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473 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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472 viewsPOTA - Pigeon Mtn Wildlife Mgt Area - 4-8-2021, KB4QXI
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471 viewsPOTA - Chief Vann House State Historical Site - 10-01-2021
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471 viewsWe activated Johns Mtn. WMA K-3758 today from the Johns Mtn. overlook. On his way up the gravel mountain road Tony looks into the woods and sees a large black bear ambling along. Tony had 15 contacts with 7 P2P. One park to park was in Canada and another was in Italy. The bands were open and he had 7 DX contacts: Cuba, Italy, Slovenia, Guadeloupe Czech Republic, and Canada. Ed
KM6UTC showed up, set up his magnetic loop and worked digital on 20 and 30 meters.
In the meantime an Army fellow (Special Forces) showed up and set up his military radio. He was operating in military frequencies just above our 20 meter band. He was also a ham but he just played on the mil frequencies.Â
The occasional hikers came by today They stopped and were all amazed by just how far away we were communicating with our simple little rig.Â
Allen Got on 10 meters. Contacts were W1AW/7 in Arizona and the second was RW1A in Russia. The total for the day was 28 contacts with 4 P2P and 5 DX, European Russia, two in Italy, Canada, Canary Islands and Australia! Yes I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard VK4NH come back to my CQ. That was a first for our POTA contacts distance wise.Â
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471 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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471 viewsThis past Thursday July 17 2025 we activated Cloudland Canyon SP US-2169 from the main park site up at the disc golf course.
The weather cooperated with no rain or lightning. However the bands were a bit on the disturbed side. The ionosphere instead of being a nice smooth lake surface acted like there was a small craft advisory out there in space. Contacts would fade mid sentence or come booming in from odd places.
On the day Allen KN4FKS set up his 25 ft Chameleon vertical with eight radials and had 46 contacts with 10 Park to Park contacts and 3 Canadians all on 20 meters SSB. Danny AG4DW had 92 contacts using his POTA performer vertical antenna. He had 2 SSB on 20 meters then went to FT8 on 40 meters and made 49 contacts then went to 17 meters FT8 and made 41 more. John KB4QXI used his hamstick on top of the car and made 38 SSB contacts on 20 meters.. He had 14 P2P's and 1 air mobile contact. An airplane at 40,000 feet altitude over central TN made contact as well. Talk about antenna height !
Other folks were active as well on other days during the week. Allen activated on Wednesday, Dan also as well on Wednesday , Danny activated on Friday.
Remember the upcoming Saturday activation on the 26th and see you on the radio.
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470 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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469 viewsPOTA - Arrowhead Wildlife Mgt Area - 2-24-2021
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469 viewsPOTA 11-23-2022 - Zahnd WMA K-7903 on Lookout Mountain. We had a fun day playing radio and chatting with rock climber. Across the road a short distance there is an amazing view from a clifftop of McLemore Cove. You can see where we have field day and the Christmas Party.
Allen had 20 contacts with 19 Park to Park contacts. Tony had 17 contacts with 5 Park to Parks and two Canadian contacts. John had 12 contacts with 1 P2P. It was a fun day and the weather was great.
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468 viewsPOTA - Pigeon Mtn Wildlife Mgt Area - 4-8-2021, W4TDH
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466 viewsPOTA - 2022-09-29 - Prentice-Cooper State Forest TN K-5499 was the destination yesterday. At the far end of Tower Road is a cliff top site overlooking the Tennessee River Gorge. Ed ran FT8 using his Mag-Loop antenna, Peter used his end fed wire to work CW, and Allen hung his wire EFHW and worked SSB. Allen Had 41 contacts with 10 P2P contacts. Peter had 55 contacts with 4 P2P and Ed had 35 contacts with 1 P2P. Great day, beautiful day, great view, and great friends.
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466 viewsOn Thursday Aug. 21, 2025 we activated the Vann House State Historical Site US-7457 This small park is only open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays so it doesn't see a lot of activations. There are lots of picnic tables and a wonderful shade tree to make it a pleasant site even on a hot day. The park manager lady is also a Ham so the staff is definitely POTA friendly. The adjacent museum and visitor center is worth a visit and the actual Vann house is amazing. Our native Americans did not live in Tepees.
Allen KN4FKS and Danny AG4DW shared a radio set up. They used the end fed wire and the ever trusty Icom 706 MKIIG. Allen made 37 contacts with 5 park to parks on 40 meters SSB. Danny made 22 contacts with 4 P2P also on 40 meters. It was tough work as we had a local QRM source giving us a 5-8 noise level on 40 meters and even 5-6 across all the bands. Don't know what it was but it made getting contacts a challenge. They could hear us but we couldn't hear them.
Dan K2DTS set up his trusty 17 ft. vertical on his car hood. He made 32 contacts on 20 and 17 meters on FT8 and had DX contacts in France, Slovakia, Belize, Guatemala, Czech Republic, Finland, and 2 in Germany. Dave KQ4GLQ set up his vertical and ran his ICOM 705 in a way cool go box set up. He made 61 contacts on FT8. I wore my special T shirt just for him. (see attached photos)
Earlier in the week John KB4QXI activated Berry College WMA 3734 on Wednesday and Danny AG4DW went to Estelle on Pigeon Mountain also on Wednesday. to edge closer to getting his KILO award for Pigeon. Dave KQ4GLQ and Tony WA4TW joined him there.
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