Dean: You better be there and of course you are welcome to take the mog for a spin if I bring it. I’ll just leave it in crawler mode where speed is measured in feet per hour and you can’t get out of eyesight! 
Richard: I hope you can make it down. That would be awesome! Is it getting that hard to find uniques back home?
73, pat
Pat… yes and no…, 1. they’re all 2hrs + drive from my home and, 2. I like “proper” mountains… plus I haven’t been out camping much this year so all-round… the whole idea is good.
Hope I can swing it…
BTW… I don’t have a “high clearance” vehicle… BMW 5 series… HA ha… hope I can get near a trail-head?
Richard // N2GBR
You are a SOTA activator, I am sure you have driven that 5 series a few places it hasn’t belonged. 
But you shouldn’t have any issues with 90% of the summits and we can get you to the rest.
73, pat
Yes… I’m always busting Chris (W3CDW) chops as my Bimmer has more off-road miles than his lifted, 28" tires Jeep…
RJ
Work schedule has now killed my opportunity to join you fellas… it’s Budgets time of year and now I have to travel places the week before and the week after the planned weekend… leaving me no time to travel south… Have a good trip… I’ll watch for you on the bands… Richard // N2GBR
I am sorry that you won’t be able to make it, but I am already thinking about a sequel. Maybe a W4C campout in the spring. We will get you down here somehow…
73, pat
Pat, how about the time the police thought your Lincoln Town car was abandoned and they were going to tow it!
Haha! The Trail Limo has caused more than one interaction with law enforcement officers! But I guess it does look out of place back in the woods.
pat - KI4SVM
all of my vehicles are off-road vehicles…
Oh man that looks like fun and is not all that far away. Unfortunately I am already (over) committed that weekend and wont be able to make it up there.
I will try to chase as much as possible though!
I am sorry that you can’t make the campout Steve, but of course we need chasers too! 
Hope to get a chance to work you and who knows, we may do this camping trip thing again. There are tons of locations in W4G that are perfect for this sort of thing.
73, pat
Pat, I don’t see any alerts for the W4G gathering. My wife doesn’t have anything on my calendar so far, so maybe I can sneak out to a summit near me with the hopes of having several S2S qsos. What day and time would be best for me to get out for a couple hours?
Second question: in the past I’ve seen that you’ve spotted youself in the top band, any plans for that? Does an activation need to be done at night? Just curious. I’ve had success activating on 80m with an EFHW about six feet off the ground.Would a similar antenna for 160m yield anything beyond NVIS distances? I’d be in NY.
Cheers,
Kevin
Kevin,
First, I do realize that you had asked Pat about 160m ops, so not trying to be rude and cut him off. I had asked a similar question a while back, and our friends in G-land answered in that month’s SOTA News. The link is:
Again, not trying to be rude to Pat (ok, maybe a little since I have to work and can’t make the camp out and am a bit jealous - HI!), but thought the additional 160m info may be interesting.
73,
Mike, N4VBV
Kevin: I think we are planning on playing it pretty loose and figure out who’s going where and with whom at camp. We will probably have to drive up to a high point to post the next days alerts once decisions are made. I think Friday-Sun will have the most activators on the air, but I know some people will be activating on their way to camp on Thursday as well. With most of the summits being close to camp I would imagine there will be lots of mid-morning activations and continuing on during the day.
I think a night-time 160m activation could be very cool and I will bring it up to the group. If that happens, it will probably be Friday night since we are planning on eating out that night and can maybe do a drive-up after dinner.
Mike: Thanks for the link and ideas for some 160m antennas. Definitely need to come up with something better for top band.
Okay, we are officially scheming on a night-time activation or two on Friday night…
Awesome, this will be a fun experiment. It’s actually easier for me to do a night activation, and Friday is good for me. The W4G-gathering folks have an advantage in that with multiple activators so close together, you’ll make 160m contacts through ground wave. Furthermore, 40m ops will be enhanced compared to daytime. Your efforts shouldn’t be wasted, you’ll make contacts.
Mike, good info, thanks for chiming in. I’ve got 500m of antenna wire from Sotabeams, making antennas isn’t a problem. Design is. Thanks for the link.
The idea of a nighttime ops on 160 meters has me really thinking now… There are several possibilities my only problem is I need to design an antenna to use!
Ryan
WG4I
Interesting. Liz and I don’t have anything for 160 but we could do 40.
I’m new to SOTA and local to Roswell, GA. Im curious if this would be a good event for a beginner activator. Im an Intermediate camper in good shape for climbing hills. Love the mountains of north georgia. I have enough gear to support myself, kx2 with a buddipole and enough camp kitchen essentials for backpacking. I have zero cw skills, so ssb or maybe digital?
I work through the week so would drive up Saturday later in the morning.
73
-Dana
Hi Dana,
This would be a perfect opportunity to get out and activate. You can always tag along with an experienced activator if you want to have kind of a no-stress activation and get some tips. Looks like the weather should be nice and hopefully condx will follow.
73, pat - KI4SVM
Yes! Come on out. We will be constantly monitoring 146.52FM and the W4WCR 443.150 pl127.3 repeater throughout the weekend. I may have extra space in my pop-up trailer and there will be at least one person back in camp all weekend.
There will be several SOTA newbies all the way to SOTA goats and in between. I fall in that in between category.
Ryan - WG4I