First Road Trip in the New KF4LMT Mobile - Overnight Road Trip in Northeast Florida; 17/18 August 2025

On Sunday and Monday, I took my first road trip in the new KF4LMT Mobile, visiting Northeast Florida. The new mobile station is quite a departure from what I've used before so I was very interested in how it would work and what I would be able to hear with it. I visited the USS Orleck (DD-886) Naval Museum in downtown Jacksonville, the Camp Blanding Museum in Starke, FL, and Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park in the Osceola National Forest on Sunday, overnighted in Kingsland, GA, and returned to Savannah on Monday morning. Sunday morning's weather forecast called for an almost 100% chance of rain and thunderstorms in the Jacksonville area, but although it was hot, humid, and oppressive all day it never rained or stormed (at least where I was at). I've visited the Orleck before, but this was my first visit to the Camp Blanding Museum and the Olustee Battlefield, which gave me the opportunity to listen in Bradford and Union Counties for the first time. It was also the first time I've been west of Jacksonville in quite a while, so it was good to see what I could hear out that way. 

USS Orleck (DD-886) in downtown Jacksonville on the St Johns River

Coastal Georgia Military Monitoring Recap; July 2025

July was an eventful and productive month radio-wise. It seems that Summer often brings a lull in good monitoring, but the past month definitely didn't fit that pattern. Locally, July saw a callsign change at Hunter AAF with one of the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade units and activity from the Florida ANG F-35As from Jacksonville continued to increase as they receive their new jets. I caught some interesting visitors during the month, the most interesting was a UK Royal Air Force RC-135W, SHINR 40,as it flew across the States, presumably en route back to the UK. I also caught an An-124 on it's inbound and outbound trips as it delivered some kind of cargo to Florida's Space Coast. I recently added a Stridsberg Engineering MCA204M multicoupler to the shack at home and it has significantly improved my ability to receive activity from the A-10s from Moody AFB operating in the Moody MOAs (thus the increased amount of Moody activity noted below). The penultimate day of the month brought a wonderful surprise; Valiant Air Command's warbird C-47, "Tico Belle" was in Savannah dropping paratroopers at Hunter Army Airfield. I've had the opportunity to visit her several times at their museum in Titusville, but this was the first time I'd seen her in flight. 

After 13 years, I had to replace KF4LMT Mobile at the end of July; the way the new mobile station is going to be set up will be a significant departure from the last two KF4LMT Mobiles, so I'll have a blog post about that in the future. 

Valiant Air Command's C-47, "Tico Belle" flying over Savannah while dropping paratroopers at Hunter Army Airfield on Wednesday, 30 July 2025