Frustrating POTA Activation today

[Northcutt114]

Well...I tried to activate another park today. It didn't go well. Out there for four and half hours. 2 QSO's. 

I started out fine with my only two QSO's being right out of the gate from Venezuela and Brasil. After that, nothing. Big waves of RF noise would wander through the waterfall. Like S5-S6 big. Down around the 28.340 end of 10m. Then I would get, for no apparent reason, really loud tones. Full value S9 tones, like, rip the headset off my head b/c I'm at 100% RF gain trying to pick a station out of the noise floor, full value.

I took a break for lunch and then the G90, for whatever reason, wouldn't tune. SWR over 4.0 for seemingly no reason. I changed coax, ground plane, rechecked connections. Nothing. Wouldn't tune. I read that if the unit gets hot, it may not tune. It was 50 degrees outside so I didn't think that was an issue but went ahead and turned on the cooling fan in the box. After a few minutes, it began tuning again. So maybe it just got too warm? I don't know.

Then I managed to hear about 6 other POTA stations. Each one was able to tell that I was transmitting, but they couldn't pick me up. All of them said there was a ton of QRM on the line. Even the two stations I talked to earlier that I did get a contact with mentioned QRM, one saying to turn my mic gain down. It was at 8, so?

So this leaves me with two questions. I saw the bands were listed as Fair when I left, they now say poor. Maybe it was just a bad day. But I heard a lot of contests and people talking. And the POTA stations I could hear were talking to other people, just couldn't hear me. There was nothing that I could see in the area that would have created interference. I was on a hill in the middle of a state park with no one around. I had this happen one other time, too...people commenting on my mic gain. The radio was registering 12.1v at the time of operation. Xiegu says it can run on as little as 10.8....but maybe that's not right? Maybe it needs more juice.

Anyhow...not looking for anyone to solve all my problems. Mainly just venting. I did have another POTA guy pull up and we chatted gear. He really liked my radio box and set up. He went on down the other side and presumably activated from his car with eleventy billion watts. I saw a screwdriver on the back. Ugh.... QRT.

 

[hxpx]

I also couldn't hear half the 20m stations listed on the POTA app, even from states I can routinely hear, and then I couldn't break any pileups with 100W and two different antennas, so I'm also going to blame the band conditions.

2 hours ago, Northcutt114 said:

But I heard a lot of contests and people talking

I assume anyone contesting or ragchewing in the middle of the day is running 1500W and a yagi on a 200ft tower. Especially if they're complaining about medical conditions.

[WRYZ926]

Most of the bands were pretty bad today, especially 10m and 12m. I struggled to make any contacts on those two bands even on FT8. I did manage a few contacts on 15m and 20m but 17m was just as bad as 10m and 12m.

HAMQSL, VOACAP, and any other propagation tools are just guide, you can't take them as 100% accurate. I have had HAMQSL and VOACAP show poor band conditions and I still made plenty of contacts and I have had both say conditions were good and struggled to make contacts. 

Falling snow, thunderstorms, high voltage power lines can all cause a high noise floor. Solar storms greatly affect HF too.

2023 and 2024 were great for the 10 meter band. But we are on the down hill slide of the solar cycle. Band conditions on 10m and 12m will only get worse as we approach the low point of the solar cycle. Each cycle lasts about 11 years.

[Northcutt114]

Well, I watched Smoking Ape's power test on the G90 and even at 10.4v, he was pushing 16w CW on 10m. So me on SSB, should have been just fine at 12.1v.

I'm guessing it was just the bands. Ugh...still frustrating. But I did get a Support Our Parks Award...whatever that means. 

[hxpx]

Just now, Northcutt114 said:

Well, I watched Smoking Ape's power test on the G90 and even at 10.4v, he was pushing 16w CW on 10m. So me on SSB, should have been just fine at 12.1v.

I'm guessing it was just the bands. Ugh...still frustrating. But I did get a Support Our Parks Award...whatever that means. 

It's support our parks weekend! 

Quote

Support Your Parks

This event happens seasonally, on the 3rd full weekend of the month (Saturday & Sunday UTC). These are ‘activity weekends’ where the main purpose is to get out in the parks, and have as much fun as possible.

•     Winter - 3rd Full Weekend of January. January 17-18, 2026
•     Spring - 3rd Full Weekend of April. April 18-19, 2026
•     Summer - 3rd Full Weekend of July. July 18-19, 2026
•     Autumn - 3rd Full Weekend of October. October 17-18, 2026

 

[Northcutt114]

1 minute ago, hxpx said:

It's support our parks weekend! 

Well, I'll be darned. Maybe that's why that other guy was there. I checked. He got 18 QSO's and skedaddled. Probably just getting the award.

[Northcutt114]

I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. it's 39° and windy but I'm trying again. if anybody wants to hunt me I'm on 28.420

[TNFrank]

There's an X Class CME headed our way with radio blackouts across the U.S. so it'd probably just a good time to watch some football and try again tomorrow.

