by Micah (N4MJL)

I strategically suggested to my family a camping trip to Cloudland Canyon State Park in Georgia (US-2169).

It is located in northwestern Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, TN. I sold the idea to the family under the premise that it was centrally located for everyone. Cloudland Canyon State Park was about six-ish hours driving for my parents from southeast Missouri, six-ish hours driving for my sister’s family from the Florida panhandle, and seven-ish hours driving for my family in Virginia.

While that sounds reasonable enough, I actually had a deeper plan. I sold the idea to my wife that she could leave my daughter and me for two days at the state park, and she could go visit one of her college girlfriends in Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville was less than a two-hour drive from where we would be camping. She really liked that idea because she had been talking about doing a trip down to Huntsville for a while.

That was the bait, and now for the hook. My condition was if she got to visit her friend in Huntsville, then she needed to help me get two POTA activations! As one of my old flight Instructors used to say, “plan your work and work your plan.”

I am trying to do a POTA activation in every US state. At the time of the planing of this trip, I had not yet activated any parks in Georgia or Alabama. The second POTA activation that I wanted to complete was 40 minutes across the boarder in Alabama, Crow Creek Nature Refuge (US-9880).

Our three families were able to get camping spots all next to each other on the east rim at the state park. My daughter, who is five years old, was over joyed to be camping with her two cousins who are eight and nine years old along with her grandparents! My condolences to our fellow camping neighbors, because we were definitely the loudest group camping on the East and West rim combined. Haha

Side story: one week before leaving for this camping trip I had an unscheduled long layover, due to aircraft maintenance and flight duty limitations, in Atlanta, Georgia (Delta Country). I try to avoid Atlanta, but the Company put me up in a hotel in downtown Atlanta, three blocks away from Centennial Olympic State Park (US-9798). Fortunately, my Elecraft KH-1 goes every where I go, and I was able to activate that park using the whip Antenna in the pedestrian mobile configuration on 20M band.

Day 1: Camping at the park

My Dad and I rounded up the kids to hike the short Water Falls Trail. This was a beautiful hike down into the canyon to see Cherokee and Hemlock falls. The views on the hike did not disappoint!

Much to the kids’ dismay, there are signs everywhere about no swimming or wading in the water anywhere along the falls on Daniel Creek! Reading between the lines, I think it has to do with the number of rescues that took place and the amount of pedestrian traffic that was occurring. My wife talked to the ranger, and he told us about several spots further up on Daniel Creek where it was permissible to play in the water.

Day 2

We took the ranger’s advice and drove to Sitton’s Gulch Trail Head! From here, the ranger said it was about a 1/4-mile walk to the creek where swimming was permissible along Daniel Creek. We brought a hammock, chairs, and lunch, making an afternoon of swimming in the creek. The cousins enjoyed swimming in the cold mountain streams until their lips turned blue and purple! The girls would take breaks to warm up and eat snacks, only long enough to delay the onset of early stages of hypothermia before jumping back in to do it all over again!

Day 3

Since my wife was planning to leave that evening to drive to Huntsville to visit her friend for two days, I decided that after breakfast would be a great time for my dad (AC0UT) and me to get a POTA activation at the campground! Due to all the RFI interference from the trailers in the campground, we drove over to the parking lot of the Main Overlook. In front of our picnic table, you can see the railing for the Main Overlook trail, where you can enjoy some pretty incredible views!

On the table sits my new-to-me Yaesu FT-891. “Why did you buy another radio?” you may ask. Now you sound like my wife! Haha! I felt like I needed an all-band 100W radio that would be dedicated to a go box for portable use (Go Box build article coming soon). My family travels a lot, and there are times that I have sweet-talked my wife into giving me one hour for a park activation—one hour to set up, call CQ, and pack up. Though I love QRP, there have been times lately that it would have sped up the activation if I had been transmitting at a bit more than 5W. The radio only arrived a few days before I left for this trip. I only had time to hook it up to my home antenna on 40M and score a few quick CW POTA parks before having to start packing for this trip! So, other than watching a few YouTube tutorial videos and reading the manual, I did not have much hands-on time with the radio.

This activation would also be the first time my dad would be with me for a CW-only POTA activation! The BBQ pit in the picture is supporting my SOTA Beams Tactical Mini Mast (about 20 ft tall). I am using my SOTAbeams Band Hopper III antenna. It is a center-fed, linked dipole that is resonant for 40M/30M/20M. If you have an ATU, you can tune up to the 15M band when all the links are connected. The antenna is rated for 125W. Since there are currently no stakes in the ground or wires thrown in trees, I was not worried about upsetting any park authorities!

