I like wearing shorts whenever I can, even when it might a touch on the chilly side. When it’s chilly outside, and my wife sees my bare legs, she’ll say, “What, you think it’s summertime?” At this point, I break into song, singing the chorus of “Summertime, Summertime,” the 1958 hit of the Jamies.
Today, was a completely different story. It was 80 degrees this afternoon, and though a bit overcast, it really felt like summer. It was a perfect day to do my first POTA activation of the year.
I activated a new (to me) park, too. As I reported last week, the Iron Belle State Trail is now a POTA park. The exciting thing for me is that the trail runs through Bandemer Park, which is about a mile and a half from me. So, this afternoon, I hopped in the car and drove over to make my first POTA activation of 2026.
I decided to head to the northern end of the park, where there’s a pavillion, just in case it decided to rain. They’ve made many improvements since I last visited the park, so it took me a few minutes to find the pavillion, but once I did, I got set up quickly and got on 20 meters.
Signals didn’t seem too bad, but I wasn’t generating any pileups. I did manage to work one Italian and several West Coast stations, but after about 45 minutes I’d only made 14 contacts, so I decided to give 40 meters a try.
That move really paid off. The first contact I made was a park-to-park (P2P) contact with WK2S in NY, and over the next 36 minutes, I made 29 additional contacts. My last contact was with my friend Paul, KW1L. I almost missed his call, as I was about to close down, but he snuck in under the wire.
Overall, it was a great start for my POTA activations this year, and I’m looking forward to many more from the Iron Belle Trail this summer.