Sunday, October 15, 2023, was the final day of the W4 SOTA campout. That morning, Joshua (N5FY) and I packed up our tents/gear then played a little radio at our campsite (at Lake Rabun). We weren’t in a hurry because the morning was so enjoyable. In fact, I think we checked out not a minute before the dealine of 12:00 noon!
We both decided we wanted to squeeze in one more radio excursion before driving back to our QTHs.
Tallulah Gorge State Park (K-2202)
It wasn’t realistic to fit in another SOTA hike due to our schedules, but Tallulah Gorge SP was an easy detour for both of us.
We pulled into the park and queued up to to enter. The park was absolutely teeming with visitors that day. I would have expected nothing less on such a gorgeous Fall afternoon!
Joshua and I found a quiet picnic area–with a few picnic tables spaced apart from each other–near the lake shore. It turned out to be a perfect spot to play radio. We spaced our sites far enough apart so as not to easily interfere with each other while on different bands.
Joshua set up his KX1, a wire antenna, and used VK3IL pressure paddles.
Joshua deployed his KX1 next to the lake and I deployed my KX2 a bit further up the hill.
I paired my KX2 with my “no transformer” random wire antenna. Of course, I used a Tufteln antenna because, I mean, N5FY was standing right there! ?
This antenna consists of two 28.5′ 26AWG wires connected directly to a male BNC. Simplicity itself on the antenna side. It’s the KX2 internal ATU that does all of the matching (since there’s no transformer). I find that the KX2 can match this antenna from 40-10 meters with ease.
I think the magic of these simple random wire antennas is that they’re directly connected to the radio. There’s a bit of efficiency in having no line losses, etc. even if the ATU does soak up a bit of energy.
I’ve taken a wide variety of antennas on SOTA (Summits On The Air) activations, but one wire antenna I’ve always wanted to deploy is a simple vertical delta loop.
This summer, I mentioned to my friend Joshua (N5FY) that I planned to build a delta loop antenna and next thing I know, he built one. I suppose he’d been thinking about adding it to his line of portable wire antennas at Tufteln.
I was planning to build a 20M delta loop fed with twin lead, but Joshua’s choice is better for multi-band operating. His 20M delta loop features a 4:1 transformer so it can be fed with 50 Ohm coax like my RG-316 (which is also easier to pack than twin lead).
You might recall that I used his 20M delta loop antenna at Holmes Educational State Forest (see photo above) in early September. It worked a charm and wasn’t too difficult to deploy (loops are obviously more finicky than a one wire end-fed).
The great thing about this loop is it’s resonant on 20 and 10 meters, and it’s quite easy to tune on 17, 15, and 12 meters with pretty much any ATU.
Fast-forward to Saturday, October 14, 2023 when Joshua and I were participating in the W4G SOTA campout in north Georgia…
Yonah Mountain (W4G/NG-048)
It rained cats and dogs Friday evening into Saturday morning.
Fortunately, most of the rain stopped by the time I surfaced that morning.
Joshua and I ate a quick breakfast, grabbed our SOTA backpacks, then drove to the Yonah Mountain parking area/trailhead.
Last year, we also activated Yonah Mountain as well, but underestimated the hike and our timing. We ended up being a good hour or so late to our SOTA evening potluck. This time, we were keen to spend more time on Yonah Mountain and get back to the campsite in plenty of time to join everyone for dinner (and share exaggerated stories about our SOTA adventures).
Last year, we arrived at the trailhead and it was parked full. This year, even though we arrived in the morning and even though it was incredibly foggy/misty, it was still quite full!
Yonah Mountain is an incredibly popular destination.
Another fun fact about Yonah: it’s not really a beginner’s summit despite the fact it’s so popular with hikers and runners.
It offers up proper elevation change, gnarly trail portions, steep inclines, and about four miles of trail round trip. Although not an incredibly long hike, it’ll give you more of a workout than you might think first blush.
We reached the summit in due time and set up our stations about 30 meters apart.
