The long and the short of it

My first campout for 2024 was at Vogel State Park located at the base of Blood Mountain in the Chattahoochee National Forest. It is Georgia’s second oldest state park having been established in 1931. The park contains 233 acres and includes a 22 acre lake. The park has camping, picnicking, hiking, and is known for its spectacular fall foliage. Nearby, the alpine village of Helen provides various attractions and good food. Be sure to check out the German Bakery/guesthouse.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to improve my CW skills.
This weekend, it was going to be a me and the key weekend. I am going to spend the weekend only doing CW (or so I thought). Over the past year, I used a lot of FT8 mainly because the bands were in poor shape during my camping trips. I still plan to use FT8 some but for the most part it will be CW. In addition, to help me improve my skill, I signed up for a class with CW Innovations. It is a 10 week intensive CW course. My hope is to get my speed up to where I can do the occasional contest. Those contest boys are pretty zippy.

The weather for the trip was iffy. Friday night, the park was under a winter weather advisory with freezing rain predicted. I try not to let weather stop me from an activity. When I was in the Army, they never called off a field problem due to weather. Today , while I err on the side of safety, I still go regardless of the weather. It teaches the limits of my equipment and me.

I decided to bring the Elecraft Brothers. My K3(S)/10 and my KX2. In addition to running CW, I also plan on operating at QRP levels. This is not much less than I usually run while camping which is about 25-35 watts. My antenna ended up being my 28.5 Foot random wire antenna with a 17 foot counterpoise. I also brought my EmComm II which has better NVIS capability. Often my campsite dictates which antenna I use (I ended up using the random wire due to space constraints and the chance for freezing rain). I will be using a notepad and my Lenovo T14 for logging.

It all started out innocently enough. I was finishing up a bout with the Flu which was probably Covid, and thought I was well enough to make the trip. I reserved the campsite months ago and I figured I could give it a go and if things went south, I could come home the next day.

As soon as the sun went down and the winds picked up I was not feeling well. I ended up with a scratchy throat and associated coughing along with a good case of the chills. No matter how I tried, I could not get warm. My camper has two good heaters, my small ceramic heater which is usually more than enough and the built-in overhead heater/AC unit which will bring the camper up over 90 degrees. Even with both running, I still felt chilled. It was already starting to rain so I had to wait until morning to pack things up. It was not a fun night.

The second big thing to happen was me not making any CW contacts. I called and called Friday night and only made one contact. Cell service was sketchy so it was difficult to check if I was being picked up by the RBN network. I was running 10 watts which usually is enough to at least make the required number of contacts. I was stumped. By the way, on Saturday morning, I made contact with the NCS of the EmComm net I check into on CW and LSB. Hmmm! Back to Friday night. I had about an hour and a half to make the other 9 contacts for a valid activation.

I didn’t want to do it, but I switched over to FT8. I did it to see what was going on out there and to make enough for a valid activation. My FT8 app lit up like a Christmas tree. I had contacts from the west coast and Europe with points in-between to include Canada. What a head scratcher. I’ll include a a QSO map below.

The only thing I can think of is the propagation was not falling on the ears of the hunters and with spotty cell service I could see I wasn’t making it into the RBN. The park sets down in the mountains a bit but it has had 137 valid activations so the signal does get out. It is funny that I could check into my EmComm net with the NCS in SC and not work more than one hunter.

Saturday morning, I packed up after the rain stopped and headed for the house. Back home and under the care of my good wife I began to recover. I still have some gear to dry out and a few things to fix, but that can wait a day. You can’t always have a great activation. While I planned to have a “me and the key” weekend, I was glad to have the ability to operate FT8 which saved the day. Sometimes, a little extra planning makes the difference. I enjoyed the weekend, even though I wasn’t feeling well. A little adversity does add spice to life. Till next time 72 — Scott