This year again I activated parks for the Florida State Parks on the Air event with Corey NF4Q. Corey registered the SES callsign W4E again which really does make it special. We did Terra Ceia State Park K-3663 again and Little Manatee River State Park K-1898. On Saturday at K-3663 we had very humid weather with a possible storm but we were done before the weather started. This time we only went about 1/4 mile into the park versus the 1+ mile we did last year. We had a visit from John who heard about it the night before at the SPARC meeting. On Sunday we activated Little Manatee River…

Drove up to the Florida POTA meetup at Colt Creek State Park K-1848 which is also inside Green Swamp Conservation Area K-5330 so it counts for 2 parks. Right when I got there a few people were making UHF/VHF contacts with each other that count for park-to-park, so I got 42 park-to-park contacts in about 5 minutes which was fun. I met quite a few people I’ve seen on the Facebook group. I didn’t setup my stations since there were so many going already. I got a brownie with my name and callsign on it.

While I was in MA I had time for an activation. There’s quite a few state forests next to eachother but I picked Mount Grace. This was a quick activation, I made 14 contacts with 2 park-to-park.

On my way from the Adirondacks to Massachusetts it was a bit rainy but I had time for an activation. I was looking for a spot in the Green Mountains park to activate but the rain was coming down pretty heavy due to the remnants of hurricane Ida coming through. I passed a dam that was in Townshend State Park so I pulled in to do an activation as well it was during the weekly CWT contest so I participated in that. I made the minimum 10 contacts here, I had decent signal into Europe but had trouble getting the US stations to respond. Quite a few people drove into…

After visiting my old friends in my hometown, I had a week before I went to a wedding the following weekend in Mass. I spent the week camping in the Adirondacks. The first couple nights I camped way out in the woods and had trouble getting my signal out of the trees. I made one really clear contact with EA4HCZ in Spain, who I’d spoken with before. Then I moved to a new spot at Jones Pond which was one of the best campsites I’ve ever had. Here I made 79 contacts with 11 park-to-park. I highly recommend this campsite if you like camping at a non-campground site.

I visited my friends in my home town of Binghamton, NY and had to activate the first state park I’d ever went to while I was there. I spent a lot of time here over the years. I made 18 contacts with 4 park-to-park. This park was pretty crowded but I found a quiet spot to activate.

I did a road trip to the northeast and stopped at Gettysburg on the way for an activation. I’d been to Gettysburg a few times with the Boy Scouts when I was a kid. I got there in the morning and there were very few people there, especially for the size and number of parking lots. I activated in one of the big parking lots after driving through. Only spent about 30 minutes activating and made 13 contacts.

I’ve been kind of neglecting the POTA activations. Had my first business trip in 14 months so I stopped on the way back from Miami for an activation. This is nearby a couple other Wildlife Management Areas that I’ve already done. It was hot and muggy so I only made 14 CW contacts. My signal wasn’t great, mostly 559’s and a 229. I forgot my table so I had the key on the car bumper, I’m not used to CW in those conditions so my sending fell apart pretty quick and I called it after 30 minutes. I see they’ve added more parks in FL and one is in town…

I joined up with Corey N4FQ again for the FLS POTA Event. We activated Terra Ceia Preserve State Park K-3663 on Saturday which is pretty close to my house. I had activated this one before but we went further in this time. We found a good spot and wound up with 169 contacts. N4FQ invited some students from his EE classes and I think they enjoyed it, hopefully we’ll get a few new hams. Sunday we activated Hillsborough River State Park northeast of Tampa. This park is very simple but very popular. I forgot to take any photos but we made a few contacts. This park is all wooded so…