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632 viewsWe activated Booker T. Washington State Park TN K-2933 yesterday Thursday Nov 30 2023. It turned out to be a wonderful weather day in a really nice park. The park is one of those reminders of a segregated past. Now used by everyone we had a great time. For the activation we established four stations. Peter KX4BE worked CW on 12 m and 15m using the 'screwdriver' antenna on his van. Danny AG4DW worked FT8 mostly on 10 meters. One SSB contact was a park to park contact in England. He had a total of 26 contacts, for DX he also had 2 Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, and Canada. Danny used his elevated vertical antenna set up. Tony WA4TW worked 20 meters SSB with his Chameleon vertical and had 50 contacts with 9 P2P and 2 Canadians. After Tony got 50 QSO's Allen took over the rig and made 21 contacts also on 20 meters with 3 P2P's and 3 Canadians. After Allen Fred KQ4JXX took over and made 12 contacts on 20 meters SSB with 3 P2P's . John KB4QXI finally arrived and made 10 contacts with 2 P2P's on 40 meters using his 'Buddystick' on top of the car. Ed KM6UTC provided the needed 'Adult Supervision' necessary to keep the POTA crew out of trouble.
Band conditions were "wonky" all day signals would be strong then fade to next to nothing and suddenly be back strong in the midst of one QSO. You might see a 5-9 signal go to 4-3 on the next over then back to 5-9 mid sentence. Everyone just worked through the fading and made a successful activation. We utilized the loop road in the 'Recreation Area 2' and Pavillion 2 on top of a small hill and it made an excellent place to set up with some distance between stations yet close enough to enjoy visiting with each other We wondered about the odd layout of the hill top site.
While there the Park Ranger came by and stopped to chat. Very friendly fellow and he mentioned he had seen other folks like us in the past and wondered what it exactly was. We explained the Parks on the Air Program (gave him a brochure) then explained HAM radio in general and about our equipment. We then asked about the history of the hilltop and he said it was originally a campground, not for RV's but for tents. He also said they built a boat marina but neither were used much as back then the folks who came here didn't have a lot of boats or camping equipment. Times have changed he said. Well spoken. He then recruited us to help him with the parks Junior Ranger program next June. We'll be there whatever it takes!
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632 viewsDespite our fearless (underground) leader, Allen (KN4FKS), being otherwise engaged in the process of counting bats in a nearby belfry (cave), we had good attendance today as we activated K-2933, Booker T. Washington State Park, in Chattanooga. The weather was perfect, a warm sunny day. We found spots near Picnic Pavilion #2 overlooking Chickamauga Lake! The bands were up and down and otherwise kinda' funky but we managed to make some good contacts anyway!
Danny (AG4DW) had a total of 35 contacts (including 6 park-to-parks) working the 10 meter band. 9 contacts were SSB with five US contacts and three DX, including Bermuda (a park), Spain and Belgium. There were 26 digital (FT8/FT4) contacts with 12 US contacts and 14 DX, including Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Spain and France.
Ed Dionne (KM6UTC) worked FT8/FT4 on 20 meters using his loop antenna out of the back of his car and made 84 contacts. Two of those were DX to Canada and probably a few park-to-parks but we won’t know how many until the POTA databases work that all out.
Fred Mahler (AD4FM) worked 15 meters out of his truck using hamsticks and made 18 contacts, including 2 park-to-parks and 2 DX to Spain!
Dan Strickland (K2DTS) also worked out of the back of his car but his purpose today was to work out the kinks and configuration of some new equipment and antennas! He did not activate but nonetheless made a few contacts, including one to the Dominican Republic!
KJ4AFL, Tom Hill, crashed our POTA party. Tom lives just on the other side of the lake from the park and showed up to do a solo activation. Surprise! We welcomed him into our group. Tom worked out of his car and was having to work out some issues with an antenna that wouldn’t tune properly. It wound up being a bad piece of coax cable and he was able to take a quick trip home to replace the cable and got up and running. It was fun having Tom join us!
We had at least one visitor that was curious about what we were doing and we spent some time demonstrating POTA and Ham Radio.
We certainly missed having Allen there but we managed a good outing even without proper adult supervision!
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632 views
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632 views
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632 views
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632 views
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632 views
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632 views
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632 views
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632 views
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632 views
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632 views
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