US-7637 (quick) zBitx POTA

10-15-2026 Flagstaff, Arizona

Had a few unplanned minutes to do a quick POTA attempt at a POTA park within the Flagstaff city limits (a rare POTA thing!). Riordan Mansion State Park US-7637.

This is only the second POTA Activation for the little zBitx HF rig. Noise in this downtown park was S6-s7 with huge bursts of electronic noise. I attempted a phone Park-2-Park with a station in IA and he said he could hear me call P2P but could not copy my call sign. For whatever reason there were only 2 Parks on Phone and 30 on digital (20m band). Antenna was also not perfect and ran with no tuner, so I had SWR ranging from 1.3 to 2.3.

So I switched to the noise floor alternative, FT8.

Quickly piled up 13 just as I was worried about closing things out for the night. At first I thought it was going to be a dud, but they came in.

Surprising, several of the first contacts were from within 100 miles of my QTH in Alabama. Thanks neighbors!

After todays use of the zBitx, I think it will become a serious tool for digital on go.

SETUP:
Location: At parking lot just south of the picnic bench
RIG(s): zBitx v1
Antenna: 20m vertical with 2 radials mostly on ground
Power: 2x 18650 Lipo cells on zBitx
Logging: PoLo + zBitx
Bands: 20M phone+FT8

zBitx in action below:

Amazing reach today of 3-4w FT8, and on two tiny batteries...
these are the stations that heard the little zBitx running today.