 Most viewed - Parks on the Air |
477 viewsPOTA - Pigeon Mountain - 4-24-2021
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477 viewsPOTA - with the Rambler Radio Club - 5-15-2021
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477 viewsJohns Mountain WMA K-3758 4-28-2022. It was a beautiful blue sky spring day. John KB4QXI even showed up on his 3 wheel bike with a trailer hauling his ham gear. Allen KN4FKS had 25 contacts with 3 P2P and one Saskatchewan Canada DX on 20 meters before lunch. Then Tony WA4TW hopped over to 40 meters and cranked out 31 contacts with 4 P2P. After that John KB4QXI got on 40 and got 18 contacts with 3 P2P. In the mean time Peter KX4BE worked CW on both 40 and 20 and grabbed 79 contacts, 5 P2P, and 3 DX.
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477 viewsWe activated Chickamauga Battlefield US-0716 yesterday at the Wilder Recreation Field site. This is on the West side of the park and was the front line on the third day of the battle. A dozen deer wandered across the field in front of us and the sun actually made it right pleasant.
As we gathered we agreed to a band plan as to who would be operating on which band. Then it was set up time. Allen KN4FKS and Danny AG4DW decided to utilize the nearby picnic tables and set their vertical antennas on opposite sides. Ed KM6UTC set up in the back seat of his vehicle. Dan K2DTS was on the far end of the parking lot and when John KB4QXI got there he also set up in the front of the parking lot.
Allen chased Park to Park contacts on 20 meters SSB and needed 20 P2P's to make a double Kilo ( 2000 ) P2P POTA award. with 21 made it was a successful day. Danny cranked up on 15 Meters, caught a band opening and worked DX into Belgium, Canada, England, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Hawaii, and Mexico. He had a total of 104 contacts with 46 SSB and 58 FT8 all on 15 meters. Ed worked 10 meters and had 46 FT8 contacts with 22 of those being DX. Dan worked the WARC bands of 12 & 17 meters and I don't know his totals. John worked 40 meters and had 26 contacts with 4 P2P.
A fun day was had by all, there were lots of park visitors coming by and one cyclist chatted and his father, SK now was a Ham back in the 50's he could even remember his call sign. In the attached photos we utilized the latest model of line gun to get antennas set. Hi Hi.
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477 viewsOn Tuesday May 27 Danny AG4DW and Allen KN4FKS headed towards Cartersville to activate three parks they had never activated before. A day moving from multiple parks is called a "Rove".
The plan was to start at Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site US-3715. After an early drive they arrived at the park at 10 am and set up two stations. Allen set up his end fed sloper wire and made 20 contacts on 20 meters. 6 were Park to Park contacts. Danny had started on 40 meters and it was not producing contacts. He made a few FT8 Contacts then moved to 20 meters when Allen was clear. He had 14 contacts with 9 SSB and 5 FT8 contacts. It was a new experience to set up, make a few contacts then take everything down and prepare to move to the next park. It just didn't feel right. But that was the plan.
Next was Allatoona Pass Battlefield State Historic Site US-7471. This Civil War site is a very small site with a small parking lot next to a busy road, and very noisy powerlines. We set Danny's vertical up on top of the adjacent berm with Lake Allatoona on the other side. Using Danny's rig we worked through the noise, shared the radio and Allen made 17 contacts, with 7 P2P contacts on 20 meters. Danny made 14 contacts on SSB. Handing the microphone back and forth saying 'standby for a second operator' was another new experience and again it just didn't feel right. But it worked and we both got an activation. At this site we had a lot of interaction with people walking by. We would take a moment to explain what we were doing "It's not CB" Many had a relative or friend who was into Ham radio. The 'Parks ON The Air' concept was interesting and exciting to all of them. We packed up the gear, then spent a few minutes walking past the monuments and interpretive signage to explore the battlefield site.
Then it was on to Red Top Mountain State Park US-2194. We used the large empty parking lot at group shelter 2 as our base. After a quick lunch we used Danny's radio and Allen's end fed wire antenna. to set up on 20 meters. Again sharing the radio Allen made 12 contacts with 11 P2P. and Danny made a quick 10 contacts. We could hear the static crashes on the radio and the sky was getting darker. A few drops fell so Danny deployed his "sun shade' umbrella to cover the tail gate where we had the rig set up. About the time we both had the 10 contacts required for a successful activation the rain was beginning to fall. As we quickly began to take everything down it began to rain harder, About the time we jumped in the truck it began to pour.
The drive up the interstate from Cartersville to Resaca was exciting to say the least. The rain was hard and at one place the fast lane was not draining and had about a foot of standing water. This was causing cars to spin out into the median, bang into each other and drown out their engines Several state troopers were on the shoulder working fender benders. Somehow Danny was able to safely get us through the mayhem and on up the road.
It was a fun day, very different and challenging at times. We each added three new parks to our list of sites we have activated. Maybe one day we'll both qualify for some obscure POTA certificate :-)
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477 viewsEver have an itch and the need to scratch it? After I realized last week that I was 18 QSO's from a POTA double Kilo for Cloudland Canyon State Park US-2169 and that itch has been driving me crazy. So this morning I decided to head to the Ascalon Trailhead and scratch the itch.
Trying to get an early start to avoid the heat but it was still already warm when I arrived at the park. The throw string went exactly where I aimed it (there was no audience) and I quickly got the end fed wire antenna up. I got everything set up opened the computer and got the log all ready. I found an open frequency and spotted myself on the POTA page. 14.263 on 20 meters SSB. I called CQ for a bit and wondered where everyone was. I wondered if everything was connected then I looked at the radio display. I was on 7.263 40 meters. No wonder the spot wasn't bringing in the contacts. I quickly changed bands and there was Danny AG4DW giving me a call. So now I had the first QSO out of the 17 I needed. Being on the right band helped and contacts rolled in steadily and I easily made the 17 for the 2xKilo. I kept calling CQ and had to move once due to QRM but wound up with a total of 60 contacts with 7 Park To Park contacts and the only DX was two Canadians. By 11 am it was beginning to get hot the breeze had died so I called it a day and headed home early. The itch has been scratched so now I can concentrate on Field Day.
In June of 2017 I heard about this group doing a Ham radio thing 'Field Day' using the old 'command bus' set up at Walker Fire Rescue Station 1 in Rock Spring. It was a while after supper and I dropped in to find Jody Carter and Alan Painter still on the air. They took the time to introduce me to Ham radio and explain what I needed to do to get licensed. At the club meeting in August I took the Technician and General test and was soon on the air. The rest is history. So I will always have a special place in my heart for field day. See everyone Saturday.
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476 viewsWe were a little late getting on the air today at Crockford-Pigeon Mtn. WMA K-3742. As we were getting set up John KB4QXI called and advised he was stuck in a ditch. POTA is always fun! Tony WA4TW had 52 contacts on 20 meters with 13 P2P and 1 DX (Spain), Peter KX4BE had 87 contacts using CW with 2 P2P, Allen KN4FKS followed Tony on 20 meters and had 27 contacts with 2 P2P and 1 DX (Spain), John KB3QXI had 13 contacts on 40 meters.
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476 viewsOn Saturday, while a few were invited to spend time with the Ramblers, another crew of POTA operators went off to the Cherokee National Forest to activate.
This was made possible by a very cordial invitation by the Cleveland Ham Radio group and coordinated by Larry Wallace KN4JUU. Their club has a repeater at the top of Oswald Dome at an elevation of 3000’.
The drive up took us into the clouds/dense fog, where the taillights of the vehicle ahead were barely visible. My Land Rover has rear end fog lights from the factory I thought I’d never use… well they got turned on for this.
The road itself was not as in a poor condition as some may remember when heading to the Bat Cave . But it most certainly was much longer.
We arrived and set up with a variety of different radios and antennas. From that elevation even some 2m DX was easily possible.
The highlight of the day was lunch being cooked by our own Chef Boy R Jeff N2YYP. He had made up some Deer burgers the day before. Dangerous stuff! So good a person wanted to just keep eating them. Fortunately self control managed to prevail. Jeff I believe has been elected as the ‘official cook/chef’ for future adventures. I should mention there were dogs and sausages for those who didn’t want any Bambi. And also , Jeff brought some of his award winning Chow Chow. Stuff goes good on just about everything imo
Anyway, I digress. Activations went very well. What a wonderful locale to activate. Afterwards the fog had burned off, and the trip back down was simply Gorgeous! Vistas popped as we traveled down that were picture card perfect.
If the Cleveland crew ever offer the opportunity to go to their site again, I’d strongly encourage folk to take them up on it
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476 viewsFrom deep in the woods we sent out radio waves. This week we activated Pigeon Mountain US-3742 from the Atwood point site. No pile ups for us, band conditions were 'wonky' to say the least.
Danny AG4DW used FT8 digital and made 43 contacts, with DX to Cuba. Spain, and Isle of Man. Tony WA4TW made 21 SSB contacts with 11 P2P and DX to Saint Petersburg Russia and Canada. Allen KN4FKS had 12 SSB contacts with DX to Switzerland and Slovenia. He also contacted the Battleship IOWA NI6BB. in California.
Tony's son Jerrick joined us for part of the morning.
John KB4QXI activated a park in Arizona that day also. Allen and Danny were able to make contact later that day so it was not a P2P but fun anyhow.
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476 viewsThis weekend April 5-6, 2025 saw the 3rd annual Georgia State Parks POTA Contest . The goal here is to have ALL of the Georgia State Parks activated at once in a contest format. Cloudland Canyon State Park US-2169 was activated by Allen KN4FKS and John KB4QXI from Cabin 7. They set up antennas and stations on Friday evening and got ready for the contest start at 8:00 am Saturday morning.
Through the weekend Allen operated exclusively on 20 meters and John stayed on 40 meters. Band pass filters saved the day with such close proximity RF.
Bright and early Saturday both operators were ready at the start. You could not buy a contact on 20 meters! The band was dead. The sun had burped. After calling CQ for 45 minutes Allen suddenly got an answer from Arizona. He said I was the ONLY signal on his band scope. Ouch. Another few minutes and a DX contact to Columbia was made then the calls started to trickle in. It was 2 contacts the first hour, then 7 more the second hour. By the end of the third hour the 20 meter total was 20 QSO's. It slowly got better and when the day was done Allen had a total of 376 contacts. John was having similar difficulty on 40 meters. He had 143 contacts on the day, We shut down the stations at 10 pm. to get some sleep and be ready to go again Sunday morning.
During the day several fellow hams came by. Harry N4VQ stopped in with his K-9 buddy. Danny AG4DW stopped by to provide adult supervision then went across the park and set up his station giving us Park-to-Park contacts. He cranked out 25 contacts and called it a day. Dean KK4EB an old friend of both John and Allen stopped in and set up on the picnic table out in the yard. He operated on 15 meters and made 81 contacts total, 31 DX and one Georgia P2P .
Allen was awakened Sunday morning by a thunderclap at 6:30 AM. Jumping up he quickly detached both stations coax from the antennas. It was raining heavily and the thunder rolled across the ridge top. Not a good beginning to the second day of the contest. Check out time for the cabin was noon so the morning was tough. Between storm fronts Allen got on the air for a few minutes and quickly got 34 contacts before having to shut down again.
Totals for the weekend Allen Had 410 contacts with 69 P2P calls and only one Georgia park contact for a contest score of 413. John had 187 total contacts, 44 P2P contacts and 31 Georgia P2P contacts which adds 155 points to his 187 for a rough score of 342.
To cap off a fun weekend of solar and terrestrial weather, packing up to leave in the rain was fun. Antenna demobilization with occasional thunder was exciting as well as wet. Then moving all the stuff out to the cars it was just as wet. Fun weekend in spite of all the challenges. Now to dry everything out.
Alan W4PLP activated Unicoi State Park. How was your weekend? Anyone else get out to POTA?
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475 viewsChickamauga Battlefield Park - 09-19-2020
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475 viewsPOTA - Johns Mtn WMA - 09-10-2021
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