Solo FD for 2024, once again a camping trip to Carolina Beach state park(POTA US-2722).
The station
Arrived late Thursday afternoon and set up the campsite, had an early evening meal, and a relaxing cigar. 
After a mixed night of broken sleep, started setting up radio gear and antennas on Friday morning. The station was an Elecraft K3 and an MFJ versa tuner as the antenna switch/swr meter. 
Tried out a new computer, which flopped big time as it could not connect to either the radio of the winkeyer. Forgot to load the FTDI drivers on the target laptop beforehand, so whipped out the old-n-busted laptop for the duration. Old and busted has charging issues, but it worked well for intermittent sessions with charging during off time breaks. It was easier to use the known computer than waste time on the unknown.
Having decided beforehand to operate mostly during daytime hours, no antenna for 80m was set up. Two trap dipoles were hoisted, one for 40m/20m and the other for 15m/10m. Both installed on separate telescoping fiberglass masts as inverted vees. The masts resulted a height of about 27 feet(~9m) for the centers of the antennas, generally favoring the NW direction. Ran a few test strings and RBN results looked decent.
Its-not-a-contest-its-an-event
Saturday morning had enough time for a good breakfast, a supply/ice run to the store, and plenty of time left over for a few shakedown qsos. Was growing tired as 1800z approached, so got off to a slow S&P start. After a bite to eat and a short walk to stretch out the legs back to it for several more hours. 15m was good at the start, and 20m was good into the evening. 40m was good too, but with 20m flowing it was more interesting to stay there. Bailed out for much needed sleep at 0230Z.
Morning brought another slow half hour start at 0930Z. Slow but steady runs began soon though there were a lot of S&P periods mixed in. Started Sunday morning on 40m and began sweeping up 40/20/15 as the morning progressed. 15m was not nearly as good Sunday morning, but 20m kept improving. Strong finish on 20m. Finished up with about 475-480 Q’s.
After a short break station teardown took a couple of hours. The antennas came down first to keep the work in the shade. The station was torn down and packed with an eye on using the same setup again portable at the end of July for IOTA 2024. Antenna selections for that may change based on site location,WX, or any other wild hair that might manifest after 30 days delay. An EFHW for 40m would have been used to add 80m. I had an 80 FCP variation ready in that case, and the 40m EFHW functions as the 80m 1/4 vertical element. That configuration requires a switching of the EFHW feed point to one dedicated to the 80m vertical. Looking for a way to use relays for switching within a single box.
Portable and CAMP notes
The camp site used was almost ideal for a single station and limited antenna set up. It would have been possible to squeeze in another EFHW or dipole easily. The 4runner served as sleeping quarters with an easily detachable screen awning for rain and bugs. The screen awning was relatively easy to detach/attach to the vehicle for ice and food runs, both easily available right around the corner from the park. It would have been substantially LESS convenient to detach the rain gear in bad weather, something to be planned for in the future. Still better than using a ground tent, or one of the newly popular roof mount tents. Too old for either of those to be worth while anymore.
Food convenience is now an issue. Just don’t see much point in being very picky about trying to store any specialty items. Roll with convenience over healthy going forward.
Another drawback to the location is…..the location. The park itself is quite nice, but the drive is not a lot of fun. Maybe another park in a more rural area would be a better choice if another suitable camp site can be found, although the nearby supply resources are useful and convenient at Carolina Beach.
The weather was hot but tolerable, and the rain mostly cooperated by being light and timely. No lightning for a welcome change. The only WX negative was when a shower came during a food run, making re-setting the screen tarp a bit of a mess.
When the sleep schedule is broken, naps are refreshing. Just do it. Sleep when tired makes the other waking hours more interesting and elevates alertness levels.
MOAR PHOTOS *link http://w4kaz.com/images/2024FD_web/
SCORE RECAP
FD W4KAZ W4KAZ
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