I thought there was no rain in the forecast so I decided to go out without double-checking.  After I got set up my weather app told me rain in 31 minutes. Oh well I had a good activation with 13 contacts including 2 p2p.  I decided not to take a chance to beat the rain.  I hope to soon make this my fourth repeat offender park.  Thanks to the hunters and p2p I really appreciate you.  I am out of hunting parks from home my Buckmastet OCF came down during the storm Monday night.  I have to figure out what I am going to do.

NC K-6947 #25 Sandhills State Game Land

I was attempting to do an antenna test between my CHAMELEON ANTENNA Mobile Antenna Elements V2L-ELEMENT and MFJ Short HF Mobile Ham-tenna and with the new to me LDG AT-200 PRO II Antenna Tuner. Apparently my signal was so bad my frequency was taking over so I changed to my MFJ-1984MP ENDFED 1/2 Wave 40-10M W4JE modified antenna and ended up with 26 SSB contacts. The day started off cloudy so we didn’t have that hot sun to deal with until later.  I ended up using 3 different antennas.  I think we had four contacts on the Chameleon and had a test on two of them one saying they could see no difference and the other one saying Chameleon was better.  So result was inconclusive.  I have a video I’ll be editing with some of the test.  Thanks to the hunters and p2p.

Park #51 NC K-2741 Lake Waccamaw State Park

It took over an hour just to get 11 contacts. I met a friend half way to pickup a new tuner.  It will be nice just to push a button to tune up.  I know a nicer situation will be perfect swr but sometimes the trees make that difficult. Glad to get the 51 park activated. As a bonus I actually saw wildlife a slivering snake and an eagle flying right above me. Unmistakable.

It was a tough day for me to activate the park but I got it done with 12. I got my 12 with the MFJ-1984MP ENDFED 1/2 Wave 40-10M modified but decided to try the MFJ Short HF Mobile Ham-tenna no contacts at all with that but it was worth a try.  Thanks to the hunters and p2p de n4mqu

NC K-8010 McKinney Lake State Fish Hatchery #27

To my CW veterans how do you handle those pileups?  It was slow getting started but ended up to be a good day for me with 21 SSB and 4 CW contacts I used my MFJ-1984MP ENDFED 1/2 Wave 40-10M modified and  CW Morse Blue Micro Morse Code Key W/ Aluminum Base. I was pumped after my 4th CW contact but when it seemed like 6 or 7 (maybe it was only 2)stations were coming at once I didn’t know how to handle it.  Thanks for the p2p and hunters. De n4mqu.

K-2888 Cheraw State Park

28 miles from home This made my 50th unique park activation and my 1000th p2p contact.  This is my 3rd South Carolina Park. It was a nice day at the park.  Thanks to all the hunters and p2p. 21 contacts 2 on 15, 1 on 17, 2 on 40 and 15 on 20.  Looking at the map to extend my park activation list I’ll have to do some driving that may be possible.  But I have 5 parks I can easily get to on a regular basis.

Park restrictions:  As I was leaving on of the rangers said not to use the trees to support the antenna, they are concerned about antenna wire getting caught in trees.  I did not know this when I checked in they didn’t give me any restrictions. 

NC K-6848 President James K. Polk State Historic Site

74 miles from home 149 activations  I put it in Waze and it routed me on a toll road oh well it’s a bit far for me but glad I did it.

I arrived and walked thru the museum. I mentioned that I was an amateur radio operator and he said we can operate from there but just don’t use the trees for the antenna. 🙁 I was prepared.  I had my MFJ Short HF Mobile Ham-tenna. I made 26 contacts on 40, 17, 15 and 20.  Thanks to the hunters and p2p.

This one is 48 miles from home It was a nice morning for activating a park. It wasn’t roo hot. I used MFJ Short HF Mobile Ham-tenna tried 10, 17, 15, 20, 40 but only successful on 20 and 40. Check your radio settings if you are not making contacts. I called for 10 minutes before realizing I had the split function on. I made 20 contacts. Thanks to the hunters and p2p.