The whole time, I was also monitoring the partial solar eclipse we were having that day.
I brought along some solar eclipse glasses and ended up sharing them with everyone on the summit. It worried me seeing so many young people staring at the sun with only their sun glasses or even–gasp!–with the naked eye. (I mean, weren’t they paying attention in science class–?) 🙂
I am catching up with field reports and videos from last month and, I must admit, it’s fun reliving these activations.
October was such a busy month, it’s all been a bit of a blur.
Because I have a second Thanksgiving meal to prepare this morning for my wife’s family, I need to keep this report short–which won’t be easy because there’s a lot to unpack here– so we’re going to attempt do another Postcard Field Report!
Postcard Report from Don Carter State Park (K-2171)
Part of the fun of the campout was hanging with my good friend Joshua (N5FY) whom many of you know from his amazing Tufteln antennas and accessories.
On the morning of Friday, October 13, 2023, Joshua and I activated Rocky Mountain (W4G/NG-011), a beautiful 10 point summit along the Appalachian Trail.
That afternoon, we met with Joshua’s family briefly, then planned to head to a pub in Clayton, Georgia, where a number of the W4 SOTA campers were gathering.
Joshua determined we had just enough time to pop by Don Carter State Park (K-2171) for a quick POTA activation and still make it to Clayton in time. As a bonus, Don Carter SP has a number of covered picnic shelters, making set up in the dry quite easy (it was raining at the time).
For this activation, I used my Mountain Topper MTR-3B field kit that I had used during my SOTA activation on Rocky Mountain. In fact, it was the only radio kit I brought with me for activations that day.
Joshua lent me his Tufteln 40/20 meter linked EFHW antenna (we only used the 20 meter portion of it) and I also got to use a few other accessories that were still very new to me:
N6ARA MiniSWR Meter
One was my friend Ara’s latest creation, the MiniSWR meter. Ara (N6ARA) kindly sent me this production unit to test (at no cost to me) earlier in October.
I was very excited about this particular product because a few of my QRP radios lack a built-in SWR meter (my MTR-3B, MTR-5B, TR-35, and SW-3B to name a few). Ara’s MiniSWR meter is so tiny, it’s easy to carry even in my MTR-3B SOTA kit that’s built into a Pelican 1060 waterproof case. (If you’d like more details, I’ll be adding this MTR-3B kit to the Radio Field Kit Gallery soon).
The MiniSWR in action earlier that day on Rocky Mountain.
As with all of Ara’s products, the MiniSWR works brilliantly, is very affordable, and is available as a kit or pre-assembled. Check it out at N6ARA.com!
Being honest here: this battery sort of blows my mind!
When paired with super efficient QRP radios like my MTR-3B (which uses something like 18mA in receive), one charge will take me through as many as two or three full SOTA/POTA activations!
When I purchased these, I also bought two 3S packs in a Prime Day deal. These 9V batteries work so well, though, I’ve yet to add PowerPoles to the new 3S packs. I prefer the size and ease of use of these 9V cells.
Another W4 SOTA Fall Campout is in the books! What amazing fun.
This year, the campout was held at Lake Rabun Beach Recreation Area in north Georgia.
Once again, Joshua (N5FY), and I shared a campsite. He arrived Wednesday afternoon and I showed up Thursday afternoon around 2:30 PM.
There was quite a lot of wet weather in the forecast, so I opted to bring my large 6 person tent (the orange one above) instead of my two person ultralight tent. My thinking was that, if need be, we could us the large vestibule on this tent as shelter while eating and cooking.
Joshua was way ahead of me, though, and brought a canopy for the picnic table.
After pitching my tent and setting up, Joshua and I discussed how we should spend the rest of the afternoon. One thought was to try to squeeze in a SOTA activation, but we would have been fighting sunset at the end of it.
Instead, Joshua suggested that we build some antennas.
It was then I noticed that Joshua’s picnic table canopy had a built-in spool of 26 gauge wire!
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Joshua is the fellow behind the Tufteln brand of antennas. Turns out, he brought along a full antenna-building station.
