battery
A 20-meter HanStick/MagMount was the antenna, adjusted for a SWR of 1.3 to 1 on 14.280 MHz
Arcadia Management Area is a stunning collection of trails and ponds in western RI
