The Driftwood State Fishing Area is home to three different lakes that were created from old gravel pits sometime in the early to mid 1900's. The Indiana DNR expanded and did some improvement to this site in the late 1990's to increase the availability of public sport fishing waters. The pits and the property are adjacent to the Driftwood river, which flows southward toward Columbus Indiana. Sometimes when the river floods, it connects to the pits and allows for some interesting fish populations to move in and out. Driftwood state fishing lakes contain a wide variety of fish species, including catfish, muskie, crappie, bluegill, sunfish, and gar. The turtle population is also great here. You can fish from the bank, from a boat, or canoe and kayak. There is no entrance fee, but if you are fishing you will need to have an Indiana DNR issues fishing license. Located on the west side of US 31 in Edinburgh Indiana, the lakes are easy to access.
Notice: NO restrooms, NO pit toilets, NO tables
I arrived at about 11:15AM today, and originally planned on using the KX-2 and my magnetic loop antenna. I was all setup and ready to get on the air at 11:35AM. Try as I might I could not get the magnetic loop antenna to tune on 20m. I think it may have a short in the coax feedline. So I deployed the 33 foot hitch mounted vertical and radials, and I will check the magnetic loop out when I get back home.
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| At the end of the excursion I moved to 30m and 40m working ONE on each band |
Band conditions didn't look too bad (SSN:38 SFI:106 A:3 K:3) but when I tried listening around on 20 meters, I was not hearing much. I started out on 14048 Khz and called CQ POTA a few times and at 11:50AM I was finally answered by NE1D Dimitris in Massachusetts. Now I just needed nine more to qualify this activation.
I never found myself with a pile up, it was slow going for the most part and finally at 12:14PM I had my tenth contact in the logbook. AB4BA in Colorado was number ten today.
I kept at it for another 20 minutes or so and the contacts just stopped coming back to me. The fading and the atmospheric noise was winning out.
Also speaking of noise, this location is right next to Camp Atterbury...and today they must have been doing artillery practice. You can hear the booms as they fire the big guns and sometimes you can even feel it in the ground a little bit.
My final two contacts today ended up being one on 30 meters, and one on 40 meters. I wrapped it up after that. Total time at the location was about ninety minutes including setup, re-setup, and tear down. Not too bad. I ended up with 20 contacts.
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| Map of contacts for today 3/20/26 - HAPPY SPRING!! |
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| Welcome to Plover Pit |
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| Very deep and easily fished from the bank |
This location straddles two counties. Johnson and Bartholomew. I was operating from Bartholomew County.
Best 73 and DX!
de KB9BVN
Brian
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