random wire antenna

US-2167 Black Rock Mountain State Park and the End of an Era

This month I ended up at Black Rock Mountain State Park. It is one of my favorite parks. I like it because it is located on the top of Black Rock Mountain. The views are fantastic and you couldn’t find a better park to operate a radio. This was a weekday trip. For the past couple of months I tried operating during the week instead of in the weekend. It was okay, I think I like the weekends better.

The weather was beautiful mostly cool with a spot of rain on the first night. I was surprised to see Slate Colored Juncos on the mountain. My mother called them snowbirds because they often proceeded a cold front and sometimes snow. I was near a comfort station and right next tot he camp host. No issues when I put up my 28.5′ random wire vertical.

Radio du jour was my FT-710. I also brought with me my IC-705 thinking I would switch over to QRP and CW on the second day. More about that later. I started out on FT8 and 25 watts. I went QRV on 20 meters around 1900 Z. The band was wide open! I stayed on 20 until about 0200 Z. The first day, I made over 200 QSO’s. Wednesday morning things started out well and then fizzled. In the end I made 453 QSO’s covering 46 states and 16 DX entities. The states I missed were AL, HI, ND, and WV. For DX I got as far north and west as Alaska, as far south as Uruguay, as far east as European Russia. I was hoping the band would stretch far enough west to pick up Hawaii, but it didn’t quite make it. A hop too far.

By Wednesday afternoon the bands were dead and I decided to head back to the house. It was a good run while it lasted and a lot of fun. The only issue I had were people asking for dupes. I only need to work you once and the way band conditions were many stations I needed were a one shot deal. Heard them once and then they were gone. I lost some of those because of people asking for dupes. That means two of us lost. Most logging software will show you if you worked a station before. It’s what I use. As an activator, I try to get as many stations as I can in the log.

Once the bands died and I realized that QRP and CW were not viable, I decided to pack it up and head home. I left the park early Wednesday evening and was home before dark. All in all a nice trip. Here is a QSO map of the activation.

End of an Era. This will be my last year on WordPress. It cost me between $100-$200 a year to maintain and being retired I need to cut a few corners. What will happen, is I will move back to Blogger which is free. I own the domain name and I will bring that with me. My WordPress subscription, ends March of next year and in the mean time, I will move some of my posts over to Blogger. Mainly the technical stuff. I will also be taking fewer overnight trips and combining some trips with the wife doing more than amateur radio.

Retirement is grand, I wouldn’t trade it anything. With it comes a little more responsibility. If I think I want something on the pricey side, I ask myself if I am willing to go back to work for it. So far the answer is no. Stay safe and 73 de Scott

Night on Bald Mountain

This trip was to Cloudland Canyon State Park located in NW Georgia. It is a very nice campground about a 2 hour drive from the home QTH. I got at the campground Tuesday, around 2000Z and quickly set up. Radio du jour was the Yaesu FT710 Field which is currently under review. The antenna was my 28.5’ random wire vertical. I am also trying out my Maestro Evolve III laptop along with HAMRS Pro software.

Band conditions were a little off so I started on FT8. It was slow going but I made 15 contacts before the new day. After supper, I went back to FT8 to try to get 15 more contacts before the storms hit.

The whole time I had moderate winds and some pretty good gusts. Right before the storms I lowered the antenna and put a garbage bag over it to keep it dry. The antenna is weather sealed, but the push up pole when it gets wet, is a real pain to dry out.

How about the FT710? In general, I like the radio. I think it’s a keeper. It is fun to use and performs well. It has a few niggles that I camp about but I like it. I talk more about the issues on my YouTube video. I will say that this radio is very different than the first one I got. The first radio was probably released too early and still had growing pains. This radio just feels better. In general I feel this radio and the IC-7300 are about equal. Either one will work well.

Evolve III. This is a pleasant surprise. I paid about $122 for it and for a field laptop it does well. Last night I ran WSJT (FT8) and AcLog without any issues. I was also running. BktTimeSync with a GPS receiver in the background. It is a little slow to start up but once it’s running, it does fine. I run it with a Logitech M310 mouse.

I am also trying out HAMRS Pro. I have it on Windows, Mac, IOS (iPhone, iPad) and they all sync up. I will talk more about HAMRS in a follow up article.

This is Wednesday morning and I am going to try to do some CW before I pack up and go home. Bands conditions are so-so at the moment. I will break my normal procedure are hunt a while to try out some of HAMRS features.

I only managed to make one CW contact hunting and activating. I could tell I was getting out as I showed up on HamAlert. Here is a QSO map of the activation.

If I remember correctly, I had issues last time I was at Cloudland. The important thing was I got out for a while and I had fun. It isn’t always about the numbers. Below is a video about the activation and my thoughts on the FT710. Stay tuned es 73 Scott

West Georgia Amateur Radio Society Spring Fling

Saturday, the West Georgia Amateur Radio Society (WGARS) took to the field for the Spring Support Your Parks Weekend sponsored by Parks on the Air (POTA). WGARS is a pretty active club and one of the best I have belonged to. Besides local events like fox hunts and balloon launches (APRS), we take to the roads 4 times a year to a park. In the spring and fall we make the POTA Support Your Parks Weekend usually on a Saturday. For the winter and summer, we participate in Field Day and Winter Field Day.

