GOPR – Trying Something New

Get Out and Play Radio (GOPR) is what we call the activity we “played” around with last year (2023). In early October, Alex Acerra (KS0E), Josh Thomas (N5XRX), and myself Mark Thomas (N0XRX) wanted to see if it was worth getting away from the city to an area that is somewhat difficult to find and “GOPR”.

Josh (N5XRX) Getting ready.

Once we all got setup, we found that the RF noise floor was extremely low if not non-existent on HF. Alex (KS0E) worked SSB using his DxCommander vertical antenna. Josh (N5XRX) utilized a Buddipole on 20M working FT8. I was using a mobile vertical on SSB, and I also played around with Winlink email. Everyone was on battery power, and we all made a lot of contacts.

All three vehicles, Josh’s Buddipole. My mobile vertical is seen on top of Josh’s pickup.
Josh (N5XRX) station working FT8 on battery power.
Alex (KS0E) station – IC7300, DxCommander, battery power.
My station working SSB 20M, Winlink, mobile vertical.

We worked stations from all over the world with most in Europe. It was a beautiful day and was a lot of fun. It wasn’t too hard to get with non-improved single road for our vehicles but probably not good for a vehicle with low ground clearance. This is the campground that we will using for this year’s DRC Camp-out coming in October. If you are interested in this type of GOPR please let us know and will include you in the invite if we do it again this year.

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