National Parks Activations Part 2 - Russell Cave National Monument

After a month or so of planning, the family and I finally managed to get out and visit two of the National Parks that are reasonably close to home.  My last post talked about Russell Cave National Monument and Little River National Preserve.  Our original plans were to go to Natchez Trace Parkway (PK04) and Shiloh National Military Park (MP08).  After some discussion, we all decided to go to Little River and then Russell Cave.  A couple of days before the trip, a ham friend of mine contacted me and was going to be arriving at the DeSoto State Park campground on the same evening of our trip.  He wanted to meet up and purchase some repeater stuff from me and since he lives in South Alabama I decided that we would go to Russell Cave first and then move onto Little River in order to accommodate meeting up with him. 

On the day of the trip I had intended on getting up, waking everyone up, and being on the road by 7:00 AM.  In typical Wright fashion, it didn't happen.  Originally, it was going to be me, my wife, my kids and my mom.  As it turns out, my sister and her clan came down from Tennessee for the weekend and joined us.  We wound up taking three carloads of people plus all of our picnic stuff and, of course, all of the radio stuff.

Sign at the park Entrance

The kids taking in the sights.

We arrived at the park around 10:15 AM.  We went to the park office and talked with the ranger on duty, walked through the small museum and exhibit area, and walked to the mouth of the cave and the cave shelter. 

Official NPS Park Stamp

Once we had toured the park and exhibits we decided to find a place to setup.  Of course all of us didn't have the same agenda here.  I was getting ready to setup my radio stuff and start making contacts.  Most everyone else was more interested in setting up a table with food from all of the picnic baskets.

I guess my setup could have been put together a little better because it took me about 30 minutes to get everything up and running.  Some assembly required.  Honestly, I meant to hook all of it up out in the yard at home but I never managed to get around to it.  Anyway, I got everything hooked up and running.  I grabbed my phone to post a "spot" on the National Parks on the Air Facebook page as well as DXSummit. I spotted myself on 20M and my phone promptly died from a dead battery.  I called for several minutes on 20M with no results.  I switched to 40M and began calling but I didn't have high hopes since I had no way of spotting myself.  After a few minutes of calling, someone FINALLY answered my call. I was so shocked that I stumbled over my words.  I got a few spots on the DX cluster and some other people started calling.  The contacts were slow to come but over the course of about 20 minutes I managed to work 10 stations. At this point, we decided to pack up and head up to Little River.  After speaking with the ranger again for a few minutes, we were on our way.

Honestly, radio from this park is pretty challenging.  The park is pretty much in the bottom of a bowl and any direction you look is up.  I definitely learned a lot on this activation and will keep those points in mind for future activations.  I know the park has had 15 activations and a little over 2500 QSOs so while it isn't extremely rare, I know a lot of people still need to put it in their log.  Ironically, I still don't have it in my log.  I have a good bit of vacation coming up in the next couple of months and I am thinking I will probably do at least one more activation there.  Hopefully, I can get it in my log too. 

Next...  National Parks Activations Part 3 - Little River National Preserve