[WRYZ926]

Corona Mass Ejections usually take 2 - 3 days before we see the full effect on the HF bands. We will see some affect right away but the biggest effects take longer to see.

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, Northcutt114 said:

I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. it's 39° and windy but I'm trying again. if anybody wants to hunt me I'm on 28.420

Nothing heard in Montana. 

[TNFrank]

30 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

Corona Mass Ejections usually take 203 days before we see the full effect on the HF bands. We will see some affect right away but the biggest effects take longer to see.

I'm sure you ment 2 or 3 days. Some of the effects are felt in just 8 minutes (question on the General Test)but yep, the main impact will be in a day or 2. There's also a huge coronal hole turning through which normally means earthquake upticks. It's going to be an interesting couple of days coming up.

[WRYZ926]

Fixed my typo. The main effects of solar storms CME's takes 2 to 3 days on average. Some times it takes 4 - 5 days before we see any improvement of band conditions.

Looking at current conditions. The X-ray is at M 1.9, K index - 3, BZ - -4.4. A K index between 1 to 4 is usually good. A high X-ray means bad conditions. Also having a BZ in the negative is bad. The lower the BZ, the greater chance for auroras at lower latitudes.

[Northcutt114]

1 hour ago, SteveShannon said:

Nothing heard in Montana. 

Another frustrating day in HF for me. I worked a station in Inuvik, Canada...almost 5,000 miles from me. A station in Brasil. Two on the west coast and then, boom, nothing. With several stations all telling me the same thing that i heard yesterday. "There's a lot of RF in your mic. Nothing but static, can't hear you." I even had a guy in a pile up, not the guy calling CQ, call me out and tell me that my mic sounded awful. "It's cutting out on everything you try to say. Fix it." I felt targeted. 

I've never had that happen before. I have a 12v solar panel with onboard charge controller plugged into a cigarette lighter that is wired into the terminal, along with a PC cooling fan. The radio is tied into that terminal as well and the the battery goes to the terminal block. When I turn the fan on, I do see a little ripple go across the waterfall but it goes away. Is it possible that the charger and fan are feeding RF into the terminal which is going to the radio? If so, could i put some ferrite beads on the power line to the radio? Or maybe on the mic cable?

But the bigger question I have is, can just a poor signal due to poor propagation sound like "rf in the mic?" I don't understand how I can work several stations with no problem - with the fan on and charger plugged in - to then have several stations all tell me that I have "too much RF in my mic." Nothing changed on my station.

In other news. I thought I was cold. The dude I talked to in Northern Canada? Yeah, negative 2 where he is. Yikes. 

[Northcutt114]

2 hours ago, TNFrank said:

There's an X Class CME headed our way with radio blackouts across the U.S. so it'd probably just a good time to watch some football and try again tomorrow.

I can't recall the last time I watched a football game. Think I'll build a fire and read with the dog. 

[WRHS218]

36 minutes ago, Northcutt114 said:

Think I'll build a fire and read with the dog. 

Now THAT is good evening.

[WRYZ926]

The solar panel and charge controller could be one source of noise. But you would think that it would be constant and not intermittent.

I haven't tried using a solar panel to keep my batteries topped off when doing POTA. I have ferrite beads on the G90 power lead that plugs directly into my battery box and I haven't had any noise issues.

[Northcutt114]

2 hours ago, WRYZ926 said:

The solar panel and charge controller could be one source of noise. But you would think that it would be constant and not intermittent.

I haven't tried using a solar panel to keep my batteries topped off when doing POTA. I have ferrite beads on the G90 power lead that plugs directly into my battery box and I haven't had any noise issues.

I have read that charge controllers can be noisy. But I have had this one hooked up before and no one has mentioned it being noisy. Although, now that I think about it. The last time I had it hooked up, it was overcast. Today, there was not a cloud in the sky and full sun. So maybe it was charging "harder" so it was more noisy? Still though, that doesn't explain the earlier stations that could hear me just fine. Also, I tried keying up after having unplugged it and still got reports of "high rf in your mic."

The solar panel is from amazon. Link here. I wired in a cigarette lighter plug to the box and this just plugs right in. I ran it for almost five hours the other day and the charge never dropped below 12.9 volts on the battery. 

I assume you just put ferrite beads on the postive wire to the radio? Or do you also put them on the negative. And how many? I think I have a project for tomorrow now. I have a few leftover from the ones I put on the coax for the EFHW.

 

[WRYZ926]

11 minutes ago, Northcutt114 said:

I assume you just put ferrite beads on the postive wire to the radio? Or do you also put them on the negative. And how many? I think I have a project for tomorrow now. I have a few leftover from the ones I put on the coax for the EFHW.

