This past weekend, my wife and I went camping at Ft Mountain State Park near Chatsworth, GA. The park holds a special place in our hearts because we spent our honeymoon there some 32 years ago. Believe it or not, she still loves me.
Ft Mountain is also a favored place for POTA activations. Going into the weekend I needed a little over 200 contacts to earn a kilo award for that park. This weekend was special. We were having a family campout with my two sons and their families. We rented 3 campsites close together and spent a great weekend enjoying each other’s company.
As you can guess, amateur radio took a back seat to the other activities. Since my wife was with me, my little camper got a little crowded. I had to scale back my radio gear. I took the radio desk out of the camper and used a lap desk instead for the radio. The radio du jour was my IC-705 with the AH-705 tuner. The radio was battery powered and I used an external Bioenno 3 ah battery. My mode of choice was FT-8 and I used my iPad mini to run SDR Control. My antenna was my trusty 28.5 Random Wire. When I first started, I hooked the antenna right up to the AH-705. It worked flawlessly. The AH-705 acts much like an SG-237. It is a very versatile tuner. As the temps dropped, I moved inside and had to change the antenna to its normal configuration with a 9:1 UnUn and a 1:1 current Balun. I ran coax to the inside the camper to the AH-705. I did not have a long enough control cable to keep the AH-705 outside.
I knew my kids and their families wouldn’t arrive until Friday night which meant family activities wouldn’t start until sometime Saturday morning. I got on the air Friday afternoon and stayed on until about midnight. I took a couple hours of sleep and then got back into it. The nice part about FT-8 is you can turn the volume down so as not to disturb the significant other. I finished up before 10 AM, about the time everyone else was starting to stir.
I ended up with over 230 contacts covering 40 states and 7 countries with 7 watts of power. This was enough for the Kilo.
The rest of the weekend was with family. When my boys were young (I call my boys, boys and my dogs boyz), I used to take them to Magic (The Gathering) tournaments. While we were there I would run booster drafts which was an ad hoc game using new never never-opened card packs. I did this to give myself something to do, and I got a Magic tee shirt that had “Staff”. Street cred baby! I arranged a game while we were camping and of course, introduced the grandsons to the game. It looks like we may do this again next year.
With careful planning, you can enjoy your family and radio at the same time. In fact, one of my grandsons is interested in learning more about CW or Morse Code. Yes, sir, next year’s campout is looking up. 72 de Scott
KK4Z 