SKCC 5123T----- FISTS 14979----- Flying Pigs 2331----- NAQCC 3610-----QRP ARCI 14176-----Polar Bear 257

Sunday, November 20, 2022

N4KGL's 2022 Fall RaDAR Challenge Outing

RaDAR is Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio. For the Fall RaDAR Challenge, Suzy and I made three stops in three hours at Geneva State Lake in Southeast Alabama on Nov 10th, 2022. The site was on the Parks On The Air POTA list, and we benefited from the POTA hunters. I had to talk them out of their grid square for the RaDAR exchange. We made at least five contacts before moving to the next stop. Suzy enjoyed our two one-kilometer walks on the trail around the lake. We should have done one more stop; we had an hour left.


Our first and third stops at Geneva State Lake in Alabama

At the first stop, I had seven 20-meter SSB contacts; then a one-kilometer walk, I got five more on 20-meter SSB. We walked one kilometer back to the first stop, and I worked one Alabama and one Georgia station on 40 meters SSB. I switched to 20 meters CW and worked eight. I needed to work more than five to get the grid squares. Asking for a grid square from a CW POTA hunter is difficult as they don't expect the request.


Geneva State Lake was an excellent venue for RaDAR. Since I spotted myself on the POTA list, the contacts came quickly. The Alexloop magnetic loop and the Icom 705 fit in my backpack and were both portable and efficient for RaDAR-style operating.

The view of the lake from the pier.

Suzy, our Basset, and my RaDAR Companion