I built a long random wire antenna and started a 30M EFHW.
That evening, we had friends pop by the campsite, ate dinner and fit in a quick POTA activation.
As I often do, I hunted yet another CW POTA activator during my lunch break while working from home.
I have been learning CW for most of the year. Early on, I realized that with a bit of practice sending, and after listening to recordings of POTA activations, like those from Thomas, I could reliably send the proper exchange needed to hunt a POTA activator.
If you can give your call sign, signal report, and state abbreviation, you can make the contact. I started early on with just the basics and then added some of the common “extras” like GM for good morning, TU for Thank You and then 73. Not only is this great practice for getting on the air sending CW, it’s also very rewarding while learning CW. The exchange is short, standard, and easy to follow with a bit of practice.
CW Practice with the Morserino32 and a Cup of Coffee
Once I finished my upgrade to Extra I focused all my spare time, not much though truth be told, on practicing CW.
At some point this summer I set the goal to Activate POTA/SOTA during the W4G SOTA campout this fall. This really wasn’t an aggressive goal, one I figured was attainable but also one that I could hold myself accountable to even knowing I had a very busy summer ahead of me.
W4G SOTA Campout Summit View Yanah Mountain Bald October 2022
During one of the LICW Club classes I heard again that their goal is to get Hams on the air to make a QSO. I thought to myself, yes, that is great, and I want to do more, but I know I have made many QSOs in CW on the air, albeit very short and simple ones. So, I was curious how many.
I jumped on the POTA site and looked up my statistics. I was surprised at how may hundred I had, and yet at the same time, I was a bit disappointed. It’s not that I wanted to have made more CW contacts, it’s that I realized that they were ALL from hunting and not a single one was from calling CQ.
So, I changed my goal.
I know that Hams, especially CW operators, are a great bunch of people and they want to see new CW operators succeed, so there is lots of patience when you call CQ. So, I decided to move up my timeline. This was on a Thursday, and Saturday was a likely candidate for a POTA outing, why not–?
Saturday was my birthday, and I knew I could get away with some personal free time in the morning where I could dive in and call CQ POTA DE N5FY. The next day, Friday, I firmed it up, I would head out in the morning, bring the new to me KX2 and see what happens.
Surprisingly, I was much less nervous than I expected, I had told myself that it wouldn’t help anyways to be nervous so just do it and see what happens. I made it to my local park, to the picnic table I frequent, then setup a No Transformer 2-Wire antenna with the KX2. One press of the ATU button and I had a 1:1 match on 40m band.
Of course, I have great timing. I could not believe the stations on the air on 40m. I never did look but there must have been a contest. I moved up and down about 20kHz and there were stations everywhere! I called “QRL?” on 2 different frequencies and had a reply before I landed on open frequency where I could call CQ.
N5FY First CW Activation KX2 Setup
I had not scheduled the activation; I knew I had a bit of cell phone coverage at this park, so I set the CQ POTA message to calling while I posted a spot.
After two calls, I had my first call back. It was time!
I could have freaked out here, but I was too focused on decoding to even be nervous! Of course, I had to send a partial call and a “?” once or twice to get the full call right. Of course, I made some keying errors. But the caller had patience and worked me and we made the QSO. Now I was really excited!
I called CQ and someone sent me back dits and dahs, and I decoded what they were sending! Boy, this was fun! I continued to call CQ POTA, and tried my best to decode the replies, several pileups, and lots of “?” sent by me. But I was making contacts and having a blast!
After a couple of silent CQ calls later, I switched to 20m. And, again, started to get replies back as well as a couple small pileups. In the end, there were a couple call signs that I could not look up, l had a letter or two wrong, but with almost 20 in the log I knew I had an activation and boy was I happy!
N5FY First CW Activation QSO Map
Looking back on the activation, and after talking to another Ham, it occurred to me why I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I might be.
You see, when you are the Activator, when you call CQ, the ball is in your court, you invite people to call back and they are there for you. I almost get more nervous hunting as I don’t want to slow down an activator or run over another caller. But when you are the one calling CQ, it’s your game!
