On a beautiful morning/afternoon here in Middle TN, I took a day trip out to Edgar Evins State Park. I set up in a parking lot right next to the lake, looking out to the dam. Since it was a Monday, I was nearly by myself the entire time. I spotted myself on the website, and before I knew it, I had 102 QSOs logged.
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This was my first year participating in the Winter Field Day activity, but it won’t be my last. I couldn’t get away from work long enough to go play radio overnight this time. I chose to set up at Prentice Cooper State Forest near Chattanooga, TN (POTA K-5499). The bands were VERY busy, and so I used the POTA web app to see spots for other stations, and then patiently waited in the pile-ups to get my needed contacts. I also got the opportunity to talk with some curious hikers about what I was doing.
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I was searching the POTA database of parks the other day and noticed that there was only one park left in Tennessee which had not been activated. That park was Lick Creek WMA. I decided that I would be the one to get the ATNO (All Time New One) “licked”.
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I had an unexpected, though welcome, day off from work the other day. And, thought I’d use the opportunity to try for a POTA award that interested me. The RaDAR (Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio) award is available for stations moving a prescribed distance between locations, making contacts, then moving again. I initially planned to go for the “Ostrich” level award, but time constraints and one traffic jam limited me to “Cheetah”. I made 5 transitions and operated from multiple POTA entities in one Zulu day.
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Currently, I get to “enjoy” having off from work on Mondays. So, I took the opportunity to go try out a new tuner and antenna setup at a local park. Walter Hill Floodplain State Natural Area isn’t very big or scenic (just google Trash Mountain in TN). But, it is minutes from my home QTH, and there’s plenty of room to play radio. I took my Yaesu FT-891, a new LDG Z100 Plus tuner, and a lightweight EFHW for 40/20M with to give it a go.
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Well, I finally got around to getting an APRS solution installed on Kyle. I had been using my cell phone and APRSdroid to get into APRS-IS, but that felt like I was cheating. I wanted an RF based solution. After contemplating using an existing HT (Yaesu FT-60), I decided that the power output would simply be too low for the areas I’m likely to go exploring. In light of that issue, I decided to go with the same mobile radio I used for the digipeater I recently built. This would give me an opportunity to use knowledge I already had, and more importantly, it would hopefully get me closer to 25W RF output.
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Recently, I moved from an apartment to a house. This gave me the opportunity to do some radio related things with fewer space restrictions. So, I decided to put together an APRS digipeater and I-Gate using a Raspberry Pi running Xastir, a Mobilinkd TNC, and a surplus commercial radio found on eBay. I chose to use Xastir for the simple reason that, although it can be complicated, the documentation available (mailing lists, primarily) is quite helpful. I also chose to configure it as a RX/TX I-Gate, as there didn’t seem to be many around my location. My goal is to help increase the reliability of messaging over APRS for users without RF capability (e.g. APRSdroid via TCP/IP connection).
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This is from an older activation I did at K-5493 (Franklin-Marion State Forest), and I honestly can’t remember when it was. I’ve activated this park several times, as it is one of my favorite places to camp. This bluff looks out over a valley, and the town of Kimball, TN is at the end. With my telescope, I am almost able to read the gas prices at the Wal-Mart gas station sign.
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