I put ferrites on both positive and ground wires. I usually use ones big enough to get at least 3 wraps of wire through. I put ferrites on both ends of the power wires. I will sometimes use a toroid and do several wraps of both wires through it at the radio end.

[Northcutt114]

Just now, WRYZ926 said:

I put ferrites on both positive and ground wires. I usually use ones big enough to get at least 3 wraps of wire through. I put ferrites on both ends of the power wires. I will sometimes use a toroid and do several wraps of both wires through it at the radio end.

Another thought. Would it be worth putting ferrite beads on the solar panel input wire? That would keep the RF out of the feed line into the radio system, no?

[WRYZ926]

It would not hurt to put ferrite beads on the wires going from the solar panel to the charge controller and from the controller to the battery. 

[Northcutt114]

46 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

It would not hurt to put ferrite beads on the wires going from the solar panel to the charge controller and from the controller to the battery. 

The controller is in the panel. It's an all in one type deal. So tomorrow I'll put beads on it, as well as on the positive and negative wires going into the radio. Fingers crossed that does the trick. One bead a piece, according to Gemini?

[WRYZ926]

Okay, I didn't realize the controller was built in. 

I'm still not 100% sure that it's the solar panel/controller causing the noise since it is not a constant noise. But it vey well could be the cause of the noise. RF does weird things at times just to mess with us.

Definitely try the clamp on ferrite beads. They may or may not help but they sure won't hurt. It might be overkill putting clamp on beads on both ends of any wire or cable but I do it anyway. That helps keep wires and cables from acting like antennas. IF you don't have ferrite beads big enough to get a few wraps of wire through them, then you ant them to be snug on the wire, By snug, I mean that they grab onto the insulations just enough to hold them in place. You don't want the bead to actually dig into or cut the insulation.

Also try to keep the solar panel and battery away from the radio and coax as best as you can. I usually keep my battery box sitting on the ground and slightly under the table when possible.

[TNFrank]

I charge my power station before use so it's not hooked to the solar pantaloons during use. I did do a noise test between the solar power station and a LiFePo4 battery to see if the power station was causing part of the S3 noise floor I was getting and there was no difference. 

I think maybe a certain amount of static is just something we have to live with when using HF, especially in a suburban area. 

[Northcutt114]

1 hour ago, WRYZ926 said:

Okay, I didn't realize the controller was built in. 

I'm still not 100% sure that it's the solar panel/controller causing the noise since it is not a constant noise. But it vey well could be the cause of the noise. RF does weird things at times just to mess with us.

Definitely try the clamp on ferrite beads. They may or may not help but they sure won't hurt. It might be overkill putting clamp on beads on both ends of any wire or cable but I do it anyway. That helps keep wires and cables from acting like antennas. IF you don't have ferrite beads big enough to get a few wraps of wire through them, then you ant them to be snug on the wire, By snug, I mean that they grab onto the insulations just enough to hold them in place. You don't want the bead to actually dig into or cut the insulation.

Also try to keep the solar panel and battery away from the radio and coax as best as you can. I usually keep my battery box sitting on the ground and slightly under the table when possible.

Yeah, the reason I went with this panel is because it is all in one. Plus there's not a lot of space in the Apache case, once you put the battery and radio and various other things in it. The more I rethink and try and diagnose the problem, I think it is the solar charger and I think the conditions are the culprit. A quick Gemini response says that solar panels do create more RF interference when it is sunny, which stands to reason. From our AI overlords:

The primary reason for this is that RF noise (electromagnetic interference, or EMI) in solar installations is not caused by the panels themselves, but by the electrical components converting and managing the power—specifically inverters and DC optimizers. 

• Direct Sunlight: When the sun is bright, the solar panels operate at maximum efficiency, generating high DC power (up to 100% capacity). The inverter and optimizers are working at peak, which creates the strongest, most consistent EMI, particularly in the 7 MHz to 30 MHz range.
• Overcast/Cloudy Days: Solar panels produce much less electricity—typically only 10% to 25% of their capacity under heavy cloud cover. Because less power is being processed, the inverters and optimizers generally produce significantly less noise. 

On the day when I activated my first park, it was very overcast. I had the panel hooked up but received no complaints. The subsequent times that I received complaints were all days were the sun was absolutely full out. Also, I didn't have the panel hooked up for the first few contacts yesterday. A lot to piece through and remember. So yeah, I think it's the solar panel. I'm going to bead on the cable running from the cig plug to the panel. Two (+\-) on the cig outlet running to the terminal and then two (+/-) on the power wires running from the terminal to the radio. Hopefully that sorts it out....if not, I know that I just can't run solar while operating. Which, while it's a bummer, it isn't a deal breaker.

 

[Northcutt114]

22 minutes ago, TNFrank said:

I think maybe a certain amount of static is just something we have to live with when using HF, especially in a suburban area. 

Maybe, but I think mine is definitely being caused by my station set up.