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*                  ATGP 2018 Report for GD Hill                          75
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Andy KB3UCH arrived at the parking lot at 9:30 and Bob showed up 45 minutes 
late as usual and we began the hike up the hill at maybe 10:25.  Dark skies 
but still no rain.  

We climbed the tower and just as we began to setup antennas it began to 
rain and never let up.  Operational by 11:15 and almost immediately saw 
stations from 9 north of us down to 1.

We hunkered down inside the tower on the top landing with bob and equipment 
on the dry side and Andy dodging water on the other.  Andy had brought a
backup twin-lead Jpole and with enough coax, we were able to operate the
second radio from down inside the tower also.  What surprised us was the 
number of people still hiking and that still climbed the tower.  All of
them having to step over and around Bob and all the equipment in the 2' 
wide space.

See inside tower: http://aprs.org/hamtrails/2018/GDhill-inside-tower.png

Had voice immediately with MDMTN7 but not CAMLBCK-9 (as usual).  Didnt chat 
to save power. The ATGP channel seemed quite lightly used, but that is good 
for less collisions and higher reliability.  

Only about half the stations had any STATUS text and/or updated it so we 
could see what was going on.  But several sent MSGS and I sent several
 messages and BLNS since I was in the middle and my messages could make 
both ends using only a single HOP7-7.

Around 14XX, after I had seen all stations from 13 down to 1,  I sent MSG 
to ALL asking 13 and 1 to both send a GP message to ALL.  I got it from 
Springer-1, but not from 13.

By 1430 in consultation with the shack potato, we sent the message to 
suggest everyone QRT at 1500 since it did not look like much would change.  
And we were getting wet.  Sorry, we didn't try 9600, but there were so still 
several weaknesses in the chain that it seemed it would only add more confusion.

At 1500 we secured and drove over to the next hill 3 miles away and visited 
the LRTS Ham Club shack on the ridge line and explored with them putting a 
permanent site there.  More on that when we figure out the best 2m packet 
frequency to minimize the number of cavities needed to avoid repeater inputs 
at all the possible permanent sites.

Bob, WB4APR