So I packed up all my portable gear and my new spiderbeam mast but before I left for the park I thought I would lookup the K number for the park. Turns out it was a country park and only state and national parks are part of Parks on the Air. Since it’s an awesome park and I had the day off I went anyway.   I got a great spot. First I setup a 40m vertical with 2 elevated radials. I made one contact about 20 miles away and couldn’t make any others. Then I switched to my trusty 20m dipole. Connected to the top of the spiderbeam I was worried…

I found myself making an unexpected trip to Wisconsin so I packed up my POTA radio to see if I could do an activation while I was away. I found K-4300 Kissick Swamp Wildlife Area was pretty convenient to where I was going. I picked the warmest day I was here to try it (43F today, most days didn’t get over 20F). I bought some fishing line to pull up the dipole center. I have a slingshot at home I bought to use to do this but I didn’t think it would get through the airport so I didn’t bring it. I think I got the antenna up about 20ft….

There’s quite a bit of noise at my house with all the power lines and neighbors. I also found that my power over ethernet switch causes some terrible RFI right in the middle of 40m and 20m SSB bands. I was reading a lot about Summits on the Air, its sounds really fun but there aren’t any summits in Florida. I heard about [Parks on the Air](https://parksontheair.com/) from the [Ham Radio 360 Podcast](http://hamradio360.com/index.php/2017/02/21/ham-radio-360-w-w-f-f-aka-parks-on-the-air/) and was very interested. I purchased a Yaesu FT-891 radio for portable work and built a 20m dipole using an SO-239 connector, a plastic gelato ice cream top and speaker wire to use for activating parks. I…