Of course there were several hiccups along the way. For one, it got HOT sitting in the sun. I ended up deploying my hiking chair on the table as a sunshade and pulled a portable fan out of the car. Even the action camera overheated while recording the activation. I couldn’t get the KXPD2 paddle to key the KX2 on 20m when I first got setup. And of course, I had lots of sending errors (although fewer than I expected to have) and sent a A LOT of “?” asking for a repeat.
That said, I am very glad to have jumped in and will continue to activate CW going forward as I continue to build my CW skills. For me, confidence in the ability to Activate on CW is great motivation for practicing, which again, is my biggest learning. If I want to be a good operator, I need to put in the effort, and going out to play radio is one extremely fun way to practice!
I often find myself playing radio in the evening when I travel out of state for work. I especially enjoy adding another state to my list of activations. So, a trip to the Sioux City area was great, as I could activate in South Dakota and Nebraska, both new states to add to my POTA activations.
Of course, you are wondering how one accidentally completes a 3 state POTA rove, so I’ll get into the details in a bit. Believe me though, it wasn’t because I had a fool-proof plan. I do believe that failing to plan is planning to fail. But in this case, a bit of luck and agility on my part, with the bands cooperating, and with the POTA hunter support, I did indeed complete 3 POTA activations, in 3 states, in under 2 hours!
Go Ruck Bullet fits inside the G2 ready for Travel
To be honest, I rarely put much effort into planning an activation while traveling as I simply may not have any time get out to a park, and of course, playing radio is not the purpose of my trip. I often find myself spending just a couple minutes looking at POTA locations before a trip and even may look last minute after I land, before I get off the plane, looking for a good POTA location. Maybe I like the urgent planning excitement, or maybe I don’t want the disappointment of not having the chance to go activate after spending time planning the outing? Again, I do recommend a bit of planning, so don’t exactly follow my example here.
As a result of my minimal planning I typically find myself with a very impromptu, “wing it” style activation. This trip was certainly no exception. I only had one evening to check off both South Dakota and Nebraska. There were parks which seemed readily accessible, but I hadn’t really verified activation numbers or best location on the park property to setup. I did save a few parks in the 3-State area, including Iowa.
I already had an Iowa activation, so I wasn’t as worried about hitting the IA park.
Once my evening freed up, the first day I was in the area, it was already a late in the evening, so I was in a bit of a rush as I headed to the first park. I figured I would hit South Dakota first then drop down to Nebraska and spend a bit more time calling CQ there according to how much daylight I had left.
POTA Park in 3 States surrounding Sioux City
I arrived in the area of the first park–a state park land. As I approached the boundary, I found a horse trail parking lot with some nice-looking trees for a throw line and wire antenna. As I was in a hurry, not needing a hike, I knew this would work well. I’m not one to play radio from the car, but in this case, it would cut down a bit on the time needed so I could get to the second park.
I threw a line and pulled up my antenna. Within 10 minutes of parking, I had my station setup and scanned 20m to see what shape the band was in. I typically put up a 20m EFHW and hope for the best, and this usually doesn’t disappoint. I then setup my log and found a surprise. Continue reading An Accidental Three-State POTA Rove!→
It was so great to spend an extended weekend camping, hiking, and hopping on the air with other SOTA activators.
I especially enjoyed getting to know Joshua (KO4AWH)–the fellow behind Tufteln products— over that weekend. He needed a campsite and since my buddy Monty had to pull out of the trip due family activities, I was happy to share the tent site with him. It actually worked out quite well since we could then pair up and car pool to our SOTA and POTA activations.
What follows is a field report for two SOTA activations Joshua and I did back-to-back on Friday, October 14, 2022.
The trail head for both of these summits was only a few miles from our campsite at Lake Winfield Scott.
Gear:
Note that I used the same gear during both SOTA activations all packed in my Spec-Ops Brand SOTA backpack.