Weather was cold, with fog. Temps were in the 50’s and not the mid 70’s predicted by the weather service. I was in shorts and a tee shirt. Luckily, I had a goretex windbreaker in the truck. Others had blankets wrapped around them.

These events are casual events for us. We normally do 3 things while out. We eat, we socialize, and we throw in a little radio along the way. This was no different. We had a picnic table full of food with hamburgers and hot dogs cooked on site by our President John WD8LQT.

Due to a lot of recent solar activity band conditions were interesting. John WD8LQT was runnning CW/SSB and I was running FT8 to reduce interference between the 2 stations. When I switched to 10 meters, I was working into Europe and South America and when I switched to 20 meters, I couldn’t get out of the Continental United States (CONUS). We each made a handful of contacts and spent a lot of time enjoying each others company.

For radios, John was runnning his Xeigu G90 at 15 watts into a EFHW antenna. I was running my IC-705 at 5 watts into my 28.5′ Random Wire antenna. Towards the end my radio developed a glitch and refused to transmit. I was using my iPad via WiFi to make the FT8 contacts and I think that connection caused a setting to change. When I got home and warm, it took me about 3 minutes to figure it out. I still had a pretty good day. Here is a QSO map from my station.

The goal of these event for our club is not how many contacts we make, but how much fun we have and a large part of that is enjoying each others company. Field Day is only a couple of months away — can’t wait.

Below is a short video. It is a little jittery as I had navigate around people and chairs etc. If you’re prone to vertigo, you may wish to skip this one.

Assault on Dugger Mtn

On Saturday, June 10th, I decided to try a SOTA activation. I wanted a Saturday workout and test my gear, to see how I fair on a 6-point summit. I have eyes on doing a 10-pointer in the future. The summit reference is W4A/PT-002.

As I soon discovered, Dugger Mountain is no easy summit. From my starting point at a Forest Service Road where the trail crosses, it is a steady climb for almost 2 miles with an elevation increase of over 1,200 feet. After that, it is another quarter-mile climb bushwacking to the summit.

There was supposed to be a trail leading to the summit but I didn’t find one. It was probably overgrown with the summer foliage, I don’t think it would have helped much. Once I got to the top, I found a nice clearing with plenty of rocks to sit on. This time of year in the South is not a good time to sit on the ground, it is the middle of Chigger and Tick season.

The radio du jeur was my Penntek TR-35. It is a nice handy radio covering 4 bands: 40, 30, 20,17, my workhorse bands. The TR-35 is a 5-watt radio which can put out slightly more with a good battery. The radio has an excellent receiver and there are no hidden menus. You could say it is WYSIWYG, What You See Is What You Get. The radio was powered by a Bioenno 3 amp/hour battery that was rubber-banded under my homemade Flight Deck. The Flight Deck is an inverted plastic clipboard with some holes drilled for my N0SA paddles. There is enough room left for a Rite-in-the-Rain 4 x 6 notebook and/or my iPhone. I also have a large Velcro strap to secure it to my leg if need be.

The earbuds are made by Skullcandy and I like them a lot. If you look to the left of the clipboard, you will see a red dot. That is a momentary on push button connected to the key input on the radio. The radio comes with 2-inputs, one for paddles and one for a straight key. I use the button to tune the tuner.

The radio is connected to an Elecraft T-1 tuner and the coax is RG-316, The antenna is a home brew 41′ Random wire antenna without a counterpoise. I use a 15′ coax between the tuner and antenna for the counterpoise. It is made by Chameleon and has a choke balun at one end. When running a random wire antenna it is good practice to use a choke to prevent unwanted RF from getting into the radio. The antenna uses a homebrew 9:1 UnUn.

Many parts of the Talladega Nation Forest are isolated and cell service is spotty at best. For this reason, I carry a Garmin Messenger with me. It allows me to send SMS/Text messages as well as location information. Since I am sometimes doing a solo activation as an old guy, it gives me a safety net and gives comfort to my wife.

QRV. After a short break and set-up, I went on the air. I expected bands to be poor; however not as poor as the actual conditions. It was probably not the best day to be operating QRP. I had to work pretty hard to get the 4 that I did (enough for a SOTA activation). If I had a wish at that time, it would have been to have higher bands like 10 thru 15 which were supposedly open then.

The trip was fun, Dugger Mtn is off of the Pinholti Trail. It is a fairly well-maintained trail and was easy to navigate. The elevation changes there and back will put your boots and socks to the test. I am happy to report no blisters were indicated. This hike gave me an opportunity to test out my kit. It has been a while since I did any hiking with a pack. One thing I am going to do is lighten the load. I didn’t feel too overpacked, but I need to lose some weight in the pack. I will work on that Sunday. Here is a short YouTube of the trip. 73 — Scott