Ham Camp #21

Nothing remarkable, just another weekend camping up in Desoto National Forest.  This time out we went for the horse trailhead just south of Airey Lake.  It's a nice campsite, complete with convenient antenna-hanging trees, many campsites with tables and benches, and a vault toilet.  Strictly bring-your-own water and power, but that's par for the course and even a little bit of a bonus in my book.  However... some of the BYOP took the form of ear-splitting generators.  That's the one down side to this place.

Here, have some pictures first, then we'll come back and discuss some more.

  

  

TL: Inside the shack.  TR: Yet another steaming pot of brew.

BL: A curious crow examines the W3EDP-mini antenna.  BR: Curious Crow watches over the campsite in his tuxedo.

Hm, lessons learned... 

• When packing the truck, give the loading area one more walk-through before heading out.  Left the main 40 AH battery at the house!
• Bring backup gear.  In this case, I had the complete pre-packed low-power radio and accoutrements, including the 4.5 AH battery.  This allowed me to operate despite mistake #1, albeit at reduced power.
• But had push come to shove, I did have battery clamps and could've operated off the truck's power.  Again, more backups on top of backups.  In the end, I did a quick drive-home for the big battery.
• Operator comfort = operator efficiency.  With a 9'x9' tent, a 6' table, director's chair w/ insulating pad, it was nice to get in out of the frigid north wind and sit up in a somewhat normal work position.  Full-on sleeping gear made the frosty nights a pleasure.  Don't discount comfort.
• Before packing out on Sunday, we tried a mid-day 80m ground wave propagation experiment, aka "GWEN Junior."  Bottom line: worked at 15 miles' range, but not so well at 40 miles.  Good to know.  Also, note that was SSB voice.  Any one of the digital modes could significantly increase this range.
• All of the horse-noise around had several of us blurting out "Frau Blucher" at random intervals.
• ps: adding a tiger tail to the FT-60 HT really helped getting into the repeater 20 miles away.  20" of #20 wire, crimped to a split lug that just fits around the SMA antenna connector; took all of 5 minutes to make.  Here's the video that got me out of the chair and onto this.

Beyond all that, it went pretty smoothly.  On one hand, I really didn't need to spend a weekend goofing off in the woods – way too much other stuff to do.  On the other, my brain really appreciated the time around the greenery.  And oooh, the weather was nice.