This summer, I have been activating the Iron Belle Trail, US-13184, a lot. This is a newly-added POTA entity and it runs through Bandemer Park, which is less than a mile from my house as the crow flies, and less than a mile and a half by car. I can be on the air in 20 minutes or less from the time I leave my house.
I popped over to the park this morning for a quick activation. I got all set up and made some CW contacts on 40 meters, but the action was kind of slow. I QSYed up to 20 meters, only to discover that there was some kind of contest going on. :( I made a contact or two there, then switched to 30 meters. I made a couple of contacts on 30 by hunting, but that still wasn’t all that satisfying.
Then, I thought, why not give phone a try? I QSYed to 40 meter phone, found a guy operating a special event station and worked him. He gave me a pretty decent signal report, so I decided to try calling CQ POTA. I made seven contacts calling CQ. As I was getting close to the hour that I allotted myself to operate this morning, I decided to try hunt a few more.
The first activator that I came across had three operators in North Carolina. Tuning down the band a little, I found another multi-operator activation that wasn’t even listed on the spots page. There were five ops there in Georgia. So, out of a total 29 contacts, 16 were SSB contacts, which I made in the last 23 minutes. Not too shabby for only running 15 W and a nice change of pace! My average report was 5-7.
A nice surprise
By the way, I had a nice surprise yesterday when I arrived at the park. The picnic table I’ve been operating from at Bandemer was in pretty bad shape. The wood had warped and gotten quite soft, and one of the benches even had a hole in it. I reported this to the city on the SeeClickFix website on Monday, and when I arrived at the park on Friday, the rotting wood had all been replaced.
