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540 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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540 viewsPOTA from many places. This past Thursday April 17 the TSARC POTA crew activated several parks from different places.
Allen KN4FKS and John KB4QXI activated 'Sloppy' Floyd State Park US-2187 from the site near the lower lake dam. Allen had 105 contacts with 23 Park to Park contacts and 1 DX to Canada. John had 64 contacts with 28 P2P contacts and 1 DX to Mexico. Allen is now just 59 contacts away from making that 'KILO' award for Floyd SP. The KILO is awarded in recognition of making 1.000 contacts as an activator from that park.
Ed KM6UTC activated Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Battlefield US-0716 from the Cravens House site up on the slopes of Lookout Mountain overlooking downtown Chattanooga. Operating the digital mode of FT8 he made 99 contacts with lots of DX all over the world. He worked an 'EA6" station from the Balearic Islands. Do you know where that is without looking it up? Dan K2DTS had a quick activation from the Chickamauga Battlefield US-0716 by pulling onto a roadside pulloff and setting his mag mount antenna on the car. He made 20 quick contacts by simply chasing parks. So he had 20 Park to Park contacts. with 1 DX to Bermuda.
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540 viewsThis Thursday we activated Johns Mountain WMA US-3758 from the Overlook site.
Allen KN4FKS set up his end fed half wave sloper antenna under the trees and Dan K2DTS warmed it up first. He made 20 contacts on 20 meters SSB. the band was wonky and contacts were either long or close. He had one in Alabama and one in California. Allen then used the same rig to make 21 contacts on 20 meters SSB with 7 P2P and 3 DX contacts which included a park to park in Bermuda before the rains came.
Danny AG4DW cranked up his rig using a vertical antenna and made 4 SSB contacts, 25 FT8 contacts and 2 FM contacts. With the two FM contacts on the 1.25 m band he accomplished a rather hard to get POTA award. The POTA N1CC award is obtained by making contacts on TEN bands in TEN different parks. He is the first of our crew to get this award, congratulations on all the hard work. John KB4QXI made 20 contacts on 20 meters with 16 P2P contacts and 2 Canadian DX contacts.
The drive up the gravel road to the overlook is rough as usual but the mountain laurel bushes were in full bloom and made the trip a bit more bearable.
We seem to be in a springtime rain shower loop as every week we seem to be taking down antennas in the rain. Luckily none of the radio equipment has gotten wet. However antennas, coax and throw string need to be dried before the next activation. Hopefully the next activation will be a dry one.
Again, congrats to Danny on the award.
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540 viewsWe activated Cloudland Canyon State Park US-2169 on Thursday May 29. We set up in the picnic shed on top of the hill at the highest point on the park next to the disc golf course. It wasn't raining when we set up but it certainly was when we were taking down.
Allen KN4FKS set up his new 25 foot tall Chameleon vertical and made a fairly quick 35 contacts on 20 meters. Then moved to 17 meters and slowed down a bit to make 19 contacts. Then moved to 40 meters to make 3 contacts. for a total of 57 contacts with 7 park to park contacts with 2 DX contacts, Mexico and Canada. The bands were wonky with signals coming and going or just non existent. The sun burped once more.
Danny AG4DW set up his elevated radial POTA performer vertical and made a total of 73 contacts, 47 on SSB, with 10 P2P contacts then 25 contacts on FT8 all on 40 meters, he then retuned and made 1 contact on 30 meters. Dan K2DTS used his mag mount HamStick and made 27 contacts on 20 meters, 16 SSB, 6 FT8, and 4 FT4.
Notable contacts on the day was first the US aircraft carrier USS Lexington W5LEX was hunting parks and gave me a call. Then later a booming signal 'park to park' came and it was David WK4DS calling from the Ascalon Trailhead in the same Cloudland Canyon Park property. He was probably two miles away. Then the next contact was in Washington state. \
The bands were odd short and then long. Did I mention it rained? I haven't packed away dry gear in over a month. I'm ready for some sunshine. Regardless a fun time was had by all.
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540 viewsWe gathered this past Thursday at Red Clay State Park US-2970 for an activation day. It was a pleasant day weather wise with lots of shade and a nice breeze.
Danny AG4DW set up his POTA Performer vertical antenna for Jody W4LWC to use. A Rambler Radio Club graduate Emma Gillenwater who lives near the park now joined us. They made 72 contacts on 20 meters SSB with 4 DX to Canada and 1 to the Netherlands. It was great to see Emma once more.
Allen KN4FKS set up his 17 meter folded dipole and made 17 contacts on 17 meters SSB with 1 P2P and DX to Canada, France, England, and 2 Italians. Dave KQ4GLQ set up in the picnic shed and worked 40 meters SSB. I don't have his totals, but he had a good day. Dan K2DTS stopped by and without band pass filters could not get but 1 contact on 15 meters. However he moved away from us and ended up with 15 contacts on 20 meters. He was amazed that he actually heard stations in Bulgaria and Vietnam. They were strong but he was unable to break the pile up. Cool nonetheless.
John KB4QXI arriving fashionably late managed 11 contacts with 3 P2P after moving to another parking lot on the park to escape all the RF.
Red Clay State Park is a small historic park. It was the capital of the Cherokee nation for many years. So for POTA it is also a Trail of Tears US-3791 location.
Fun day on the bands, we also were able to introduce ham radio to several park visitors.
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540 viewsWe gathered this past Thursday at Red Clay State Park US-2970 for an activation day. It was a pleasant day weather wise with lots of shade and a nice breeze.
Danny AG4DW set up his POTA Performer vertical antenna for Jody W4LWC to use. A Rambler Radio Club graduate Emma Gillenwater who lives near the park now joined us. They made 72 contacts on 20 meters SSB with 4 DX to Canada and 1 to the Netherlands. It was great to see Emma once more.
Allen KN4FKS set up his 17 meter folded dipole and made 17 contacts on 17 meters SSB with 1 P2P and DX to Canada, France, England, and 2 Italians. Dave KQ4GLQ set up in the picnic shed and worked 40 meters SSB. I don't have his totals, but he had a good day. Dan K2DTS stopped by and without band pass filters could not get but 1 contact on 15 meters. However he moved away from us and ended up with 15 contacts on 20 meters. He was amazed that he actually heard stations in Bulgaria and Vietnam. They were strong but he was unable to break the pile up. Cool nonetheless.
John KB4QXI arriving fashionably late managed 11 contacts with 3 P2P after moving to another parking lot on the park to escape all the RF.
Red Clay State Park is a small historic park. It was the capital of the Cherokee nation for many years. So for POTA it is also a Trail of Tears US-3791 location.
Fun day on the bands, we also were able to introduce ham radio to several park visitors.
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539 viewsPOTA, Nick A Jack Trailhead - Cloudland Canyon - 12-17-2020. KN4FKS, KB4QXI, N9ZEN
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539 viewsPOTA - Pigeon Mountain - 4-24-2021
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539 viewsPOTA - Johns Mountain Overlook - 12-02-2021
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539 viewsPOTA 2023-08-02 - Today John KB4QXI and Allen KN4FKS activated the Johns Mountain WMA k-3758 from the overlook site. The terrestrial weather cooperated with cooler temperatures, a partly cloudy day, and a pleasant breeze. However the solar weather was less than kind with crazy up and down band conditions. A station would go from a solid 5-9 signal down to almost unreadable then back up in 45 seconds. This made QSOs interesting sometimes. John went first and made 16 contacts with 12 P2Ps with two P2P from Canadian parks. After lunch Allen took over the mic and made 17 contacts with 11 P2P.
Also just in summary since Allen and John started activating parks for POTA in March of 2020 their totals are:
Allen 142 activations 6914 QSO's with 1015 Park to Park contacts
John 140 activations 5875 QSO's with 472 Park to Park contacts
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539 viewsMade it ! Reached a POTA milestone for Cloudland Canyon State Park K-2169 Thursday. The 'KILO' award is for making one thousand contacts from a specific park. (see attached photo)
The space weather cooperated for an exceptional day and the terrestrial weather cooperated as well by not being to hot in our shady location at the Ascalon Trailhead.
In addition to our radio gear we had two 12 volt fans running off battery power. Allen KN4FKS started off on 20 meters with Danny AG4DW logging.. Fred KQ4JXX provided adult supervision for the crew. Allen KN4FKS made a total of 107 contacts with 12 P2P and 13 Canadian contacts. After lunch Danny AG4DW got on 20 and made a quick 14 contacts before it just was getting too warm to be fun. Even on top of the mountain and in the shade it was 90 degrees F.
The rig we used was my trusty old ICOM 706 Mk IIG at 100 watts with 50 ft of RG-8-X coax feeding and end fed half wave rigged as a sloper with the balun on the ground stake. To make 107 contacts the battery meter showed only 6.5 amp hours of the 20 Ahr battery used. Fun day was had by all even after getting wasp stung.
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539 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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