QRP in the Driftless
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A new hike
I’ve had my eye on Lost Creek County Park for a while now, but never hiked any of the trails there until today. We got a little coating of freezing rain overnight, so I waited until midday when the temperature got up to around 35 degrees; mild weather for February! Groundhog Day! Punxsutawney Phil saw…
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Winter Field Day is coming
… not this weekend, not the next one, the one after that … January 25th and 26th. 1600 UTC to 21:59 UTC the next day. I imagine I’ll do as before; treat it as an exercise: just throw my packs (as they stand) into the car. Set up at Wildcat Mountain State Park? Over half…
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Last and first hikes
Last hike of 2024 was just after dawn on the 30th, on the Camel Bluff Trail at Mill Bluff State Park. It was a cool and foggy morning, no breeze to speak of, and about 28 degrees. There was snow and ice on the trail in some places, but mostly it was easy to just…
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Buckhorn State Park, US-1443
Lat week I found a window of time to go play radio! The night before, I spent some time looking at the POTA map and tentatively decided on going to Buckhorn S. P., one that I never activated before, though it is not far away. The day dawned chilly (in the ‘teens), breezy, and sort…
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Saved by the “octopus”
The big surprise on a a recent activation was the missing power cable for the X6100. No worries, there in the tangle of assorted cables was the “octopus” I made last year; a power connector for every field radio to a pair of powerpoles. After returning home I found the missing cable on my bench,…
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A wintry activation of US-1480
It was overcast, seventeen degrees, and flurrying gently when I rolled out of the driveway en-route to Wildcat Mountain State Park, and the sun was about to get above the horizon as I was driving along the county highway. As I promptly realized when I got to the park it was just too cold for…
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An October retrospective, and a November omnibus
Soup weather It drizzled all morning, but as the temperature dropped it has turned into snow. Big, healthy flakes, coming down ever heavier. My most urgent project at the moment is outdoors, so it’s a chance to catch up with the blog, while enjoying a bowl of sausage-and-lentil soup. Lots of little items, in no…
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Winter is here
Thanksgiving Day in the Driftless; overcast, breezy, 20s outside. Inside, a chicken roasting with kale and root vegetables. Huge salad, butternut squash, 2 kinds of soup; almost all local, some from our garden. Went to the spring earlier for fresh water, then hiked a mile or so on a county park trail just to enjoy…
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“five-two”
I’ve been thinking of a few emcomm-related posts to put up, emphasizing some of the basic-basics of being prepared for the unexpected. Here’s another one: Today’s brief excursion into emcomm is about the importance of the 2 meter calling frequency, 146.52 MHz. If there is no communications plan, then the plan in an emergency (assuming…
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A tale of resiliency and recovery from Helene
Thomas Witherspoon (K4SWL) who blogs at https://qrper.com/ lives in the Swannanoa area of North Carolina which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene late last month. His series of posts from there is well worth reading and are collected at this link: Helene Aftermath
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The “pink card” :
or, always be prepared for emergency communication. Reading a post by K4SWL about his experiences during (and after) Hurricane Helene got me thinking about ham radio’s more serious side: being the when-all-else-fails backup mode for communications when the infrastructure goes away. I could go on at some length about all the different ways that we…
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Mid-September omnibus
Word cloud I think I see the problem: Blue skies Here in Wisconsin on a clear, not-too-humid day with fresh wilderness air the sky can be as blue as the sky in a Miyazaki film. Touch paddles 1.1 Serpent! Kickapoo River Thanks for visiting driftlessqrp!
A backwater of the Mississippi River in the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge on a gloomy, chilly day in early November, viewed from the Lower Diversion Dike Trail.
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