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*                ATGP 2017 Report for Mount St Joseph in Canada          75
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I've been interested in and wanting to participate in AT-GP for years.  
Although I found that extra summits are welcomed I realized that there are 
15 main summits that make up the core chain.   I'm really happy that I was 
able to activate Mont Saint-Joseph as an alternate to Sugarloaf this year 
and be part of the core chain.
My team member Bram (VA2XE) was joking that he and I were the "border 
agents" facilitating the AT-GP packet's crossing into and out of an 
international border.

We left for the summit at 7am and got there around 10am. While Bram was 
putting up his SOTA HF antenna I was putting up an Arrow dual-band j-pole 
for AT-GP.  This antenna worked very well on top of a 16 foot painter's 
pole. Next time I use it I'll bring a bit more rope so I can guy it at 
least at 8 feet instead of the 4 foot level I had it at.
I fed it with 30ft of RG-213 for lower loss, especially on 70cm.

The radio was a TM-D710A.  The tab on the interface patch cable's RJ-45 
was broken and would reset the radio when it came loose. Gotta fix that.  
I used a PM that I had programmed years ago and the radio still had the 
hard-coded coordinates for Mount Carlson.  Sorry for beaconing the wrong 
position.  Next time, I'll configure my GPS-710.

Power was from a 18ah LiFePo, weight about 2 pounds.  It was more than 
enough for AT-GP.  

We didn't have computer logging and I wished I had APRSISCE available.  
Next time...

I found using ANSRVR from the TH-D72 user interface very awkward.  
Another job for APRSISCE. 

I think the first thing I heard was Leo on UHF from Kathadin-15.  
Then I got a few packets.  Then I heard from John on MTWash-13 on UHF. 
I got a call from Lynn looking for a status update.
Got a few more packets.
Got a call to go to 1200baud.
Got lots of packets.
I got some support from Kevin(?) to make sure I had digipeate set on.

After a bit I confirmed that right after packet receipt my radio would 
show "on air", so I was digipeating.

Then it was just a matter of relaying a few messages by phone and waiting 
for the golden packet.

Mont (French spelling for mount) Saint Joseph is part of Mont-Megantic 
national park.  Megantic has a 63 inch telescope on it.

	Mont Mégantic Observatory
The asteroid 4843 Mégantic is named for the observatory.	


Mont-Saint-Joseph is the other tall summit of the park and promotes a 
historical theme.  There was a park employee up there in period costume 
doing presentations to crowds. We were in a refuge with 3 open sides 
on the summit since it was misting rain when we arrived.  Later, when 
the rain got stronger, the presentation was moved into the refuge.  
It got quite crowded.

We got lots of questions from the hikers.  All of them seemed to know 
about the Appalachian Trail. 

I'd like to do it again.

Dan -- VA2KEY