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476 viewsCrockford-Pigeon Mountain - 05-27-2020 - W4LWC, Jody
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476 viewsWe activated Chickamauga National Battlefield today, K-0716 Georgia. Made 70 contacts on 20 meters with 9 P2P and 5 DX contacts. One of the contacts actually had ancestor who fought in the battle fairly near where we were operating from. I stopped at lunch and then Tony WA4TW took over operating and cranked up on 40 meters He made 18 contacts with 5 P2P. The band came back then after a few minutes faded away again then came back. We checked and North America was center of large solar flare hit.
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476 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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476 views5-25-2022, I activated the Dahlonega Gold Museum K-7456. To set up radios I set my vertical antenna in the grass half way between the building and the street. The radio and tuner were placed on a low brick wall and that was my operating position. Got on the air on 20 meters and had a noise floor of S-7 to 8. Made 13 contacts with 1 P2P and 2 DX (Spain, Canada) before I had to go QRT because it was about to rain. With all the passers by and tourist I spent a fair bit of time explaining what I was doing.
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476 viewsAgain it has been a POTA active week. The week started with John KB4QXI activating Berry College WMA US-3734 making 26 contacts on 20 meters SSB with 5 P2P and 2 Canadian contacts. This gave him a total contacts as an activator on Berry of 961.
On Tuesday Ed KM6UTC activated Chickamauga Battlefield US-0716 from the Cravens house site on Lookout Mountain. He made 84 FT8 contacts for the day. Also on Tuesday Allen KN4FKS activated Pigeon Mountain WMA US-3742 from the Estelle Mine road site. He made 58 contacts SSB mostly on 40 meters with 4 P2P and no DX contacts.
Then on Thursday Ed KM6UTC went back to the Cravens house site and made 108 FT8 contacts with 3 P2P and lots of DX into Europe and Eurasia. John went back to Berry to finish out his 'KILO' award on Berry making 46 contacts with 21 P2P. Danny AG4DW and Allen KN4FKS activated J. Sloppy Floyd SP US-2187 from the usual lower lake site. Danny made 27 contacts mostly on FT8 with DX to Canada, Greece, and Spain. Allen KN4FKS made 77 contacts with 25 P2P and 3 Canadians to put him over the 1,000 contacts mark for Floyd SP.
Another 'KILO' awarded to part of the TSARC POTA crew.
A busy week with TWO KILO awards issued and as usual lots of radio fun.
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475 viewsKN4FKS, Allan - POTA, Sloppy Floyd Lake 5-13-2020
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475 viewsCrockford-Pigeon Mtn @ Attwood Pt. 10-14-2020 - W4LWC and W4TDH
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475 viewsPOTA - 2022-09-01 - Today we went to Cohutta Wildlife Management Area K-7446 over East of Chatsworth GA. We set up two stations each using an end fed half wave wire rigged as a sloper fed from the bottom. Battery power ran the 100 watt transceivers. Peter KX4BE worked CW on 20 meters and had 42 contacts with 1 P2P and 1 DX contact. Allen KN4FKS worked SSB on 40 meters and had 34 contacts with 4 P2P. Tony got on 20 meters SSB and made 15 contacts with 6 P2P and 1 DX to Alaska. Another great day doing POTA !
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474 viewsCloudland Canyon 11-05-2020
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474 viewsWhat an adventure. After a rendezvous in Scottsboro AL the POTA crew headed out in four vehicles to the Fern Cave National Wildlife Refuge K-0140. After a few highway miles we turned onto a county paved road and went to its end where we came to the first of four locked gates. Thanks to the Southeast Cave Conservancy Inc. for giving us permission to access their property which adjoins the NWR property. The road is 3.8 miles to our activation site and gets worse the further along we get. There are mudholes, rocky ledges, and gooey slick mud. Luckily no one got stuck or broke anything. Arriving at the end of the road we get turned around and begin unloading our gear. We walk a few steps and cross onto the NWR property where we set up four stations.
We made a total of 129 contacts. When we first got on the air we all were making contacts quickly then it was like you turned out the lights. Till we took a break for lunch getting contacts got harder and harder. The solar storm had hit hard. So then at lunch we start hearing thunder in the distance, A quick look at the weather radar reveals we are in the path of a line of thunderstorms. Radio gear and the 4x4 road we must take out do not react well to heavy rain. After we enjoyed Karen's blueberry "POTA PIE" we pack up everything and head out back to pavement, opening and closing all the gates as we go. Back on the pavement the vehicles are muddy to the windows and mud falls off the undercarriages. Luckily we outran the storms all the way home. The radar images later showed this big red blob passed directly over where we were activating. At a similar cave road location about 20 miles north a group found their access road flooded and several of their vehicles will have to be left on high ground for days till it quits raining. The vehicles that did get out had water over their headlights. The road we used only floods and traps vehicles after multiple heavy rains flood the valley. It has happened in the past but not for us this time.
Fern Cave NWR K-0140 was first activated by our crew in Nov. 2020. There have been 4 other small activations since then then our recent activation. Our group in two activations is responsible for 80% of the 487 total contacts made from this site. The other activators have accessed via canoe down the Paint Rock River. The 190 acre refuge is totally landlocked with no public access point. It is simply there to protect a cave where endangered bats live.
A mini DXpedition it was, with problems to be overcome, logistics to be planned and permissions obtained. This crew of experienced POTA operators had a successful POTA activation.
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474 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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473 viewsPOTA, Nick A Jack Trailhead - Cloudland Canyon - 12-17-2020. KN4FKS, KB4QXI
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