Well, I just stepped into a steaming file of horse apples of my own making.  I write these things, these blog posts, in Windows OneNote.  Everything I’ve written to date is in my OneNote, including the two hours I’ve written this morning, but not posted.

Also, I write on a laptop with the little finger-pad thing at the bottom of the keyboard.

This morning, the undesired but unavoidable OneDrive Cloud told me I’m out of storage.  This is because one, I’m playing with videos, and two, OneDrive wants to backup everything.  I cleverly told it this morning, if you’re full – just delete some stuff.  It’s a backup – redundancy I didn’t ask for and don’t use.

So in one fell swoop, I deleted all the data backed up in OneDrive, wrote a complete blog post, brushed my hand across the finger-pad thing, and deleted the record of every blog post I’ve ever written here – Including my pricelessly brilliant work this morning.  Unrecoverable, because I stupidly deleted all the backup.

Well, I ain’t rewriting everything I did this morning, but I’ll give the Cliff Notes version.  You can watch the video if you’re interested.

My Club, the Grayson County Amateur Radio Club, held their annual fall campout this weekend at US-3005 Eisenhower State Park. While I had wonderful things to say about the club and my club friends, they’re lost to my data stupidity.  Suffice to say:  Good club, good friends.

LoadOut:

• FT-891
• 20ah LiPo4
• RG-316
• 40-10 EFHW w/ Sparkplug 49:1
• BaMaKey TP-3
• Admin pouch

I rolled into the park about 7:00 for a quick activation before coffee and comradery with my club friends.  I noodled the VFO around, hunting for other parks and found WE5J activating US-4422 in Conroe, Texas.  It’s 250 miles to Conroe by car so way too far for ground wave propagation and too close for sky wave.  Apparently just right for NVIS because he gave me 9’s and was 9’s himself.

Activation:

I hunted two parks then called QRL, spotted, and sent CQ POTA. First to come back was KM3STU, Stuart Kim in New Jersey at 12:59 UTC.  I wrapped up the next nine contacts by 13:06 UTC – one, seven minute string of CW. See the video.

Normally, I’d call CQ again and keep going, but camp coffee was calling and I looked forward to seeing the club.

Results:

The QSO map looks like the tines of a garden rake laid over the East and I don’t for a minute attribute this to antenna directionality.  POTA has convinced me of some baseline truths:

1. QSOs only come from people sitting at a radio.
2. Sleeping Hams don’t answer CQ.

For 7 minutes, before 8 AM central, the majority of the Ham population who’s awake, coffee up, and hunting, are in the East.  The West is still asleep.

A good activation.  Weather was nice in the 60’s for the morning, and propagation was accommodating.  I wrapped up quickly, found where the club members were camping, made some camp coffee, and shared some laughs. I’ve included some photos below.

Finally, I count myself very fortunate to attend KB5TMU Levent’s first POTA activation. If you’re an amateur radio operator interested in portable ops, this is a big deal. There’s allot of moving parts with portable ops, then there’s the swarm of hunters, and finally all the administration of spotting, logging, and uploading of logs. I think it goes without saying there’s a good bit of anxiety with the first few times out that takes a dose of courage and resolve to overcome. Thanks for inviting me, Levent!

As always,

TNX ES 73
KA5TXN
DitWit