I'm hopeful. This measure forces visibility of progress and allows any regular citizen to sue the city if they try to weasel out. I can't imagine a city politician taking a position of "we're going to fight this ridiculous lawsuit about not installing a wider sidewalk for as long as it takes." That's a real bad look, especially given this measure passed 65% for, 35% against. It would be political suicide.
pc486
Go for ankle straps over vests. It's far more important for the reflective materials to be moving than the amount of body coverage you have.
GCN recently covered this topic with interviews of optometry and psychology professors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33GpfTWdk8U
The class system is designed for these arguments. I'm fine with class 2 in lanes and paths, but now we can discuss ebikes and where they belong without confusion. And regulators for parks, towns, etc can make it very clear in their signage.
You're probably at the edge of the bus line. There's a usually very empty bus every 30 minutes just a block away from me. I took that bus a few times and realized that my neighborhood is the turn around for it. Most of the folk on it have gotten off by the time it loops through.
This situation of empty busses at houses makes sense too. Why would a bus be full at the edge of town? It needs passengers first and they won't accumulate until the bus is near populated spots like downtown. And why would a city pay for empty busses when they could route them in better areas?
There's evidence they are being used as an alternative to more polluting modes: https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-280-million-electric-bikes-and-mopeds-are-cutting-demand-for-oil-far-more-than-electric-cars-213870
Yep, the park includes the parking lot, but it's a different not POTA or SOTA park on the east side up the hills. Though there is a summit not too far away (W6/CC-072 San Bruno Mountain) that's challenging for another reason: it's littered with FM and TV broadcast towers. I've never tried to SOTA it, but I bought a 2m bandpass filter for my handheld for when I'm out hiking it. It's a pastime listening to folks on 146.52 calling CQ but unable to hear the 10 people trying to respond. It's such an easy peak to get to but so many folk fail because their radio's frontend becomes overloaded.
This exercise is definitely an excuse for more ham stuff. If I can squeeze out an additional 3db over what I have, then it'll be worth it.
I haven't built a feedline match before. That may be worthwhile just for the experience in building such.
Indeed, many of my wire antennas work with NVIS. I rarely do nighttime radio, so my 40m work is generally localized. My EFHW with a 40m fundamental in L / V ish configuration at 10m height and 20 to 50 watts of power does a great job, 59 reports locally and up to 600km away. I even played around with attaching a wire to the top end of my telescoping vertical to make an inverted L specifically for pulling out the vertical's null and into NVIS operation.
Perhaps the park is more about being an excuse in expanding my antenna collection because my EFHW maxes out around 50w SSB, but I'm not going to complain. Who doesn't want more antennas?
I'm looking at K-6450, but it's not the only POTA that's a cove. There's plenty of small beaches up and down the coast that are surrounded by cliffs and mountains. I hope our discussion can help others looking at similarly difficult POTA parks.
My first experience with this beach was when I took my radio with my 1/4w vertical for some simple play and SWLing because I wanted to avoid local QRM. That trip was successful in removing the QRM and nearly all bands were quiet from any eastward activity and nearly silent from north-south stations despite decent band conditions. Afterwards I checked POTA to see if the beach was a valid park, which it was, and noted how few people have activated it. That makes sense as depending on DX for activation is a difficult proposition. I suspect those who did activate probably did so from the parking lot (better power budgets and a larger sky view), went on a weekend for higher band activity, knew how to maximize local propagation, and/or used digital to deal with very weak signals.
Hence why I'm looking at NVIS options. If I can setup the best portable NVIS that I can muster, then that antenna with my beach DXing setup should cover the contacts needed to active the park.
As for the planned spot to operate from, this time I'll try working from the cliff tops instead of on the sand. There are trees that I can use and is not a crowded location (the beach is popular, not the cliffs). I don't want anyone tripping over poles or long wires after all.
I did consider a OCFD but the multiband feature didn't seem worthwhile over a monoband dipole or multiband fan dipole.
Thinking about it again, perhaps it is worthy. If the fundamental is 40m, then I should get dipole performance with an interesting radiation pattern on the second harmonic (20m). If I deploy as a sloper, then perhaps I can get an OK 20m DX setup and decent 40m NVIS out of it. Good timing of the activation right could mean I can capture VK stations without pulling out my 1/4w vertical.
I'll give it a quick model and perhaps find myself winding a 4:1 balun. :)
I too live in a state that's eliminating stagnating regulation, which in turn is causing my town and neighboring towns to catch up with extreme housing demands. I imagine we both will experience an awkward phase as some lots get updated buildings next to lots that haven't seen construction in 60+ years.
I view my recent experience as long needed development. There's no way a developer would plunge that much money into a building if they didn't believe they could sell the apartments/condos. I'd watch to see how fast they sell out, if they haven't already. Consider investing in nearby development if the complex sells quick. Maybe also consider moving further down the train line if you're looking for a less dense neighborhood.
Totally! And SF is a place that's been deploying more bicycle infrastructure and instructing their police to not enforce rolling stops, since at least from 2015! Our car brained governor is stopping such progress, so the battle continues. At least SF residents are holding their ground and voting to keep places like the great highway and JFK drive car-free.
I hike with a FT60 too; it's simple and robust. It'll handle San Bruno mountain except for right along the top ridgeline. Walking 20 meters downhill will let it work again. That mountain is just a crazy bubble of RF.
I use two techniques to figure out if the handheld I'm carrying will work. First, if the S meter reads at S9 but the squelch isn't opening, then it's overloaded. The second is to call into a clearly viable and local repeater. Failing to open the repeater is a pretty good sign of overload.