Yakima Sportsman State Park
In early 2023, I taught a beginners group of CW Ops students. My students were very geographically spread out, coming from Switzerland, Scotland, and several spread out across the US, but one, Jeff K7MG lives just on the other side of the state from me. Jeff did incredibly well in the class and had started working POTA as a way to get on the air. His sister lives in Yakima, and during a visit he suggested meeting to do an activation together. Yakima Sportsman State Park is only an hour from my house, so we decided to meet there.
This was also my first activation with another ham, so we had to figure out how that would work. We decided that he would start and work until he at least got his 10 contacts, then continue if he felt like it. He worked along on the straight key, getting 9 CW QSOs and switching to SSB for the last one. His gear all seemed fine to me so I didn’t even set my own stuff up, just using his rig and knocking out the bare minimum 10 Q’s to get my activation.
Getting to meet a student is a rare privilege for a CW Ops instructor since sessions are conducted online. Meeting Jeff and seeing how he’d progressed to the level of being confident and competent was amazing.
