My wife and I drove down to Bloomington, IN Saturday morning for a concert. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are on tour and we both love their music. It’s about a three hour drive to the other side of the state for us. I have no aspirations to activate all the POTA parks in Indiana, but I like to get in a new park when I can. So, I looked at our map and saw that I could get a 2fer on our route: Morgan Monroe State Park (US-4215) and Scout Ridge State Nature Preserve (US-10254), which is in the state park. We arrived on the north side of the park and took a 3 mile gravel drive in that had no gatehouse or check-in. I have an annual pass for Indiana state parks, so they’re all free for me at this point, but it felt extra free to get in on a back road.

We wanted to get to our hotel in Bloomington to change before we went to the concert, so I had a limited amount of time to activate. My wife put down a blanket in the sun, got her copy of Georges Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest, and read. I grabbed basically the same set-up from my activation this past week: my KX2, the Tufteln 9:1 QRP EFRW, and a N0SA key. I threw my arborist throw-line into the tree near a picnic table, hit a branch that was relatively close to the one I was aiming for, got everything plugged in, hit the ATU on the KX2, and got it up and running on 20m.

Or so I thought. I had a 1:1 SWR, but when I hit my saved CW CQ message, the radio was not transmitting. I have had this radio for less than a week and the first thought was, “I have fried something in the radio somehow.” I made a quick decision not to troubleshoot this in the field, so I reached for my high band QMX and my ATU-10. I called CQ and made a couple QSOs, but the non-working KX2 was really bothering me and I realized I couldn’t just let it be. I plugged it back into the battery and went into the menu system, with which I am not yet familiar, and realized that the VOX MD was off. Why? I probably bumped it at some point. I turned that on, plugged the KX2 into my coax, and it worked! The KX2 was transmitting beautifully! I use Carrier Wave to log my QSOs on my phone and it shows you the RBN skimmers you’re hitting, either as a list or a map. I could see I was getting out all along the northeast of the US and pretty far west.

I was very happy to have my new radio back to right working order. I made 11 QSOs, just to be safe, and activated this 2fer. I packed up quickly, we made it to our hotel, then over to Switchyard Park, where the show was happening. We made it early, so we grabbed a couple of beers from Upland Brewing and perused the merch tables, ran into a guy with a Durham Bulls hat on and chatted with him (hello, Tommy!) about the glories North Carolina, and then I made a poor/amazing dietary choice and ordered what I called “redneck poutine” (pulled pork with cheese sauce and barbecue served atop waffle fries).

This activation got me my 20th and 21st park, which meant I got yet another fake internet award on the POTA website (I am now a Silver Activator, thank you very much). Many thanks to all who hunted me!

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At a glance

Park: US-4215; US-10254
When: July 18, 2026, 20:35-21:15 UTC
QSOs: 11
Bands: 20m

Station

Transceiver: Elecraft KX2 and QMX High Band
Antenna: Tufteln 9:1 QRP EFRW in a tree
Key: N0SA Composite
Power: 9W
Logging: Carrier Wave (my preferred app for logging on an iPhone)