Pt 1: CW POTA Activation from Victoria Springs SRA in central Nebraska. Ham Radio & Morse Code fun!

Part 1 (Friday night) of a 12/6/25 Parks On The Air activation from Victoria Springs State Recreation Area (US-3376) in Central Nebraska. Part 2 was a 20m activation Saturday.

Thanks to everyone who hunted!

Location: https://what3words.com/surgery.squeak...
Rig: Ten Tec Eagle at 25 watts
Antenna: Wolf River Coil + 17' whip
SWR/Power Meter/Tuner: AT-100M Pro (China) (The Eagle power meter is not very accurate at lower levels)
Key: 9A5N Solid State https://www.9a5n.eu/models.html
Keyer: K1EL SA-K16 https://www.kanga-products.co.uk/ours...
Battery: 100Ah LifePo4
Inverter: Renogy (No RFI Noise) 1,000 watt (for laptop power)
Laptop: ASUS 18" ROG with strong graphics processor
Logging: N3FJP Amateur Contact Log https://www.n3fjp.com/
Video recorded and produced with OBS: https://obsproject.com/
Minor editing with Cyberlink Power Director: https://www.cyberlink.com/index_en_US...

Why CW? I love CW. After doing a Morse Code activation, I feel like I actually DID something. CW is not super-easy for me, it's a skill I'm working on, and I want to continue to improve. After each activation, I get a feeling of "hey, I just did that!"

Why these videos? For one, I enjoy making them. I enjoy the process of figuring out how to make things do what I want. Also, when I was trying to build confidence to go activate with CW on my own, I watched many videos from others, and used them for "practice" to get an idea of what to expect. I believe that greatly helped me prepare to go out on my own. I hope to "pay back" a little and others can use my videos in the same way. I'm obviously not a CW prodigy, and hopefully others can see that it's ok to make mistakes, it's ok to ask for repeats, and it's ok to go at YOUR speed. Just get out and have fun!

Timeline
00:01 Intro
03:58 1 N4PV Bert AL
04:48 2 WM2V GEORGE AZ
06:57 3 KI7PBR Gary AZ
09:13 4 WN4AT JOSEPH AL
10:10 5 N6HU RANDY CA
11:27 6 AA5UZ JUDY LA
13:00 7 K0HX Stanley MO
14:20 8 KK7EHJ MARTIN AZ
16:08 9 KI5GTR Les AR
17:07 10 KQ4DUX Jay AL
18:10 11 AC3IE PAUL PA
19:54 12 WA2FBN KENNETH NY
21:31 13 K5OHY Timothy TX
23:26 14 NA6JD Vladimir WA
24:37 15 W8VX JOSHUA OH
26:43 16 N9GZ Michael IL
27:44 17 K4MW PETER VA
29:08 18 KB4N JOSEPH FL
30:35 19 K4OTT DAVID GA
31:42 20 W9LDN ROBERT USA
32:57 21 KG4BIG KENNETH KY
33:56 22 WB8QZM BRIAN TX
35:20 23 AK0MO Shane MO
36:36 24 KG5PFD Joshua LA
37:40 25 NN3E KEVIN MD
38:37 26 K1DLY Duff TX
39:46 27 KC0DM DEBORA KS
40:38 28 NA7C Ted UT
41:36 29 W4RIN JACOB GA
42:48 Wrap up