After 25 minutes of calling CQ with the power set to 50W, I had 10 contacts on the 40M band. I decided to QSY up to the 30M band. I switched the FT-891 (for the first time) to the 30M band and selected the CW mode. I also opened the links on the dipole antenna so that it was now resonant on the 30M band. I started keying, but the radio would not transmit. The side tone worked, but there was no transmission. It was so strange! I had watched so many YouTube videos about the FT-891, and I felt very familiar with the radio. I changed the band and changed the mode—what was the issue? I switched the radio/ant back to the 40M band, and the radio transmitted. I switched the radio/ant back to 30M, and it was side tone only.

At this point, my wife was already texting me, asking how much longer we were going to be gone. I wanted a few more contacts, so I switched out the radio to my faithful Elecraft KH-1 and got 10 more contacts on the 30M band with 5W of power. Since I had 20 contacts in the log on 40M/30M, and my wife was ready to head out on another hike, we decided to call QRT and pack it up. As we were packing up, we talked about the strange radio issue. My dad wisely responded that with issues like this, it’s normally a very simple and obvious solution to solve the problem.

Later that evening, after my wife had arrived at her friend’s apartment, the Park Rangers visited the campground, informing us that there was a tornado watch issued for our area starting at 7 PM. They said that if our area was upgraded to a tornado warning, they would signal us by driving through the campground, honking the truck horn. Our best storm shelter in our immediate area was the campground bathrooms. In preparation, I decided to stow the trailer rain awning and batten down the hatches.

Normally, as a pilot, I absolutely refuse to look at the weather on my days off. Meteorologists have such an easy job—they’re allowed to be wrong the majority of the time, and people still listen to them! But as a pilot, I have found that when family or friends ask me about the weather and I’m not completely right, they hold it over my head for the rest of the event.

My wife texted me around 21:30, informing me that the tornado sirens were going off in Huntsville, announcing a tornado warning for the city. They were taking shelter in her friend’s apartment bathroom. I decided now would be a good time to check the weather. We were playing board games in my parents’ trailer as it lightly rained outside. I started looking at the radar. The thunderstorms that were passing over Huntsville were heading directly towards us fast. The thunderstorms had tops up at 45,000 ft.

As I have gotten older, there is a little voice in my head that I have grown to trust more and more. Now, don’t look at me like that! It’s not like I have full-on conversations with that voice—at least not very often… That little voice in my head was now shouting, “Nothing good happens in a trailer park in Georgia when tornadoes are near!” I stood up and said, “Hey, my daughter and I are going to the bathrooms until this storm passes. You all should come!”
No sooner had all three of our families made it to the storm shelter/bathrooms than the rain really picked up. Soon, the rangers drove through the campground, honking their horns to let us know that a tornado warning was now in effect for our area. Thankfully, the bathrooms in the east loop campground are some of the cleanest I have ever seen! My wife even grudgingly admitted later that the campground bathrooms/showers were probably cleaner than ours at home.

We were very blessed! Other than some very heavy rain and a bit of wind, no damage was experienced at the campground. We were able to go back to our trailers for the night shortly after the fast-moving storm passed directly over our campground.

Day 4

After breakfast, my dad and I rounded up the girls, and we headed out to attempt the Bear Creek Backcountry Trail. We hiked down into a different section of the canyon; unfortunately, the heavy rain the night before had made the water at the trail creek crossing too high to attempt with three girls under the age of nine. We ate snacks and enjoyed looking at the steep cliff canyon walls and several other waterfalls located along Bear Creek. As we attempted to hike up and out of the canyon, the girls all began to complain about being “dead tired.” My dad mentioned the possibility of driving in his truck to the ranger station to eat ice cream bars after we finished the hike. The thought of riding in the back bed of Papa’s pickup truck, with NO SEAT BELTS, and EATING ICE CREAM was enough for the girls to perform a self-rescue and hike up and out of the canyon with no further issues.

Day 5

Since my wife had returned to the campground from a successful visit with her friend, it was time for me to call in the second part of our deal. My dad and I got up early, grabbed our coffee, radio gear, and headed to the second POTA park located in Alabama. Before every activation, I like to conduct a little reconnaissance of the area. The POTA page mentioned in the comments that Stevenson Park falls inside the boundary for Crow Creek Refuge. The comments also mentioned there were picnic tables down by the water. I wish all parks had handy information like that! The area I circled in red is where we set up. Also, the park has bathrooms, which is a very important detail for early morning post-coffee radio activations.

Once again, we set up my SOTA Beams Tactical Mini Mast paired with the SOTA Beams Band Hopper III Dipole! I really love this antenna setup. Once you get the hang of it, setup is very quick, even with only one person. The antenna system also serves as the guying system that keeps the mast standing. You only need three small tent pegs to hold the mast upright.

