I’m an avid outdoorsman. I hunt, fish, golf, ride bicycle, ride motorcycle, attend sporting events (mostly Braves games) among other things. Camping, well, I’ve done it…it is an outdoor activity and because of that I should be good at it. I’ll have a ball, take the 706, camp out in one of the rare GQP counties and be in a constant CW pileup.
Let me see now, I need a tent large enough from which to operate…the center height has got to be at least 6 feet. How hard is it to put one these things up anyway? On line all the reviews of this particular 4-6 man Coleman Tent say it’s easy to put up and good in the rain. Speaking of rain, the early forecasts showed showers Saturday afternoon and night, then later in the week they called for showers just Saturday morning. I’m going to the Paradise Fishing Area near
It’s Friday before the contest. I’ve got to work Friday from 6:00pm until midnight…welcome relief, I end up finishing at about 10:00pm. I’m up at 7:00am and on my way a little after 8:00 on Saturday morning. It’s really raining in Newnan. Looked like on the Weather Channel (Jim Cantore) that all the precipitation will be through the area by early afternoon. Off I go. I encounter heavy rain all the way down I-75 until about 40 miles north of the destination. The highways are suddenly dry…there’s no rain in sight. Wow, did I hit it lucky! All the rain must have gone north of here. I get to the camp site. It is in the woods, not on the bank of the lake like it appeared on the map. Bummer…I’ll go fish for only one hour and then setup. It’s only 11:30, surely I can fish for one hour and then be setup by 2:00pm (contest start time). I bait my baitcaster rod with the recommended color plastic worm hooked
Now I’ve got to make a decision; do I setup the tent or attempt to get a motel room in
I finally get the tent up. I don’t know what time it was, but there was so little light that I could just barely make out the tent setup instructions. I never did figure out that stupid rainfly thing?? I had every pocket in the tent zipped up, the only opening I know of was where the antenna coax and generator power cord made their entrance. But, there were bugs galore. I sprayed OFF until I feared my breathing of it would lead to some sort of suffication. The ranger told me in an email that I had to stop the generator at 10:00pm for “quite” hours. I did that and was prepared to utilize my trolling motor battery that I diligently charged a couple of days prior. At 10:00pm I switched to 80 meters and began using the computer that had a charged battery as well as the aforementioned trolling motor battery. Both those batteries gave out in about an hour and 20 minutes. I decided to use the car battery. I don’t know if you remember me telling you about listening to the Masters during the afternoon on my XM radio with the key in ACC. Well, it was still in ACC position and I also realized that the door lights had been on a great majority of that time. Yes, that’s right, the car battery was very low. Not to fear though, I had found my charged camp lantern for light.
I decided it was time for sleep, I’d do something about the car battery in the morning. It got very cold during the night. I could hear the mosquitos buzzing around. The cold seemed to “soak” through the sleeping bag as the night wore on. I woke to a very crispy clear Sunday morning. I then spent about one hour setting up a way to utilize the generator to charge the car battery. I was afraid to use the generator to operate the radio and charge the car at the same time…more lost operating time!
The little bit of operating time I got at the camp site on Sunday was very good. After the car battery was fully charged some neighbor campers agreed to keep an eye on the tent and associated equipment while I drove two miles to the
I didn’t stay long at the
Although I didn’t make many QSOs, I really had an enrichening experience and will participate again next year.
73,
Van Richardson
N5VI