Beautiful Day in the Hinterlands!!

The last few mornings, we've seen temperatures in the upper 20's, the trees are about a week past prime autumn colors, and the bugs are just about all gone until spring. So today I had some free time and made a quick trip down to Atterbury Fish and Wildlife Area, also know as K-4183 in WWFF and POTA lingo.

Today I decided to try setting up at Honker Haven, this is the parking area next to the protected game bird habitat.  

It took me about 20 minutes to get everything set up,  today I was using my Elecraft K2 at about 7-10 watts into my hitch mounted Eagle One vertical antenna.  I started out on 40m and the band was in great shape.

 

I checked the numbers and saw this:  SSN:41 SFI:88 A:8 K:1, this indicated that sunspots were present, and the SFI was coming up a bit.  We'd all love to see it over 100 any time now.  Seems like Solar Cycle 25 is well underway and things are indeed looking up.  

So at 19:28 UTC I got on the air, posted a self spot on the POTA spotting network, and started calling CQ. It was less than one minute before they, the hunters, found me. 

I stayed on the air for just a few minutes under an hour, the ARRL CW Sweeps are this weekend and 20m was packed wall to wall with contesters, so I stayed put on 40m for the duration.  At about 20:20z 40m started to fill up with contesters, and me with my QRP signals decided to call it a day, pack up, and head toward the QTH.  

I managed to work hunters as far as Maine, Rhode Island, and tons of Carolinians, out to Oklahoma and Kansas.  You can check out my QSO Map below here for the splatter layout.  Note the hunter orange sock hat....it's deer season here, archery only right now, but you can't be too careful when the hunters are itchin' to shoot a trophy buck.   I'm a deer hunter as well, I prefer gun season but it doesn't start for another week.  I need to get a nice one so I can replenish the venison jerky stash, I've been out for months.  Well that's about it for this outing, it makes my 13th activation from the same park.  Gasoline has almost doubled in price since last year so I tend to try and stay close to home.  This park is about 35 minutes from the front door my QTH.  I look forward to hitting it again this week, the weather forecast is looking very nice.  Might actually see 70 F one day this week.  Thanks for reading! 

Autumn at Atterbury is my favorite time of the year.  Lots to look at, mushrooms to forage for, this place is known to be loaded with Chicken of the Tree and Han of the Woods fungi...plus the fish seem to be hungrier too. 

Thanks for reading!  

Best 73 de KB9BVN