Cottonwood Canyon State Park. moro, oregon

Posted on March 8, 2020 by KB7RQQ

Just got back from a great weekend with Travis W0MUD, Tim WB7TIM, and Troy KI7HML. Travis planned the trip to activate the area for Parks On The Air. Travis and Tim both had Yaesu QRP rigs (FT-817 and FT-818) with wire antennas, battery packs, solar panels, etc. Tim was operating CW and while we heard a lot of signals, were struggling to get out of the canyon. Both Travis and Troy are Jeep guys with some nice rides so it was fun to check out the mods and radio gear installs.

I didn’t arrive until Saturday as I was tied up with a previous commitment but the guys said it was cold and rained pretty hard. Felt sorry for Tim who toughed the night out in the bicycling tent. When I got there, his sleeping bag was hanging to dry. You can see it hanging in the picture lower left.

We all did our own thing for dinner Saturday night and as night fell, the ground was lit up bright by the moon and the sky clear with stars. Turned in a bit early as the fire died down and the temp plummeted. No complaints from the group… got the feeling the first night was pretty brutal and they were ready to catch up on some sleep. I spent the night in my tent for the first time in years. My camper was removed awaiting my new canopy that hasn’t come in yet. Decided to not put the camper back on in case they guys wanted to do a bit of overland exploring. The tent was fun for a change and I slept pretty good. I did run my buddy heater until it ran out of fuel at some point. When I woke up, I switched the bottle and fired it up again to warm things up before I rolled out of the sleeping bag. I think Tim took some notes from this seasoned camper for next time 🙂

I had recently picked up a Yaesu FTM-400XDR and lucked out that these guys were all Fusion Experts. They got my radio set up with all the APRS functions and we experimented with Yaesu Group Mode that allowed us to see each others direction and distance apart as we traveled home.