Some POTA sites feel a little more personal than others.

The First Activation of 2025: Solitude It was absolutely silent and completely deserted at West Branch SP - K-1999 on 19-Jan. It was Sunday morning at about 10:00 local time and the temperature...

First, Goals for 2024 First, a review of the goals I set for 2024 and how I did. Kilo at US-1999 - This goal was completed in April of 2024. That felt pretty good and it went quickly. Given t...

Big Changes This isn't a blog where I share everything that happens in my day to day life. The purpose here is to document the fun and challenges of my amateur radio hobby. But a hobby does int...

An Activation With An Up And Coming Mode I've been pretty active on the Mastodon radio community for a while and I've noticed that there are a lot of operators using a mode called Single Side B...

Ah, The TR-45L... The TR-45L next to the Begali Traveler on a tarp. I will go out on a limb and say that if we were to poll every person who purchased the Penntek TR-45L and those operators...

That Didn't Take Long I have been using West Branch - US-1999 as my go-to park this winter. This is in part because there is a seldom-used shelter available and the park is quite empty this tim...

The Weather Isn't Why I Live Here That's not an entirely true statement. I've lived in places where the weather was far, far worse but there is something about having a bright, sunny, gorgeous ...

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 ...

Freeze Your Acorns Off Each year, my local club hosts a QRP event at Fred Fuller Park in Kent, Ohio. It was the first event the club ever held and they've kept that tradition alive. Part of it ...

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...

The Deep Thoughts Documentary films are my favorite form of visual entertainment. There is nothing better than settling in to watch a deep dive on something like a particular ecosystem or conce...

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...

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...

My birthday turned out to be a fantastic day in terms of November weather for NE Ohio. It was sunny and the sky was perfectly clear. The temperatures were in the mid to upper 40s and there was th...

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...

The forecast for the week was just too good. It was warm and the sun was out. Friday was set to be in the 70s with mostly blue skies and light breezes and that's exactly what it was. I took the d...

Almost Too Good To Be True The ending days of October in Ohio come with unpredictable weather. Last weekend it was in the 30s and 40s with high winds and rain. Suddenly, the sun returned and te...

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...

My last couple of activations have been at West Branch State Park - K-1999. I mentioned back in January of this year that one week there were restrooms and picnic shelters and the next weekend th...

Bachelor Weekend! This past weekend was one where my son and I were living the bachelor life as the ladies were off camping. Given that my son is a big time sleep in kind of guy, I took the opp...

A Perfect Day To Activate The First of October was a truly beautiful Sunday. The sky was clear and it was in the mid-60dF range. There was a light breeze and I didn't care what the solar weathe...

Some days, things end up in such a way as to allow us a little more space. On other days, we have to make that space. In either case, when it's time to take a minute, it's time. So it was on this...

With a long holiday weekend, I thought I would get to the park more than I did. The weather was not at all interested in cooperating. It was sitting in the 20s with some significant wind on Frida...

Northeast Ohio has always been grey and nasty through the winter. At least that's been the case as long as I've been here. There's not really any point in being down about it. It's the state of t...

In NE Ohio, real winter is in January and February. The world gets cold. The skies are grey. That giant orb of light in the sky that we see all summer? It fades into memory. The stuff of stories ...

Monday was MLK Day. There was, surprisingly, nothing on the calendar for the household. No service projects. No Scouting events. Nothing. Just a cold, clear day in January. Without much thought, ...

It's been a while since my last activation. It doesn't mean that there's nothing going on around here, but it does mean that radio time in the field has been limited. It's been for good reasons l...

With a couple of failed activation attempts behind me, I decided to turn my park trips into experiments. Last week, I tried a different approach to my Jeep mounted MP1. That didn't really do much...