Back in the Camper Again

Because of a couple of medical issues, our little travel trailer spent the last two camping seasons parked at a storage facility. With those issues resolved, my (far) better half and I spent some time last week getting the camper ready for a weekend of camping at French Creek State Park (US-1355, KFF-1355). I hadn’t been on HF much lately, so I was looking forward to getting in some operating time over the weekend. 

After two years of storage, the camper needed some work to get back in shape for camping. After de-winterizing it and giving the inside a good cleaning, we deemed the camper fit for human habitation. There were a few additional maintenance items we planned to do while at the campground. 

We had some storms earlier in the day on Friday, but the rain stopped by the time we got to the campground. Given our long absence from camping, we were a little rusty getting the camper set up. After getting the camper squared away, I set up my antenna. I used my trusty 29.5-foot wire vertical with my homebrew weather-resistant 9:1 unun. A 31-foot Jackite pole supported the wire. I ran 35 feet of RG-8x coax over to the camper, where I set up my KX3. I did a quick test to make sure everything was working, but I didn’t start operating until early on Saturday morning. 

Radio-wise, it was a tough weekend for QRP. The geomagnetic field varied from unsettled to active on both Saturday and Sunday. I got on the radio around 1100 UTC (0700 local) on Saturday and it was tough going. It took about an hour to log my first 10 contacts, and some of those were a struggle. I encountered lots of weak signals that sometimes faded into the noise. Static from storms in the area made things even more difficult. 

I operated sporadically throughout the day on Saturday. The rest of the time was spent doing a little work on the camper and just relaxing. I ended up on Saturday with 24 QSOs. 

I had another early session on Sunday while the coffee was percolating on the stove. Things were a bit better this time around. It only took about 30 minutes to make my first 10 contacts. I ended up with 11 contacts, all on 40M. Satisfied with that, I pulled the plug and set about making breakfast. After that, I started taking down the antenna and packing up the rig. 

I finished up the weekend with 35 contacts, including 15 park-to-park contacts. No DX, but with the band conditions as they were, I was happy to be heard by anyone. Special thanks to W4SK in Tennessee who accounted for three of my contacts over the weekend. 

After I uploaded my logs, I noticed two new POTA awards. One was for making 500 park-to-park contacts and another for making 100 early shift contacts as a hunter. 

Even though we had some work to do on the camper, it was a nice, relaxing weekend. We’re planning to get the camper out more often this year. We’ll be back at French Creek State Park again next month. Hopefully, band conditions will be better next time.

72, Craig WB3GCK