RaDAR Rally Report from Nov. 4, 2023

 The RaDAR (Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio) Rally was 11/4/23.  I decided to operate from a familiar location, Pine Log State Forest which is also a POTA park K-4635.  This allowed me to leverage it as a POTA activation as well.  My planned start time was 1500 UTC or 10:00 am local time.  The weather was perfect.  There was not a cloud in the sky.  While the morning started off a little cool, it warmed up to around 80 degrees by the end of the event, which was 1900 UTC for my activation window (you are allowed a 4 hour window).  

My first operating location was grid loc EM70BJ52.  I was able to hear Chris VA3ECO, another RaDAR station, but was unable to complete the QSO.  I was just too weak to be heard while running QRP.  It took a while at the first location, but I eventually made my 5 QSOs required to move to the 2nd location.  

My second location was EM70BJ66.  The QSOs came quickly at this location and I was on the move again in about 15 minutes.  Stop 3 was EM70BJ65 where the next 5 contacts took around 30 minutes.  The highlight of this stop was my final QSO with KA4JAM, a 13 year old ham calling CQ from his home.  It is good to hear the younger generation on the air.  I also heard RaDAR station N5VMO at this location, but he was unable to hear me.

After I logged my last at stop 3, I decided backtrack toward the trailhead and made my 4th stop at EM70BJ67.  Here I started calling CQ on 14.346 and quickly logged my last 5.  

I had 20 total QSOs, 12 of which were park-to-park with other POTA stations.  Unfortunately, I did not log any RaDAR to RaDAR QSOs, but I did hear a couple stations.  In the end, I would call this a successful event.  It was good to get out and participate in the RaDAR Rally.  I thank Eddie ZS6BNE and Greg N4KGL in their efforts with RaDAR and look forward to the next event. If you would like to learn more about RaDAR you can check out these 2 blogs:

https://zs6bne.wordpress.com/

https://www.radarrally.info/p/radar-rally-rules.html

My video of the event is below.

73!

Camping at Florida Caverns State Park and POTA

 It has been a busy few months for us, and I have not had the free time I really desire to get out and camp, relax, and play radio as much as I would like.  In my opinion, camping during the summer months is pretty much out of the question here in FL anyway.  The lack of free time is evident in my absence on this blog as well as my YouTube channel.  Hopefully, I can get out and do more going forward.  

We had a chance to camp at Florida Caverns State Park in early October.  They had a nice campground and plenty of trails to explore.  I was actually surprised in the caverns.  I was not expecting much since we are in Florida, but the tour guide was great and the caverns were much more than I was anticipating.  

While there, I was able to set up my Chameleon F-loop the first night and send out a couple of Winlink messages.  I even activated the park on the next day for Parks-on-the-air.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the park and will be visiting again in the future.  

You can watch the video of our adventure below.

73!