Support Your Parks! Every quarter, the Parks On The Air folks have an event called Support Your Parks Weekend. The idea is to get out to the park at least once a quarter, right? I see it as jus...

A Long Weekend I had the opportunity to take Friday off, so I did. And with a day off and no commitments until much later, I headed out to The Octagon at Cuyahoga Valley National Park - US-0020...

Gorgeous Weather It was sunny and the temperature was darned near perfect for June in NE Ohio. My wife and I got on our bikes and cycled out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park - US-0020 so that w...

You Read That Right It was a dessert activation. Monday nights are Scout meetings so I figured I could sneak out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park - US-0020 and get an activation in after dinner...

Weeks Without POTA? The past couple of weeks have been very busy and kept me away from my beloved parks and activations. Life is like that sometimes and we have to muscle through it. When I saw...

Something New-ish? Cuyahog Valley National Park - US-0020 is a massive park. It stretches a good way between Cleveland and Akron. There are over 100 miles of hiking trails scattered throughout ...

Getting Out To Support The Parks One of my favorite things in amateur radio is obviously getting out to the parks and participating in POTA as an activator. It's also pretty clear that I really...

Amazing Weather! The entire weekend was about picture perfect. The sun was out. There was a nice breeze. It was warm but not hot. We did have a little work to do with some plumbing on Saturday,...

Vacation Time! The kids hit Spring Break for the last week of March and I took the week off to hang out with them. Of course, that means a little bit of camping because as a family that's what ...

Activation Report Last weekend wasn't great for being out and activating, so it's going to be a quick post today. On Friday, 08-Mar-2024 I took the day off and got a little time to head out to ...

This Activation Was Quick Look, not every trip to the park is a walk in the park. Something like that. Sometimes, it's really cold, really windy, there are whitecaps on the reservoir and everyt...

On Being Invisible Late last week, I was made aware of some concerns that the POTA team were having relayed to them by various official agencies about the poor behavior of activators in parks a...

The Thing About NE Ohio… There are fun facts about NE Ohio that no one talks about because, well, not a lot of people talk about life in NE Ohio. For those of us who live here one of those litt...

Cabin Fever It’s real. Working from home full time makes it a bit worse. There are sometimes three day stretches where I don’t leave the house in the winter. It’s nice to be able to stay warm a...

Support Your Parks! Anyone into POTA probably knows that there is a weekend event each quarter called "Support Your Parks" where anyone who gets an activation in or hunts an activator on that w...

Out Into The Weather I mentioned my wife's hiking challenge in my last post. It's still going strong and her team is doing well. Part of that is getting out every weekend and hiking both Saturd...

Wrapping Up Vacation During my time off for the holidays, I got in 6 activations. I've been writing them up in pairs and so it only makes sense to put out this last report for 2023 and the firs...

How Did That Happen? There were a lot of things stacked against doing an activation on the 27th. First and foremost, it's my wife's birthday so she sets the tone for the day. Having a birthday ...

A Little Time Off With the holidays upon us, I find myself looking for time to get outside and get on the air. This week has been a good one for it with two activations (so far) that landed in ...

What IS That Thing? December in Northeast Ohio is usually marked by leaden grey skies. It's usually cold, windy, and the days are almost as short as they're going to get for the year. It's a ti...

Peace and Quiet in Deceptive Weather Saturday, December 09 was not what was promised by all of my various weather apps. On a day when the sun was supposed to make an appearance and it was suppo...

There was a lot of bouncing around the week before with work travel, so when Saturday hit, I was ready to unwind. My family, naturally, had Scouting activities that were going to keep them wrappe...

Many years ago now, my family lived in Houston, TX. We were very into the State Park scene there and we spent a lot of time camping and hiking across the parks of Texas. One of our favorites was ...

Some Time Off This past week was Thanksgiving in the U.S. and I decided to take off Monday - Wednesday to pair up with the holidays that were already on the calendar for Thursday and Friday. It...

A picture of a 95 pound Rottweiler named Bella in profile. She's such a good girl! Fun Rottweiler Facts! There are some things that people don't understand about Rottweilers. Some of those ...

About one weekend every month, my house empties out for the weekend. My wife, who is an Assistant Scoutmaster, and our two kids go off on a camping adventure. I stay home to take care of the dogs...

Ah That Beautiful Autumn Weather It's that time of the year where Northeast Ohio reminds us that it's going to be cold and miserable for a bit. There was a good amount of rain on Saturday and t...