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*                  ATGP 2017 Report for Clingmans                        75
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Had a great time assisting Larry Ford - K4AEC at Clingmans Dome. Last year 
I was a Springer with Tom's support team.

I trove a total of 382 miles round trip. I camped at Smokemont Campground 
down US 441 from Clingmans. 

I arrived around 9:45 to find Larry already setup and with traffic between 
him and Springer and Roan. I quickly setup my gear, a N9TAX VHF/UHF Slim 
Jim J-Pole Dual Band 2m 70cm Antenna, my TM-D710G powered by Valence 
U1-12RT 12.8V 40Ah Lithium Ion Battery (type LiFeMgPO4). 

Once up and operational CLNGMN-2 was switched over to my rig as Larry was 
having issues with 9600 in his 700. After several unsuccessful BECON's with 
not traffic, Tom-KG4VUB prompted me to recheck all my menu setting where 
I realized I hadn't changed my call over to CLNGMN-2 as well as missing 
the setting ALIAS=HOP once those were corrected we saw 9600 traffic up to 
station 5 but nothing beyond. Once word came down to switch over to 1200 
Baud and clearing out of the previous list as well as a BECON cycle, with 
in a few BECON cycles traffic from all upstream stations began to up and 
down the chain. It was a great success to all who work through the issues 
to make this another successful ATGP. I'm thankful to Tom Olley - KG4VUB 
and Frank Dean  -K4SJR for inviting me to last years event at SPringer 
where we had a team of 6 and this year to Larry Ford K4AEC for letting me 
assist and be apart of his team at Clingman's Dome. CD had very wet weather 
with thunder all around at time but no lightening, TONS of pedestrian 
traffic with a lot of them inquiring as to our strange pole and antennas 
and radios. I'm looking forward to being apart of Larry's team next year 
for the 2018 ATGP. Cheers !

Greg Smith - KK4YLX