A mid-week activation!
Something that’s important to note is that I work from home. Given the weird nature of my gig and meetings and a team that spans the globe, sometimes my work hours get strange and I start to feel a little claustrophobic if I don’t leave the house. That was definitely the case Thursday.
With the day coming to a close and a pile of kid activities on tap that were being managed by my wife, I decided to call an audible and head out to, you guessed it, Cuyahoga Valley National Park – K-0020!
Given that we’re headed into the dark winter here in NE Ohio, I wasn’t going to be able to ride there on the bike. It’s about 45 minutes each way on the bike and the last stretch on the ride home (likely in the dark) is on a piece of road where bike commuters are infrequent at best. And, well, I had to get dinner going at some point, so I drove out. Feels a bit lame, but that’s OK. Any chance I get to play a little radio is good!
It was just me and my gear on this trip. I wanted to get out get activated, and get home. With almost no one in the park area I was in, it felt pretty surreal. Very, very quiet and only the rustling of the dry leaves in the trees made any noise that wasn’t a very low monitoring of FT8 tones.
I started to call CQ POTA on 40m and was pleasantly surprised! Without spotting myself, I was getting a pretty good pileup. The contacts flowed without much delay between them for the entire activation. I managed to get 11 contacts in almost no time. That’s always a good feeling!
With the activation complete, it was time to call it a night. It really was pretty gloomy and the sun was dropping fast. It’s supposed to be warmer on the weekend, so hopefully there will be a bicycle activation in my future.
Here’s what the QSOMap looks like:
