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 Most viewed - Parks on the Air |
9 viewsWe headed south on Thursday November 16 to JF 'Sloppy' Floyd State Park K-2187 just below Summerville GA. This quiet park offers several excellent places to set up radios and antennas for POTA.
We activated near the dam of the lower park lake at the end of the road. We set up the ICOM 706 MK II G 100 watt radio and used an end fed half wave wire rigged as a sloper. Allen, KN4FKS, talked and Danny AG4DW handled logging duties.
We were chasing parks and making several contacts when we heard a helicopter getting near. It kept getting closer, passed over us about 50 feet above the trees and proceeded to land on the dam of the lake in front of us. We kinda stopped playing radio and went to chat with the crew after they had shut down completely and were ok with us approaching. They were a US Forest Service contract fire suppression crew standing by for possible call to two nearby forest fires on National Forest land. Their support crew , their fuel tanker and a Forest Service official joined them on the dam.
We went back to our radio after all the excitement. Allen made 36 contacts 18 park to parks with 6 DX stations 1 Canadian, 2 from Spain and 2 from Italy. After lunch Danny AG4DW took over the mic and made 24 contacts all park to park. John KB4QXI showed up after lunch and used his Yaesu 891 and a Hamstick to make 62 contacts 14 park to park and 6 Canadian contacts.
Another fun day in the woods.
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9 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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9 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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9 viewsOur fearless POTA leader, Allen (KN4FKS) had a last minute change of plans and was not able to make our POTA outing at the hallowed grounds of Chickamauga Battlefield (US-0716) today (4/25).
Nonetheless, several other operators met up at the picnic/recreation area on Brotherton Road to "POTA on". The early birds were Jeff Fitzpatrick (N2YPP) and Ed Dionne (KM6UTC). Jeff was using his FT-891 with a homemade EFHW antenna on 20 meters using SSB. At the end of the day Jeff had 145 total contacts, including 15 park-to-park and 6 DX (Canada).
Ed wound up working FT8 using two different antennas; his trusty loop antenna and a vertical antenna using a Faraday cloth as the counterpoise. In the end he wound up with 70 contacts total, including 21 DX contacts to Germany, Switzerland, France, Netherlands, England, Ukraine, Spain, Czech Republic, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Canada! There were at least 4 park-to-park contacts.
Danny (AG4DW) worked 10 and 15 meters all day using a vertical antenna and wound up with a total of 36 contacts, 24 FT8 and 2 SSB, including 1 park-to-park and 17 European DX contacts, including a new country for him, Lithuania!
Ed Sarnosky (KX4BE) arrived on his motorcycle to provide a semblance of adult supervision and offered advice where needed.
Dan Strickland (K2DTS) arrived late, after a little extra and much needed beauty sleep, and spent most of the day getting his FT8 setup to finally work properly and then did some on-the-job FT8 learning and made a few FT8 contacts.
It was a gorgeous day weather-wise but the bands were a little noisy. Except perhaps 20 meters which Jeff blew out of the water with his 145 contacts! We had fun watching Jeff sweat through some of the pileups but I fear we may have created a POTA monster out of Jeff. Stay tuned to see how it works out!
Great fun, great fellowship and we bounced lots of electrons off the ionosphere.
We also had a couple of park visitors drop by to check out what we were doing! Not a bad POTA activation at all...
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9 viewsOur fearless POTA leader, Allen (KN4FKS) had a last minute change of plans and was not able to make our POTA outing at the hallowed grounds of Chickamauga Battlefield (US-0716) today (4/25).
Nonetheless, several other operators met up at the picnic/recreation area on Brotherton Road to "POTA on". The early birds were Jeff Fitzpatrick (N2YPP) and Ed Dionne (KM6UTC). Jeff was using his FT-891 with a homemade EFHW antenna on 20 meters using SSB. At the end of the day Jeff had 145 total contacts, including 15 park-to-park and 6 DX (Canada).
Ed wound up working FT8 using two different antennas; his trusty loop antenna and a vertical antenna using a Faraday cloth as the counterpoise. In the end he wound up with 70 contacts total, including 21 DX contacts to Germany, Switzerland, France, Netherlands, England, Ukraine, Spain, Czech Republic, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Canada! There were at least 4 park-to-park contacts.
Danny (AG4DW) worked 10 and 15 meters all day using a vertical antenna and wound up with a total of 36 contacts, 24 FT8 and 2 SSB, including 1 park-to-park and 17 European DX contacts, including a new country for him, Lithuania!
Ed Sarnosky (KX4BE) arrived on his motorcycle to provide a semblance of adult supervision and offered advice where needed.
Dan Strickland (K2DTS) arrived late, after a little extra and much needed beauty sleep, and spent most of the day getting his FT8 setup to finally work properly and then did some on-the-job FT8 learning and made a few FT8 contacts.
It was a gorgeous day weather-wise but the bands were a little noisy. Except perhaps 20 meters which Jeff blew out of the water with his 145 contacts! We had fun watching Jeff sweat through some of the pileups but I fear we may have created a POTA monster out of Jeff. Stay tuned to see how it works out!
Great fun, great fellowship and we bounced lots of electrons off the ionosphere.
We also had a couple of park visitors drop by to check out what we were doing! Not a bad POTA activation at all...
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9 viewsThis Wednesday May 1 we activated J. Floyd State Park US-2187. It was a beautiful sunny day down by the lake. However the solar weather was not exactly cooperating and the bands were "wonky". Danny AG4DW had a total of 25 contacts, 15 DX (Panama, Puerto Rico, Columbia, Venezuela, Cuba, Denmark Russia, Jamacia, Germany, Belgium, England and Canada). 5 were SSB, 4 were FM VHF/UHF and 16 FT8 digital. John KB4QXI had 12 contacts on 40 and 20 meters. His mobile mount antenna on his truck was not working very well. Allen KN4FKS had 43 contacts on 20 and 40 meters, 17 Park to Park, and 6 DX ( France Puerto Rico, and 4 Canadians. Dan K2DTS had issues with his digital set up and never got it working.
We had visitors, Several park hikers stopped by and were curious about what we were doing. They were impressed by the distance of the contacts using the simple equipment. We also had some local hams drop by Lonnie KK4VDE and Dewayne W4FDT. They both were very experienced POTA operators and have activated many of the parks we often go to. Dewayne also shared with us his experiences on a POTA trip to Alaska a few years ago. Fun bucket list type trip. Great fellowship.
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9 viewsThis Thursday we activated Pigeon Mountain US-3742 from inside the check station. With rain showers all around and the hot muggy weather it was certainly nice to have air conditioning and a roof over our heads.
We set two stations and shared radios and bands. Allen, KN4FKS, started out on 20 meters with 14 contacts, 12 P2P and no DX. Peter, KX4BE, broke out the key and worked 20 meter CW and made 13 contacts with all 13 being P2P. Then John KB4QXI made 18 contacts on 20 meters. Danny, AG4DW, set up his digital rig on 15 meters and made 28 contacts on FT8. He had 4 DX contacts to: Columbia, Belize, and 2 Canadians.
Thanks to the GA DNR folks who let us use the check station to avoid the heat and rain!
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8 viewsPOTA - Chief Vann House State Historical Site - 10-01-2021
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8 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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8 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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8 views
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8 viewsWe activated Pigeon Mountain US 3742 this Thursday at the South Brow Road site. There was abundant shade and a cooling breeze all day so it was a wise choice for a hot summer day.
Jeff N2YYP set up his rig way down an old roadbed away from the parking area. Something about sausages and gas. He made 41 SSB contacts on 20 meters with 7 P2P and 6 DX contacts.
Allen KN4FKS worked 15 meters SSB and made 33 contacts 4 P2P and 6 DX. Germany, Hungary, Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico and 2 Canadians.
Ed KM6UTC worked FT8 on 10 and 20 meters with 89 contacts and 12 DX.
John KB4QXI worked 40 meters SSB off his hamstick and made 12 contacts with 3 P2P.
Peter had tweaked his back so he didn't brave the pothole filled road but made the trip up to Grundy Forest Natural Area in Tracy City where he used CW to make 8 QRP contacts and 11 non QRP contacts for a total of 19 contacts.
A fun day was had by all.
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