Sparks's Journal - APRS Golden Packet

ATGP and POTA Activation at Gambrill State Park

Ahh, yes, July. The bees are in the air, storms are rumbling all around, and the sweet smell of packets are flying from mountain peak to mountain peak all along the Appalachian Trail.

Of course I’m talking about the annual Appalachian Trail Golden Packet (ATGP) event held at the request of Bob Bruninga, WB4APR/SK. This is the first ATGP since his death earlier this year and he was missed. His memorial service was happening at the same time as the ATGP so we were sort of doing Bob’s work at the same time others were remembering him elsewhere.

The Event

This year we manned MDMTNS-7 which is at Gambrill State Park near Frederick, Maryland. In previous years we’ve done Apple Orchard Mountain in Virginia, which is a lot different than this location. At Apple Orchard, everything you need to activate must be hiked up to the summit, a distance of only 870m (~0.5mi) but the elevation change is 91m (300ft). The views are absolutely worth the hike, but it’s gotten old over the years. It’s also quite a drive for us to get there, usually an 8+ hour drive.

At Gambrill State Park, we activated near the south edge of the ridge. The hardest part for us was walking from the car to the covered picnic table; big difference. We could have camped nearby but the timing of several other events just didn’t make that possible. It’s only a two-hour drive from the house so it wasn’t so bad to just get up in the morning and go. The car was pretty much packed the night before so beside leaving the Kenwood D-74 at home, everything we needed made the trip.

Setup

We arrived promptly at 10:00. Setup included four four-foot mast pipes and a high-gain mobile antenna suitable for VHF and UHF, a Kenwood D700A for the digipeater, and a deep-cycle battery to power the system. I also brought my Elecraft KX3 and end-fed long wire antenna to keep myself occupied since the ATGP was going to be a lot of automated work during the next few hours. My biggest job until the end of the event would be changing baud rates and checking to see who I was hearing.

Operations

Turns out, the first station I started hearing was Hawksbill (HWKSBL-6) but only very weakly. It was enough to decode their signal but I noted that I was not hearing myself being digipeated when I transmitted my beacon. Clearly this was going to be a problem.

It was well after 11:00 before I heard GDHILL-8 join the net. His signal was around an S5 and packets were easily decoded from his station. I was also noticing that he was digipeating my station so I had hopes that the northern stations would also be able to hear me as well.

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tags: 2m 70cm Digital Operations Summits on the Air (SOTA)APRS APRS Golden Packet Apple Orchard W4V/RA-001
SOTA Stats
When: 2020 from 1442Z to 1600Z

Where: Apple Orchard Mountain - W4V/RA-001

Who: Just me

Ascent: Hike Up

Equipment: Kenwood D-700, Opek HVU-500 antenna

APRS Coverage: Excellent

Contacts Made: 7

Mistakes were made; success was had.

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SOTA Stats

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