The last time I traveled for work was in 2019, which was before the POTA bug got into me. This past week, I traveled by Jeep to NC for some meetings. I naturally added my IC-705 and assorted bits and pieces to my list and I was not disappointed!
On Wednesday, 26-Oct-2022, I went out to Eno River State Park – K-2729 which was about 30 minutes from my hotel. It was a quiet evening at the park with families hiking around a bit. It was about 5 pm when I arrived. It was very quiet and the picnic pavilion was deserted, so I set up my Chameleon whip with extension and got to work.
In Ohio, I always start on 40m because that’s a great way to get activated on FT8 reliably. I don’t know if it was the time of day or the locals band conditions, but 40m was dead from where I was. Luckily, it was 20m to the rescue!
It always looks like I have so much stuff when I activate, but it packs up very small and tight. I do keep things in a Pelican case these days because I’m usually on my bike and if I take a tumble, I’d rather not crush or lose a bunch of gear. It just looks like I take up the whole table each time. I guess it’s not there are 4 other people there.
There were plenty of dry leaves and aside from the families chatting as they walked on the path near the picnic area, the only other sounds were squirrels running around in the leaves. The little weirdos were very interested in what I was doing, but they kep their distance. I think the could tell I wasn’t from around there.
It was a good activation with some 30m contacts at the end. I was getting pretty tired (I don’t sleep well in hotels) so I called it a day with 25 FT8 contacts.
Here’s what the QSO Map looks like.