At the base of the mast, I added an orange rubberized wire that I used in the last activation to attach the mast to a BBQ pit. These orange rubber wires are very handy for attaching the mast to a fence post, BBQ pit, or small shrub, so that you don’t always need to use stakes in the ground. Be aware, though: the first couple of times you attempt to set it up by yourself will look like a comedy routine! Once you figure out the approximate distance for the stakes and the guy lines, it is a very simple system to set up.

We set up my FT-891 attached to my dad’s massive battery go box that he built! I was on the air for 1 hour and 2 minutes and was able to get 27 contacts all on the 40M band. Again, we tried going to the 30M band, but we encountered the same problems described in the last activation. We checked the SWR on the antenna, and it was reading 1.1 on 40M, 1.4 on 30M, and 1.1 on 20M. I contemplated switching over to my KH-1 and operating QRP with that radio on other bands. However, I was using my iPad for logging with the Ham2k Polo app, and it was becoming very difficult to read my iPad screen in the bright conditions.

When operating from a table, I really do enjoy logging with the Ham2k Polo app. Seeing my iPad screen in bright conditions is the only real downside that I have encountered. I keep a piece of scratch paper near me in case an OP starts sending me something outside the normal POTA exchange. I am only just starting to dream of developing head copy!

I asked my dad if he wanted to do his first CW activation, but he was content with having been copying my activation. He is a faster, more accurate CW copy than me! He finished the CW OPS Intermediate class last winter and will probably do the Advanced CW OPS class this coming winter. I am hoping to get him activating CW POTA parks in southeast Missouri. There are many POTA parks within a close distance to home. You all need to sound off in the comments section encouraging my dad to take the leap and start activating parks for us!!!

As a green CW operator, I am still just barely hanging on to the QSO! During activations, I generally give four RST reports. Your readability basically has to be a 5 for me to get you in the log. For signal strength, if you are blowing the earbuds out of my ears with your signal, then you get a 599! If you’re not knocking the earbuds out of my head but still have a very comfortable signal to copy, then you get a 579. If I’m starting to have to concentrate to hear your signal, you get a 559. If I can barely hear characters but can still copy, then you get a 539. As for tone, I don’t have an experienced ear to really give anything besides a 9 report. I know this method is overly simplistic, but for my current skill level, that is where I am at.

Many times in the bright sun, it is very difficult to read the S meter on the radio while fighting with the wind to maintain control of the paper log and desperately trying not to drop my pen off the cliff! The joys of outdoor radio ops.

I don’t know if it is receiver bias on my end, but I feel like lots of times hunters will send back basically the same signal report that I sent them. Again, it may just be me being a really bad copy, and my mind mistakenly copying the RST that I sent them. I’m an amateur at best!

I decided to call QRT and pack up. My wife wanted to get one more hike in today, and we needed to start packing up since we were all headed our separate ways home the next day!



Upon arrival back at camp, my parents offered to watch my daughter so that my wife and I could get one last hike in before leaving the next day! I didn’t realize it at the time, but my parents viewed this as their last chance to get the grandkids all sugared up before sending them home with us. My dad later said something to the tune of “sweet revenge.”

My wife and I did the 4.8-mile loop West Rim Trail. We very much enjoyed that hike! We loved camping at Cloudland Canyon State Park, and we highly recommend the campground. We were all very sad to say goodbye to family and head our separate ways.

Due to having to unpack from the camping trip and get ready to fly another four-day trip, it was almost two weeks before I was able to work on my FT-891! When I finally had time to play with the radio, I hooked it up to my home antenna. With the manual in hand, I started going step-by-step through the CW section on the manual. It took me less than 2 minutes to find the obvious issue:

• Selected band
• Selected mode
• Selected internal keyer… whoops! How did that get turned off?
• Break-in select… again, why was that off?

In my defense, the first time I used this radio before going on the trip, I had selected the internal keyer ON while in the 40M band. I “assumed” that once you had selected the internal keyer ON, and switched to a different band in CW mode, the internal keyer would remain selected ON. Yes and no…

What I learned was that the FIRST time you operate CW on a particular band, you have to enable the internal keyer (FOR THAT BAND) and select a break-in (for that band). Once it’s enabled FOR THAT BAND, it will remain enabled unless you disable it. Even if you switch to SSB and then switch back to CW, you’re good ON THAT BAND. If you go to another band for the very first time, check your keyer and break-in. Looking back, that seems very obvious! On other rigs like Icom, selecting break-in ON will turn it on and off for all bands.

Oh well, nothing replaces actual hands-on operating time with your radio! I think the FT-891 and the ICOM 7300 have the most YouTube instructional videos online than any other HF rig on the market. I am in the process of building my FT-891 into a go box. Perhaps there may be an article about that in the future. What little gotchas have you experienced in the field with the FT-891 that you would like to pass on to others?

72 de N4MJL