The annual Iron Mountain Jubilee has come around again. This year the event was an extra day longer with events occurring on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Because of this, I've added a new item to my kit and decided to setup camp for the entire weekend.
In case you don't know from previous posts, the Iron Mountain Jubilee is an endurance horse ride through the mountains of southwest Virginia. The Southwest VA Auxcomm organization I'm a member of, volunteer to operate communications at various checkpoints along the course.
This year the course had some changes. There were rides planned for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Saturday's ride being a 100 mile course that starts very early Saturday morning and lasting until early Sunday morning. Since the event was going to encompass the entire weekend, I decided it would be easier to establish camp at my assigned location to cut down on traveling back and forth each day.
I've tent camped before and haven't really liked staking down tents and sleeping on the ground. I've always thought truck bed tents were interesting, but never could justify the cost. While browsing Amazon one day, I stumbled across a tent from Guide Gear. It was on sale and at a price of less than $50, I decided to give it a try.
About a week before the event, I tested out the tent to see how difficult it was to install. It took roughly 45 minutes to figure out after initially unpacking it. Installed, the tent has plenty of room inside and seems built well enough. I don't expect it to last forever, but for occasional use, it should hold up.
The weather for the weekend was very pleasant. I was able to setup my equipment by 9:30 on Friday. I was able to assemble the tent in about 15 minutes this time, since I was a little more familiar with it. Luckily the spot I had available was level. I can see it being a bit annoying if you had to camp at some sort of angle with this type of vehicle mounted tent.
I utilized the Vero VR-N7500 man pack radio I've been playing around with recently. I was able to reach the repeater using low power though a copper jpole antenna mounted on the corner of the canopy.
For power I brought a 100ah LiFePo battery and a 100 watt solar panel with charge controller. As you can see in the photo above, getting sunlight to the panel was an issue while stationed under the forest canopy. However, the VR-N7500 radio draws very little power and even under shaded conditions the panel was able to produce between 5-15 watts. This was enough to result in a positive gain by the end of each day.
The event went well and all the participants were pleased we were on site to keep an eye on them and point them in the right direction. It was fun to test out the new tent which I'm sure will be useful in the future. I'm looking forward to helping out again next year.
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