I travel to Miami every once and awhile for work and I’ve stopped 3 times now to try to activate the Big Cypress National Preserve. There’s a “rest area” with no facilities off I-75 that has an entrance to the preserve. I tried to activate from this part twice before.
The first time I setup in the field near the road. I was stopped by a trooper to see what I was doing (the mast looks sort of like a mortar launcher before you extend it). I explained it was ham radio and he said cool, but not to run the wire over the road. I had terrible noise and wasn’t able to make any contacts that time.
The next time I went into the preserve(there’s a man trap style entrance, to make sure animals don’t get out, I guess). I walked about 50 yards in and setup. It was super hot and I was sweating on the radio. Then a storm started rolling in so I packed up making no contacts.
This time I looked at the map and noticed there’s a back way to Miami down 41 which goes through the preserve. This was an interesting ride. It looks very similar to the St Marks National Preserve in north Florida. I found a spot near a sign for the preserve. This was a backcountry entrance, though it appears to have been abandoned a least a year. I’m guessing it was used for hunter’s access. I made good contacts from here, 26 in total in about as many minutes. It was hot and sweaty so I figured that was enough. A gov’t utility truck pulled into the handicap spot where my antenna was an was causing some noise during which I didn’t get many contacts but thankfully he left after checking his phone or whatever.
Activating this one was one of my goals from the year. Another was attending Hamvention, which I’ll be doing tomorrow, so this will be a good week of amateur radio for me.
