Today, Mark Gibson N4MQU and Richard Futrell N4AED activated a POTA “Parks On The Air” Park #K-3854 just outside of Spring Hope, NC.
This location was very interesting, basically a cul-de-sac sized area of parking. They used Richard’s N4AED mobile setup to activate the State Park. Richard’s mobile setup consists of a Yaesu FT-891 Mobile Radio (100 watts) with a Diamond SD-330 Screwdriver Antenna mounted on the hood of his van.
Their activation started at 1:32pm EDT or 17:32 UTC. Richard started off at the helm on 40 meters LSB with the first POTA contact as a Park To Park contact with KC1KQZ Jedidiah, who was doing a POTA Park Activation in North Dakota at Park K-8579. Then he was able to find a clear frequency to call CQ for the activation at 7.27000 Mhz. it started slow but then Mark spotted us on the POTA site and then the gates were open. We quickly work many stations while calling CQ POTA. Richard worked 32 stations before handing it off to Mark for his turn.
Mark with his expertise and knowledge quickly worked 10 stations to get his Activation status.
During their activation, they had a surprise visit from Chris Overman KO4QKT. Chris visited with them and was very interested in the setup they were using. Chris said he wanted to learn more about Parks on the Air and possibly activate a park in the future.
We plan to do more POTA Activations now that it is cooling off here in North Carolina in the near future.
If you are interested in POTA and would like more information, please visit https://parksontheair.com/. Please consider supporting Parks on the Air by making a donation for all the work that goes in to this on the back end.