I don’t suppose that it’s surprising that Wisconsin should have a couple of weeks of deep-freeze weather in the middle of February; just inconvenient. Yesterday was warmish, the forecast predicted more and better for today; it might be Radio Weather!
A few minutes before 7 I was at the local Kwik Trip filling up multiple containers of coffee and thinking about where I should go; in the end I prioritized “well plowed” and headed up to Buckhorn. I have only activated it once, but it seemed … roomy, … and it’s not all that far away, so, why not? It’s a beautiful morning, the temperature never went below freezing overnight, blue skies … . The air smells slightly springlike; green-growing-ish, even a few hints of piney here and there.
Buckhorn State Park, US-1443, was in fact well plowed, though not completely; some areas were gated off for the season.
I went to the same parking area that I activated back in December.
Up went the vertical antenna; connect the antenna cable, battery, microphone … get out the logbook … I can’t recall, offhand, the POTA number for this park … and when I try to look it up on my phone, nothing. Whoopsie. Restart the phone. Nothing. A few bars of signal, but no connection. Browser returns
:: net: ERR : INTERNET NOT CONNECTED
Oh, did I prepay for my service this month? (the exact date I need to do this seems to vary from month to month). Um, no, not yet … . Well, that explains it.
I just started a new logbook at WFD, so I have no written reference. A few logbooks ago I had a few pages of this sort of information on the back pages, but that was then … . I got nothin’. I tried a few half-hearted CQs in the hope some hunter would tune by and hear me; one good hunter station with a computer could tell me the park number and spot me … and maybe I should have persisted longer, but after 10 minutes or so I gave up.
Down comes the antenna, put everything back in the radio pack, refresh my room temperature coffee, and set a course for the Dollar Store where I bought my phone and buy my monthly minutes.
So, that’s the story. It was still a wonderful day to get out into a park!
The moral:
Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
Or something like that.
Thanks for visiting driftlessqrp!
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