Paul Butzi

Bad Condx at Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216) Jun 20, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

Notwithstanding crappy band condx, today was POTA day. Off I trundled to Lake Sammamish State Park, US-3216. I had a cunning plan: do enough (ten)

An Exciting activation of Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216) Jun 14, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

Today I did a very exciting (well, exciting to me) POTA activation at Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216). This activation was exciting for several

Important New Ham Radio Equipment Jun 10, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

I’ve just added a new, critically important piece of equipment to my field operating kit for POTA: Introducing the fun-o-meter, which is used to

Thin Radio Jun 9, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

My participation in Parks on the Air, both hunting and activating, has increasingly been pushing me toward operating in ways where more and more of

A challenging activation at US-3216 Lake Sammamish State Park Jun 8, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

Good weather and a day of rest from training were calling me into doing a POTA activation, but when I checked propagation, it was in the dumps,

Resonant versus Non-resonant Antennas May 27, 2024 amateur radio One of the things I hear is that, especially for QRP operating, resonant antennas are greatly preferred. Some of this seems to stem from some

Xiegu G90 More Thoughts May 24, 2024 amateur radio With a little more time operating with the G90 I have some further thoughts/observations. I think the supplied power cable is awful. I think the

Two Activations - Bridle Trails SP (US-3166) & St. Edward SP (US-3261) May 24, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

We had to go pick up Paula’s car at the shop yesterday, mid-morning, and so I loaded up my car with the radios/antennas, &c, and planned on

Kanaskat-Palmer State Park (US-32090, US-3236 (Nolte State Park) Activation, Flaming Geyser State Park (US-3187) May 21, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

With an appointment at 3:30pm, I was hoping to squeeze in three POTA activations: Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, Noltle State Park, and Flaming Geyser

US-5744 (Tiger Mountain State Forest) Activation May 14, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

This morning I was hopeful that I’d be able to slope off and do a four park POTA activation at a cluster of four parks not far from my home: Tiger

Xiegu G90 First Thoughts May 11, 2024 amateur radio & POTA I’ve been wanting to do more POTA park activations but the overhead of pulling either the IC-7300 or the KX3 out of the station setup, and then

Random Wire Antennas Apr 27, 2024 amateur radio The conceit that goes with random wire antennas is that they amount to taking a random chunk of wire, stringing it up in the air, and using it as an

POTA rove lessons Mar 28, 2024 amateur radio & POTA One of the problems I encountered about halfway through the multi-day expedition was an intermittent problem with the coax connection to the three

The N3JCJ(sk) Memorial POTA rove Mar 18, 2024 amateur radio & musings & POTA My dad died on Jan 30, 2024. I spent half of January whammied while I recovered from Across the Years, and the other half on the East Coast helping

K-1732 Brandywine Creek State Park Activation Mar 4, 2024 amateur radio & POTA

While my Dad was in the hospital I went back east to help my Mom. I took along a field kit of radio gear (described below) vaguely thinking that I’d

Wallypark Stupidity Feb 26, 2024 musings

Last Thursday my wife and I flew out to the east coast to attend the memorial service for my father. We parked our car at the Wallypark parking

Across the Years 2024-2024 Race Report Feb 13, 2024 ultrarunning This past December 28 thru Jan 3, Paula and I ran the six day race at Across the Years, in Glendale Arizona. What follows is my attempt to get down

Learning CW Dec 24, 2023 amateur radio & POTA I’ve been working on learning CW/Morse Code for some time, now - essentially for as long as I’ve had an amateur radio license. That works out to,

POTA Activation #1 K-3216 Oct 30, 2023 amateur radio & POTA

I’ve been making a lot of QSO’s hunting POTA activations, which is hella good fun. One of my goals was to do an activation before the end of

Parks on the air Oct 23, 2023 amateur radio & POTA I made a bunch of FT8 and FT4 QSOs recently, and they highlighted a problem I have with modes like FT8 - they’re utterly impersonal. A good example: