It was Saturday October 5 (2024), the day of both, MAD Day (stands for Microwave Activity Day) and SPRINT Microwave contest. The SLAMS group from Saint Louis decided to look for a new contest location in different than our own grid (EM48) and closer to other VHF+ stations. We have done similar explorer trip to that area 3 years ago (see our posting here) but did not find anything remarkably good at that time. Friends from the Saint Louis QRP Society (SLQS) told us about a hill they use for POTA activations and we decided to try that.
Herbert AF4JF, Harry WA0CNS, Ron KO0Z and Jim KK0U went to Knob Lick in EM47tp in the morning. We intended to try 1296MHz and 10GHz with our friends in EM64, EM65 and EM13. That's Tennessee, Alabama and Texas. The location is truly on the hill, one of the tallest in Missouri and it really looks good. Jim KK0U told us that this is an excellent place for HF activity, such as SOTA/POTA. First impression upon arrival was magnificient!
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Nice find on the hilltop!
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There is Texas somewhere in that direction
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Fire tower on premises
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There is a platform in the middle of the stairway
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Jim KK0U climbed the stairs and shot this video from the accessible platform
As you can see in the video, there is 360 degrees open view above the tree level from that platform. The fence has holes big enough not to bother 10GHz signals, but probably not too good for lower bands, such as 23cm or even VHF, so we did not even try to carry the equipment (and batteries) up that high and set up on the ground instead.
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| Jim KK0U listening on 10GHz |
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| Team setting up on the ground |
On the other side were several guys. Next two pictures are from Blevins Gap in EM64rp
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Left to right:
Jay/K4NKT (3cm)
Bob/KV4PC (23cm, 33cm)
Bob/KV4PC (3cm)
Stephen/KY4G (23cm) |
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Chris NV4B
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We were communicating with the other groups using phones, SLACK and GroupMe chats, SMS messages ... one guy spoke for the group, so we do not even have all their names or callsigns. I have tried to work NV4B, WG8S, KV4PC, KY4G, W4RXR, K4NKT and AA5C. There were probably more and I apologize for not capturing all the callsigns.
To make this long story short - we did not make any QSOs. Not a single one. This was a microwave contest and distances were simply too long for the meager propagation that day. However, we are HAPPY with this location! We definitely will come back, probably for one of the VHF contests, with full set of bands 50MHz to 122GHz. Also, we will probably employ Q65 for microwave digi modes from there.
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