Black Mountain and Big Cedar essentially share the same trailhead at the Woody Gap Recreational Area parking lot on Highway 60.
We were on site early enough to grab a parking space. Keep in mind that it was Friday during leaf season, so there were quite a few hikers on the trails that day! In fact, by midday, the parking lot was overflowing with cars.
Almost by flip of coin, we decided to hit Big Cedar Mountain first. Turns out, Joshua had actually hiked to this summit in the past and even met a SOTA activator en route (and I believe this might have been his inspiration to try Summits On The Air!).
Back in May I had to travel last minute for work to North Dakota. I typically bring radio gear in the event that I have some time to do a Parks On the Air activation. This trip presented the opportunity to activate a park in Minnesota as well as one in South Dakota. I didn’t have much time to plan these activations, but I knew I had an early enough arrival in the afternoon that I could likely activate a park in MN and then in SD. So, I picked out a park in MN close to my destination. I could go activate in MN then get over to a park in SD and activate there.
I found a nice looking State Park in MN. The idea was to activate as quickly as I could and then get back to a park in ND with enough time to activate before it got too late. K-2482 Fort Snelling State Park had 110 successful activations. That is always promising when planning out an activation. I got my rental car and headed to the park.
I also had recently purchased a HFJ-350m which is a base-loaded coil with an extendable whip. I found a tripod base I could print online and then designed an adapter so I could install a SO-239 and RG316 lead with a BNC connector. I had just tested this setup in the back yard and knew it worked, although I certainly knew it was a compromised antenna.
HFJ-350m setup on custom tripod in the backyard for testingCustom 3D Printed Tripod with BNC Connector
I typically bring my Raspberry PI4 loaded with Build-A-Pi and then run digital modes from my phone or Tablet. My plan was to activate this park with the compromised antenna running 5W on FT8 at the first park and then go to my second park and run a full half wave wire in a tree on SSB at 10W.
Not much to say about the activation in MN. The state park was nice but where I set up presented quite a bit of RF noise. Not so much of a problem since I was running digital. After a bit of adjustment on the whip I was tuned for 20m and started hunting a few FT8 stations. I did make a few QSOs while hunting but I then started calling CQ and had a bit more luck. I think because my signal was quite weak, calling CQ was a bit more efficient as only those who could hear me were calling back. While hunting, if those calling CQ were running a bit more power, I was unlikely to get in while running lower power and on a compromised antenna. I got the activation completed with 12 QSOs and packed it up and headed to the next park.
As I noted last week, I participated in the W4G SOTA campout at Lake Winfield-Scott Campground in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in north Georgia.
In short? It was amazing!
I thought I’d share a few photos and memories…
Campsite and friends
These SOTA campouts typically involve an announcement via the W4 SOTA group then we all make individual reservations at the chosen campground. Since we’re not reserving the whole campground as a block, we tend to share our individual camping sites with others who might not have been able to reserve a spot.
At Lake Windfield Scott campground, the SOTA group did reserve one large group campsite, but only a couple months ago it was canceled by the park service due to a trail maintenance group that needed it.
Typically, I camp with my friend Monty, but he had other family plans that weekend.
When I found out my buddy Joshua (KO4AWH)–the fellow behind Tufteln products–needed a spot to pitch his tent, I offered up my site.
As you can see in the photo above, both of our tents fit on the tent pad with absolutely no extra room to spare. 🙂
It was such a pleasure getting to know Joshua. What a kindred spirit and super nice fellow.
KO4AWH (left) and K4SWL (right) on the summit of Black Mountain.
We ended up doing all of our SOTA activations together as you will see in upcoming activation videos and field reports.
Joshua is as pack and organization obsessed as I am. A proper pack nerd! I really enjoyed checking out his bags, cases and all of the brilliant accessories that are a part of his field kits.
He brought both an IC-705 and TX-500 along for the ride. He logs in the field using the HAMRS app (same one I do) but on an iPad Mini (see photo above) and I must admit that the size of the iPad mini is nearly ideal–much better than a phone for logging.
