South Branch was the first campsite where I set up without Michelle. I pulled in behind Ed and got busy with the picket line and water
buckets. Ed got on the bus to return to his horse at the River Road campsite. I hooked up the generator, opened the awning, laid the mat down,
and set up the table and chairs.
I was pleased to see tall trees with space between for an antenna. A tall Tamarack stood right next to me! I shot a line over it to hoist
the center support. I used my wrist-rocket with attached spinning reel and a 9/16” hex nut for a projectile. I then attached 200 lb. Dacron
to the monofilament and pulled that back into and over the tree. A wild cherry tree and a poplar supported the antenna at its ends. I was
very pleased with the antenna and looked forward to hours of special event operation.
But things went bad. First, the refrigerator stopped working and then the trailer battery went dead. Even with the generator attached to the
trailer, the water pump and lights wouldn’t work. In spite of the coincidental timing, it turns out that these problems
were unrelated.
I was able to get the propane powered fridge to work just by pushing its thermocouple farther in over the pilot flame. (This never works,
but it did this time!) The problem with the battery was the result of a malfunctioning electrical converter. Michelle had just bought
this horse trailer, used, and we were just now figuring things out. There is a spot for two deep cycle batteries but only one came with
the trailer. It was now dead. We unhooked and drove to nearby Hale, MI, for a new battery. Then, to keep them both charged, I wired the
generator’s 12V supply directly to the batteries. This got us going again, but consumed all my free time and cut into our ‘Happy hour’!
To make things worse, the noise from our generator once again disturbed the veteran campers. (They started talking about us to our
friends.) I logged only four QSOs from South Branch Trailcamp.