Normally, my (far) better half and I do a lot of camping in French Creek State Park (K-1355/KFF-1355). This year, because of medical and other issues, we didn’t take the QRP Camper out at all. In fact, it’s been about a year since our last camping trip there. So, I paid a visit to French Creek this morning for a long-overdue POTA activation.
Virtually all of my activations in this park have been from campsites. This morning, though, I operated from a parking lot near a picnic area and boat launch. I operated from my truck, using my TR-35 (around 5 watts) and my 19-foot homebrew vertical.
My cell coverage wasn’t very good, so I had trouble spotting myself. Fortunately, the Wi-Fi in my truck uses a different carrier and allowed me to get my spot posted. Almost immediately, the hunters started calling.
After an hour, I had 36 in the log, including two park-to-park contacts. I also worked Germany and Poland on 17M.
Hopefully, we’ll be getting back to camping at French Creek again next year. In the meantime, I’ll be doing some more activations here for sure.
73, Craig WB3GCK
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 