This weekend's overnight road trip to Central Georgia was the first time I've incorporated portable HF operating and Parks on the Air activity into one of my road trips. I left Savannah on Sunday morning and headed toward the Piedmont NWR north of Macon. It started raining just north of Dublin, so went through Jeffersonville and Gordon to Gray, GA where I stopped for an early lunch at Old Clinton BBQ while I waited for the rain to slack off. After lunch, I continued on to the NWR, scouting for a good spot to operate from, finding one on the Little Rock Wildlife Drive. After activating the Piedmont NWR, I continued on to Juliette, GA where I visited Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site and activated it after touring the grounds. The day may have started out dreary and wet, but the afternoon turned out wonderful. Between it being a Sunday and the weather not being all that great, I didn't hear any MilCom activity, but there was plenty of public safety and railroad communications to listen to. I had a special project planned for the drive back home on Monday morning; I stopped at Exit 143 on I-16 and did some radio recon on the DMR system in use at Hyundai Metaplant in Ellabell. It was a successful stop and it yielded some good results.
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| Some of the historic structures at Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site in Juliette, GA |
Public Safety
Public Safety communications in Central Georgia around Macon are a mix of P25 trunking, DMR, NXDN, and analog conventional systems. Macon-Bibb County, Houston County, and Monroe County use P25 trunking systems while the surrounding more rural counties use analog, DMR, and NXDN systems. It's worth noting that some of the rural counties are using encryption on their DMR and NXDN systems.
Houston County P25 PII TRS
TG 16 - Houston CO FD Dispatch
TG 17 - Houston Co FD Fireground 1
TG 31 - Houston EMS Dispatch
TG 61 - Warner Robins FD Dispatch
TG 91 - Centerville FD Dispatch
TG 121 - Perry FD Dispatch
CCGIRRS (Macon-Bibb and Monroe Counties)
TG 132 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Dispatch 1
TG 134 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Scene 2
TG 135 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Scene 3
TG 136 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Scene 4
TG 151 - Macon-Bibb Co EMS Dispatch
TG 152 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Event 2
TG 1101 - Monroe Co FD Dispatch
TG 1161 - Monroe Co ES Alert 1
TG 1164 - Monroe Co ES Alert 4
155.1000 (NEX9 RAN 1) - Dooly County EMS Dispatch
159.4500 (NEX4 RAN 45) - Jones County Fire Dispatch
155.3550 (DMR S1, C1, TG 300) - Laurens County FD Dispatch
154.3850 (DMR S1, C2, TG 500) - Dublin FD Dispatch (Laurens Co)
159.3750 (NEX4 RAN 49) - Peach County Fire Dispatch; enc
151.0025 (NEX4 RAN 49) - Fort Valley FD Dispatch
156.1200 (NEX4 RAN 55) - Fort Valley 55 911; enc
151.3250 (PL 151.4) - Putnam County Fire Dispatch
154.7300 (DMR S2, C0, TG 200) - Telfair County Fire Dispatch
154.4300 (DMR S1, C7, TG 8100) - Twiggs County FD Dispatch; enc
155.9250 (DMR S1, C7, TG 8100) - Twiggs County FD FG1; enc
158.8350 (DMR S1, C7, TG 8000) - Twiggs County FD FG2; enc
154.2425 (DMR S1, C1, TG 100) - Wilkinson County Rpt 4
155.3400 - VMED28/HEAR
Railroad
Most of the railroad activity I heard while traveling around Macon and Central Georgia was from Norfolk Southern, but I did hear a few CSX and Heart of Georgia transmissions. Norfolk Southern on AAR-9 and AAR-31 was very strong and seemed to be easily heard regardless of where I was.
CSX
160.2900 - AAR 12, CSX Dispatch? (Some PL 250.3) (Macon Area)
Norfolk Southern
160.2450 - AAR 9, Norfolk Southern Dispatch (Macon area)
160.5750 - AAR 31, Norfolk Southern Road Atlanta South
160.6350 - AAR-35, Norfolk Southern Brosnan Yard, Macon
161.5650 - AAR-97, Norfolk Southern (CW IDs) (Macon/WRB area)
Heart of Georgia RR
161.1300 - AAR-68, Heart of Georgia RR
Business
On the way back to Savannah on Monday morning, I stopped at one of the truck stops at I-16 Exit 143 across from the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America to do some radio recon on the DMR system in use at the plant. I let the SDS100's LCN finder run on the system while I went into the truck stop for just a few minutes and came back out to discover it was already done! It's no great surprise that the system is VERY busy. Once the LCNs were found, I scanned the system for a few minutes before hitting the road back to Savannah; it's a Capacity Plus system using Color Code 9, and all the talkgroups I heard sounded production and/or maintenance related.
Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America DMR TRS (WSDE975, CAP+)
Ellabell, GA (Bryan Co)
451.5500 (CC9, LCN 1)
452.0500 (CC9, LCN 2)
452.3000 (CC9, LCN 3)
461.0500 (CC9, LCN 4)
461.6000 (CC9, LCN 5)
TG 3 - Hyundai Unknown
TG 10 - Hyundai Unknown
TG 11 - Hyundai Unknown
TG 29 - Hyundai Unknown
TG 30 - Hyundai Unknown
TG 31 - Hyundai Unknown
TG 54 - Hyundai Unknown
TG 55 - Hyundai Unknown
Amateur Radio, Parks, and History
This road trip was the first one I've incorporated portable HF and Parks on the Air into, and given the fun I had doing it this time, it certainly won't be the last. The idea to add portable HF/POTA to the trip came to mind because it was the Autumn 2025 Support Your Parks weekend and I was already planning to visit two parks that have POTA park numbers: Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), US-0264 and Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site, US-3720.
