CLINGMANS DOME (Smokies) REPORT 2016 ------------------------------------ Now back at home, so sorry guys if my station's failure to come up was the single point of failure in what would have been an otherwise successful event. I hate to be the guy who "screwed the pooch!" (Tip of the hat to the 1980s movie "The Right Stuff" for those who remember the reference). This weekend has been a "comedy of errors," except it wasn't so funny. Left work early afternoon yesterday (Friday) to take the cat to the vet for updated shots and to board him for the 5-day business trip beginning tomorrow (Sunday) and make other preparations. Also, took off early to start getting the car loaded up and finish prepping for today's event. (Needed to solder up a PL-259 on a 25-foot roll of RG-8X, among other things, not all of which happened. Continue reading.) Well that plan went "off-the-tracks" when I got home and started to move equipment to the car when I got attacked by yellow jackets who had unknown to me set up a nest in the side yard next to the car port and something I did got them totally agitated. I got nailed on the right hand on the little finger and bottom part of the hand pretty good (for those who don't know, yellow jackets rank #6 on the Schmidt Insect Bite Pain Index!). So now I have a very painful and rapidly swelling hand, and after dispatching the yellow jacket to insect Hades with liberal doses of wasp and hornet spray, I grab a frozen ice pack and start icing my hand (did I mention I'm right-handed??!!). While icing the hand, I manage to use my phone to Google search "Yellow Jacket Sting Treatment;" of all the various folklore and other mythical "cures" that popped-up, the one that made the most sense was a doctor- recommended regime of 50 milligrams of Benadryl and ibuprofen. So off I go to Dollar General to get their generic version of Benadryl and take two 25 mg. capsules plus 400 mg. of ibuprofen upon return. After about an hour, plus periodic application of topical lidocaine solution on the bites, the pain subsides some what, but that Benadryl puts me in some version of "LA LA" land for the rest of the evening. I manage to get the batteries topped off, gear loaded, and verify that the Kenwood TM-D700A has the proper GP event parameters still loaded in PM slot 1 from previous years. Take another dose of Benadryl and off to bed where the sedative effect of antihistamine puts me right out. Surprise, that Benadryl plus the diuretic I normally take for BP control causes me to get up and go to the bathroom every two hours, so it seems like 6 AM rolls around really fast. Get up really groggy from the Benadryl and lack of sleep, make some coffee, start to wake up a bit, do the bathing essentials, load a few more items, and hit the road to meet my event companion at a breakfast diner about 30 miles away on the way to Clingman's. He's already there, but service is fast and we eat and get out of the diner, get him loaded up, and we're on the road more or less on schedule around 8 AM. Fortunately, due to rainy and cloudy conditions, the roads through some of the most heavily tourist-infected areas of the mountains of Western North Carolina this time of year are practically deserted, we make really good time, and arrive at Clingmans Dome parking area at 9:45 AM, a bit ahead of target ETA. We begin setting-up, and despite my being hampered by a stiff, swollen, and still painful right hand and residual grogginess, and with Bob's assistance. we assemble and erect the dual-band ground plane antenna, 18-foot mast, and a ground mount improvised from a surplus satellite dish mount. So far, so good, and I'm thinking "We'll be on the air ahead of schedule." Nope. Famous last words. It was when I connected up the antenna coax and connected up the power leads to the big marine battery that something went awry, and no joy when I tried to turn the radio on. I started testing the PowerPole and fuse connections one by one, eliminating the possible failure points, confirming 12 volt power and continuity at each point in the chain, until I reached the final fuse in the positive power lead right next to the radio. It was definitely blown, confirmed by both visual inspection and failed continuity and power check. It's a glass fuse, and. lo and behold, I had taken my spare supply of glass fuses out of the car and failed to return them to the glove box (which I may have caught had I not been so brain-addled by the Benadryl). So Bob and I quickly improvise a "jumper" with alligator clips and wire between the two fuse holder ends try again. No dice. Then it dawns on me that some catastrophic event related to the power has taken out some internal component in the radio, and it is now dead. By this time it's after 11:00 AM. I have Bob pull out his Yaesu dual band handheld, and attempt to get on the UHF simplex frequency but after several calls, determine that he has automatic repeater shift enabled, so when I key up with 445.925 showing on the screen, it shifts down to 440.925 MHz, which is why I get no reply from the GP group. Bob cannot figure out how get it off that setting into simplex mode for transmit, so we are stuck. At one time, we do receive a call from Tom, KG4VUB, from Springer for our station, but can't reply. That's when I managed to move around in the parking lot to a better spot and get enough 4G cell signal on Verizon to send out the e-mail that we are down. At some point, Tom tried to call my cell, but the call did not come through. As I was coming off the mountain, back into Cherokee, I got the voice mail he left, but since the original call did not ping my cell phone it did not capture the Caller ID, and as Tom said he was calling from someone's "truck cellphone" or some such, and had no reception on his personal cell, he did not leave a number I could call back on. So, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. If the damage to the TM-D700A is not something I can fix once I open it up, or at a reasonable cost from a Kenwood repair shop, this may be my last GP event, as I really don't think I'm going to spring for a new TM-D710G for a once a year event. And, as I discovered, one really needs, into addition to the TM-D7xxx radio, you need a Kenwood APRS-capable HT as a back-up, or at least a capable UHF back-up radio. Had I had my IC-7100 mobile unit in the car, instead of the old IC-706 (w/ no 440), or Bob's Yaesu HT had worked on UHF simplex, we could have a least communicated on UHF. Sorry for the inconvenience to all concerned. ------------------------------------------------ Posted by: "LARRY J. FORD" K4AEC ------------------------------------------------