He also used the SDR-Control app to connect wirelessly with his IC-705 and operate digital modes.
Summits
We activated a total of three summits during the weekend (Big Cedar,Black Mountain, and Yonah Mountain). It would have been easy to activate six or more if that was the goal–the area is chock full of accessible summits.
Many thanks to Joshua (KO4AWH) who shares the following guest post:
Ten-Tec Argonaut 509 Acquisition
by Joshua (KO4AWH)
My club president sent me a text on Sunday before our Monday club meeting. He wanted to know if I was interested in a Vintage 80s QRP Radio. He knows I have an affinity for QRP. Honestly, I think he is still amazed at how I managed to get through piles ups on his hexbeam during summer field day with my TX-500. Boy was that fun.
The deal was a Ten-Tec 509 with the microphone and CW filter, the matching 251 power supply with meter, and the 504 matching 50W amplifier. He sent me a photo, I had to look it up. I have heard of Ten-Tec, thanks to Thomas K4SWL, but certainly was not familiar with their Argonaut 509. I was intrigued. I don’t have a single vintage piece of equipment. I have only been a Ham for less than 3 years.
We had some equipment from a club member SK donated for auction to raise funds for some club repeater upgrades. This was a good excuse to purchase an old piece of equipment that I likely would not have purchased otherwise. After looking over the 509 and accessories, all of which were in great condition, I brought them home. Of course I couldn’t help but hook everything up and turn on power. Everything powered up but no movement of the frequency indicator, not a great sign, and no audible hint of changing reception frequency. After further inspection it seemed the dial tuning mechanism was seized up. Looks like another project.
The next morning, as I had a few minutes to spare I started taking things apart. I have never pulled apart an old transmitter before so I took my time as I studied all the components and marveled at the simplistic yet complex circuitry found under the covers. Once I was down to the tuning mechanism, a few desoldered wires later, it was removed and ready for cleaning. I don’t know if the grease was original, but it sure was hard. After carefully cleaning, greasing, and reassembling all the components, soldering a couple wires back, and reassembling the housing, I was ready to power it back up. I don’t want to understate the work involved, it can be quite tricky, but I really enjoy this type of thing.
After tuning around a bit and working with the controls on the Radio, I found a POTA operator to zero beat. I needed something to reference in order to adjust my knob indicator so I would know what frequency the radio is on. I actually received the manual for the radio and each of the components. Reading through a few key points the night before really helped out when I was ready to start tuning in and transmitting.
I had the amplifier on, I set the DRIVE to about half way guessing that was okay and called back to the Activator. First call, he called me back with a 59! WOW, I was excited. I let him know I was on an old Ten-Tec that I had just repaired and he came back and said the audio and signal were great. How exciting! So, naturally, I hunted a few more stations and then listened to a few rag chews as I got familiar with the Radio.
Not only was I excited to have repaired my first radio, I am also amazed at the capability of this Radio originally released in 1973. I am not a long time SWL or radio operator but there is certainly something very appealing to me about the audio this Rig produces. I wasn’t certain what I was getting into with this rig, but I sure am happy how it worked out! I may just be on the hunt for another Ten-Tec. I even plan to take this to my local park and do at least one activation with it.
Here is a quick excerpt from the introduction in the operating manual.
“The Argonaut opens a whole new world of excitement and fun in Amateur Radio. We think you will find QRP a welcome change. Five watts are only 2-1/2 S-units below 150 watts for the same conditions. When skip is favorable and QRM light, you will not be conscious of using low power.”
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Sunday, October 15, 2023, was the final day of the W4 SOTA campout. That morning, Joshua (N5FY) and I packed up our tents/gear then played a little radio at our campsite (at Lake Rabun). We weren’t in a hurry because the morning was so enjoyable. In fact, I think we checked out not a minute before the dealine of 12:00 noon!
I think the magic of these simple random wire antennas is that they’re directly connected to the radio. There’s a bit of efficiency in having no line losses, etc. even if the ATU does soak up a bit of energy.
