I did a lot of stuff with the radio club this year, I wrote a Year in Review about it on the club webpage. My big radio things this year were going to the FCG Contest Dinner at Hamcation, usually it’s on the same day as the club meeting. I got to meet quite a few people I knew from on the air and online only, also I won a power supply in the raffle. Hamcation is on the 2nd weekend in February for 2023 and I’ve already got my tickets to this year’s dinner. I also drove up to Dayton this year and did POTA camping on the way….
K-8348 Fort Drum Marsh State Conservation Area
Made a quick stop at K-8348 on a drive across the state to do an activation. Didn’t have tons of time, got 12 contacts then had two people call on top of each other for 5 minutes straight so that I couldn’t copy either of them and both responded to any partial call I gave, so I packed it up. Nice enough spot besides the bird poop on the table.
K-6700 SPARC in the Park
We had another SPARC in the Park event with the club. Decent turn out and lots of contacts got made.
K-4641 Tiger Bay State Forest
Stopped on my way back from a trip to Jax. Really nice brick road into the forest and the dirt road were in great shape. Unfortunately it started raining about 10 minutes after I got setup so I cut it short with only 12 contacts.
K-4625 Jennings State Forest
Stopped for some POTA today. Had a good pileup going on CW and someone kept sending “ID” and I was like why does this guy want me to treat Idaho special. Then I thought maybe that was part of his callsign so I sent it back to him. Then I finally realized I hadn’t sent my call in awhile so I sent it. Need to remember to do it more in CW, I do it by habit in SSB. I was losing my CW focus so I switched to SSB and had a good run but then it started to rain and I wasn’t under cover so I packed it…
K-1971 Lake White State Park
Once in Ohio I stopped at Lake White State Park, this was in close proximity to a highway so I figured it would have cell services so I could spot myself and get a pileup going. I was able to get about 40 contacts in less than half an hour here. Not a great park, more of a boat launch that’s under construction, but it counts.
K-4525 Cherokee National Forest
My next stop on the way to Dayton was Weavers Bend in the Cherokee National Forest. This was a great drive from the previous site in Georgia through the mountains into Tennessee. This site is 6 miles down a dirt road at the end and right on the French Broad River. There’s a train bridge in view that I didn’t think much of until 4am when the first train came thru and then one came through a couple more times during the early morning so I just got up and made a coffee and restarted the fire. I had put up the antenna in the early morning and heard great…
K-4473 Chattahoochee National Forest – Lake Conasauga
I drove up to the National Convention in Dayton, OH this year and stopped on the way in Georgia and Tennessee to camp and do some Parks on the Air Activations. My first stop was Lake Conasauga in north Georgia. This lake has a fairly traditional campground, which I normally avoid, but it’s way out there so there’s not electric and I figured it wouldn’t be crowded on a Sunday and Monday night. When I arrived on Sunday evening there were probably about 20 people around but by nightfall it was just me. This was a beautiful site but without cell service I struggled to get spotted on the POTA…
K-6744 Sawgrass Park, SPARC in the Park
We had another SPARC in the Park event at Sawgrass Park in St Pete. A couple more new people came so I think it’s worthwhile. In total there were about 10 people. I made 20 contacts, mostly as a demo for the new people. Then W4WYR came with the fox and we had a fox hunt. This was my second fox hunt and I was able to find it this time. Though it was made easier due to the park only really having one direction you could hide it. Photos by N2ESP
K-6744 Terra Ceia Preserve Frog Creek
I took the day off to get a IEEE tour of the Manatee Solar Battery, the world’s (currently) largest solar powered battery. On my way home I stopped to activate the Terra Ceia Preserve Frog Creek addon. I’ve activated the main Terra Ceia Preserve a few time, this is just down the road and a separate entity. From the looks of it, it’s mostly a place where people walk their dogs. It was windy and I had trouble with the hard packed sand ground holding my rope tripod of the 40ft mast (tipped over twice, which doubles my total lifetime tip overs). So I switched to the Wolf River Coil….