I set up along the Piedmont NWR's Little Rock Wildlife Drive just after the rain stopped. Since things were still wet, I set up the FT-891 in the front passenger seat of KF4LMT Mobile and ran the feedline for the antenna through the back hatch. The antenna was erected a short distance behind between the wildlife drive and the woodline. Conditions were good and I ended up with 19 contacts on 20 Meters before packing up and moving on to Jarrell Plantation. I also made a Boy Scouts Jamboree on the Air contact with a group of Scouts in Venice, FL - WV4BSA while operating from the Piedmont NWR. This is my favorite among the spots I've operated portable from so far; it was in an out of the way location near no RFI sources or other RF - cell signals were even unreliable - so it was just me, the radio, and my pen and notepad for logging. The only other soul I saw the entire time I was there was a large 6-8 point buck that I saw in the road after turning a corner, unfortunately I didn't have time to grab the camera before he took off into the woods.
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| KF4LMT Mobile parked along the Little Rock Wildlife Drive in the Piedmont NWR, The FT-891, LiFePo battery, and a notepad are inside for a POTA activation; the antenna is a short distance behind between the road and the woodline |
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| The Chelegance MC-750 set up between the Little Rock Wildlife Drive and the woodline |
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| Allison Lake at the Piedmont NWR |
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| The Piedmont NWR's Little Rock Wildlife Drive |
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| Looking down at a creek along the Little Rock Wildlife Drive |
After touring Jarrell Plantation Historic Site, I set up the portable HF station at one of the picnic tables in their picnic area and set up the antenna in a clearing nearby. Once again, I decided to operate on 20 Meters; the conditions were still good, but working portable was a bit more difficult because by that time in the afternoon, the Illinois QSO Party was in full swing and there were plenty of powerful contest stations dominating the band. For some reason, the Chelegance MC-750 refused to stay vertical at Jarrell Planation, no matter what I did, it decided to lean to one side of the other, but it didn't seem to matter performance-wise. Despite the extra challenge, it was still fun operating and I put 12 more stations in the log book before calling it a day and heading to Warner Robins for dinner and some rest.
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| The portable HF station set up on a picnic table at Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site; the Chelegance MC-750 can just be seen in the clearing behind the table (for some reason, at Jarrell Plantation, it steadfastly refused to stay vertical!) |
Jarrell Plantation State Historic Site is one of the lesser known Georgia State Historic Sites, but a very interesting one. It represents Central Georgia from the mid 1800s through the early 1900s as a cotton plantation, cotton gin, saw mill, and grist mill. Among the structures that survive are a barn from the early 1900s, a house and outbuildings that were built in 1895, and house built in 1847. A house built in 1920 stands just outside the park and is currently a bed and breakfast. The mill complex, comprising a cotton gin, sawmill, and grist mill built between 1895 and 18988 also still stand and two steam engines are still on site. The only that survives to represent the slave labor and tenant farmers that worked the land at Jarrell Plantation is what's left of a fireplace; one thing I wish the site would do is tell the story of the slaves and tenant farmers; perhaps it's something they could collaborate one with the history department at one of the area universities.
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| The 1847 Jarrell House |
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| The 1895 Jarrell House |
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| The 1920 Jarrell House |
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| Barn built in the early 1900s |
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| The Jarrell Plantation Mill Complex |
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| Well house and syrup furnace from the mid 1800s |
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| What's left of a fireplace from a slave cabin/tenant farmer house; the roped off area represents what they think was its footprint |
There wasn't a lot of activity on the 2 Meter and 70cm repeaters in the Macon and Warner Robins area, but I did have a DMR QSO through the Dublin DMR repeater on the way up on Sunday morning. Note that some of the analog repeaters in Central Georgia are linked by various systems; two of the ones I heard are on the Peach State Intertie System. This was the first road trip I've taken since I put the Radioddity DB-25D in the car, and it did a fine job. The only shortcoming it has is a lack of a temporary lockout feature in scan; it would be nice to be able to temporarily lock out busy channels with QSOs I may not want to listen to.
145.2900- (PL 82.5) - Bryon
145.4300- (PL 88.5) - Macon
146.7150- (CSQ) - Twin City
146.8350- (PL 77.0) - Bollingbroke (Peach State Intertie System)
146.8500- (CSQ) - Warner Robins
146.8950- (PL 88.5) - Macon (Peach State Intertie System)
147.0000+ (PL 156.7) - Twin City
147.1500+ (PL 123.0) - Cedar Grove
147.3000+ (PL 107.2) - Centerville
443.0750+ (DMR CC7) - Macon
443.5625+ (DMR CC1) - Twin City
444.7875+ (DMR CC1) - Dublin
Food
As always, no road trip is complete without good food, and I had two excellent meals on this road trip. Previously mentioned was Sunday's lunch at Old Clinton BBQ in Gray, GA. I'd read about it in John T. Edge's book "House of Smoke," so I wanted to stop in and try it while I was in the area. I wasn't disappointed - their chopped pork was delicious as were the green beans and BBQ beans. The BBQ beans were a bit different in that they were cooked with ground beef instead of pork like many BBQ joints use. For dinner on Sunday, I stopped at Chef Luis Mexican Food and Grill, which is a combination Mexican food store and restaurant. I tried their mixed fajitas (steak, chicken, and shrimp) and they were delicious - great food at a great price; my whole bill came up to what just the fajita dinner would have been at most Mexican restaurants.
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| Old Clinton BBQ in Gray, GA |
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| Chopped pork, BBQ beans, and green beans at Old Clinton BBQ |
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| Chef Luis Mexican Food and Grill in Warner Robins, GA |
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| Mixed fajitas at Chef Luis' Mexican Food and Grill |
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