In the past, I’ve used posts here to motivate myself to get outside and enjoy my hobby in the parks. The blog acts as a journal of sorts to capture things like weather, general conditions, and anything else that was going on at the park when I was activating. The best entries for me are the ones where I get to document the success or failure of an experiment.
Lately, most of my activations are far more about getting on the air and making contacts than they are about experiments or gear. That’s a really wonderful thing for me. It shows a level of technical comfort if not necessarily expertise. It feels good to know that I can have my station up and be on the air in less than 10 minutes if I take my time.
This weekend was right in line with that experience. One day was a drive out to The Ledges and another was a cycling trip to The Octagon. What does that mean? Well, it means that these field reports are pretty simple. I feel like it’s almost worth setting up a format for the quick activations that don’t have a lot of experimentation. Something that is more of a quick field report. So here’s the first iteration of that.
Friday, 11-Aug
Location: The Ledges at Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Band Conditions: The bands were quite good. Contacts with Central America and Europe on FT8. Managed to pull in 3 CW contacts before I had to pack up. One of those CW contacts was a Park to Park from inside of CVNP. It’s a big place.
Weather: Sunny, clear, upper 70s dF.
Solar Conditions: Need to start capturing this for future entries.
Saturday, 12-Aug
Location: The Octagon Shelter Area at Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Band Conditions: not as good as the previous day. Lots of noise. Managed to pull in the western USA as well as The Dominican Republic. No CW contacts due to weather changing and forcing us to get back on the bikes to avoid another wet ride home.
Weather: Cloudy, humid, mid-80s dF. Weather changing to intense thunderstorms later in the day.
Solar Conditions: Yeah. Need to capture that.
@kc8jc_0c64oy This is so fun! This is just up the road from me. Unfortunately, most of the #pota parks in my area are scary wilderness areas rather than parks, but I will activate a park before the season is up.