NPOTA Activation: Prince William Forest Park - DZ08

Greetings, all.

About a month ago the XYL and I headed up the I-95 corridor a few miles to Prince William Forest Park to do get away from the suburban life at my home QTH, to camp out a night in the woods, and to knock out a National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) activation.

Prince William Forest Park is a National Park Service-ran facility of 19,000 acres and the largest park in the DC metro area.  It abuts Marine Corps Base Quantico, and lies right on the geologic border of the Piedmont and Tidewater regions of Virginia.  There is a marker in the park denoting one of the geographic boundaries--that marker location is not particularly scenic, but it is interesting.

XYL hiking through Prince William Forest Park.

My wife and I are immensely thankful for this piece of land because it's basically the only relatively unmolested natural land near us, and we spend a good amount of time hiking around there.  She goes to the park several times per week, and I go there every week or two.

The park has a unique history.  It was originally homestead land for several farms.  There are several family cemeteries on the park grounds, and there is also a military cemetery on the grounds containing graves from soldiers who served in the Civil War through more modern times.  The Civilian Conservation Corps managed the lands during the Great Depression.  In World War II, the park's lands were used by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was the forerunner of the modern CIA.  The OSS used the park for training spies and radio operators from 1942-1945.

Today the park has numerous trails and a few options for camping.  It is full of trees, ferns, streams, and swamps, and is really representative of the mid-Atlantic states' eastern seaboard.  It's not beautiful like Yosemite or Death Valley or other similar parks.  But we're still very glad to have it so nearby.

We went to the park on the afternoon of 16 April, a Saturday.  We took a campsite, and then decided to do a hike for a few hours.  After returning, we lit the camp fire and I started to operate a bit.  I used by basic SOTA setup:  The FT-817ND, the LDG Z-817 autotuner, my Palm Mini Paddles, a homemade version of the EARCHI wire antenna, and the mic.  I also brought my Yaesu VX-8DR HT.  I brought a 7 Amp-Hour gel cell battery pack to power everything.  I also brought my MFJ QRP SWR meter for no reason whatsoever.  My QTH was the picnic table, and the wire was slung into a tree.

N0PCL at the PWF QTH.  The detritus of camping surrounds me.  The HT is quiet, but the 817ND is doing fine work.

The VX-8 was basically useless.  I attempted to get some APRS packets out to the world so that I could be seen on APRS.fi, but no luck was to be had.  It was just a remote area, and, frankly, APRS coverage is spotty in my area as it is.  (I'm thinking about addressing that myself as a project, but that's for another day).

N0PCL copying CW.

N0PCL doing fun things with radios.

The 817 did fine.  I did manage to self-spot using my iPhone to the spotting network, so that assisted with getting contacts.  The first night I managed to get four contacts.  But I was hungry, so I decided to pack up and make dinner with my lovely XYL. After dinner we enjoyed the campfire and retired to the tent for a good night's sleep.

The next morning (but still the same "UTC day") I finished up the activation.  I needed six more contacts.  So I fired up the 817 again and got the necessary contacts.

Screen capture of my electronic logbook.

Overall it was a good activation.  I'm continually surprised at how well portable & QRP ham radio can do.  But sometimes it's really a challenge, too.  It took a good bit of time to get the necessary 10 NPOTA Chasers to make this activation count.  Meanwhile the XYL headed out to do a solo hike.  I then gladly packed up the site and our adventure came to a close.

Thanks, Chasers!
73.

In the mail: Lithium Ion Batteries for the FT-817ND

I'm a reasonably happy owner of a Yaesu FT-817ND.  It's a solid, reasonably inexpensive all-band all-mode portable radio solution for the SOTA activator.  It's also very rugged, built like a tank.  But it does have its downsides.  Two related issues are the current consumption of the radio and the batteries which power it.

The radio does have a fairly high receive current consumption, around .3 amperes.  This might not seem like much, but mix that with a reasonably amount of transmitting, particularly on CW (or data modes), and you'll see that the supplied internal battery packs aren't the best.  The supplied battery is the FNB-72, rated at 9.6 volts and 1100 mAh.  Later, Yaesu did a slight upgrade with the FNB-85, which raises the capacity to 1400 mAh.  I used the -85 for about six months when I got frustrated with its capacity for multiple-peak activation days (around Big Bear Lake in California there are numerous easily-accessible high-value peaks.  The XYL and I would bag a few, camp out, and then head out for a second day of activations.  If I recall correctly, I once earned 56 SOTA points in a single weekend).

At any rate, the FNB series of batteries for the -817 use the Nickel-Cadmium (NiCd) chemistry, which is pretty ancient battery technology (We're talking the 1890s, people!).

I suppose this is understandable given that the FT-817 was first designed in the 1990s and first sold in the year 2000.

So I searched around the marketplace for a good replacement.  The one I settled on was the W4RT Electronics OPP-817 battery pack and OFC-817 charger combination.  This internal battery solution basically doubled the capacity of the batteries to 2500 mAh (although they now advertise that they increased this further to 2700 mAh).  These batteries mount in the same compartment in the FT-817ND as the stock batteries.  Rather, a new battery compartment door is supplied which has a charging jack for the OFC-817 charger.  The W4RT batteries use the Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) chemistry, which are have become lower-cost in recent years than the NiCd batteries.

These batteries have served me well for about 17 months, and have been through maybe 100 or 125 charge/discharge cycles.  I always followed the charging instructions scrupulously, and the batteries did a decent job of providing power for the longer activations without increasing weight, bulk, or otherwise ill effect.  But, on my activation of Old Rag (W4V/SH-012), I noticed that the voltage indicator in the 817 was rapidly declining.  Thinking it was an anomaly, I recharged the batteries and, on a different weekend, I planned on activating Hazeltop (W4V/SH-004) and Fork Mountain (W4V/SH-003).  Hazeltop went fine, but by the time I got to Fork Mountain, the radio would barely power up.  It was confirmed in my mind:  the W4RT batteries were finished.

So I looked around the marketplace and asked on the NA-SOTA forums.  I considered other solutions, including homebrewing an external Lithium-Iron (LiFe) battery pack and charger, and using a setup much like Matt, K0MOS uses.

I settled on the HamSource WLB-817 pack, mainly because it offers a 3000 mAh capacity with higher voltage (approximately 11 volts) in an FT-817-friendly package.  The chemistry is Lithium Ion Polymer (LiPo), which apparently is good for high-current applications (like the LiFe and NiMH batteries mentioned above).  The WLB-817 seems to use the same charging methodology as the W4RT system, utilizing a replacement battery hatch door to facilitate the connection to the external charger.  It is slightly more expensive than the W4RT batteries, too ($92 for the battery pack, charger, replacement battery hatch, and shipping & handling).

More on FT-817NDs and battery chemistry can be found on the KA7OEI FT-817 pages.  And here.  And here.

We'll see how this goes.

As for other "modifications" to the FT-817ND, I also use the W4RT 300 Hz CW filter and the Palm Peg Leg.  (I like Palm a lot.  I also use their Mini Paddles.  And I'm trying to justify spending the money for their miniature Straight Key, too.)

Update:  I've received some email as well as a reply on the NA-SOTA forums urging caution with the LiPo batteries, mainly because of the hazards associating with accidentally shorting them out, improper charging techniques, and the damage that they can do to equipment.  Those are definitely valid considerations.

In the past I've been utterly scrupulous with regard to charging techniques, and with the safety issues involved in with the LiPos, I'll definitely continue to do so.  Those batteries pack a lot of energy into a very small package.

Thanks for the emails and the replies elsewhere!  -73, Nate N0PCL 

Update 2:  Here is another LiPo solution for the FT-817.