Sun was shining and had the morning free so I popped up to the Willows for some POTA. Whilst walking up there when I got a WhatsApp in the YPRG group from Neil M0NJH who was in Tenerife and near the summit of Guajara EA8/TF-002 and wondering if any was free for an activation before spotting himself. I messaged back I was close to the park and would be set up in about 15-20 minutes.
I got set up like normal and then messaged Neil I was ready and he told me the frequency, so I tuned the radio and listened. I could hear him calling me, so I replied. I gave him a 44 and he said I was a 31 but it was a contact. Great way to start a activation with a P2S.
I decided to start calling CQ on 40m and got Thomas F4FTJ, great I thought this should be a good activation but kept calling for 15 more minutes and go no more contacts on 40m so I moved back to 20m and called CQ.
Jose EA9E came back to me, lovely signal but then like 40m I kept calling CQ and got no more contacts.
The red kites were back flying and hovering over the park. One came really close, they are amazing birds to see flying.
With only 3 on the log I decided to try FT8, this worked a bit better, but the contacts were still slow to come in. With 5 more in the log figured I would try some other bands but had no joy on them either.
Back to 20m digital but this time on FT4 and got 4 more contacts so had the park activated. I had made a 2m flowerpot antenna a few weeks ago but had not tried it on a activation yet so thought why not. I dropped the mast and swapped the antenna overs.
XYL had messaged she was heading to the park with the radio hounds.
I changed the radio over to 2m and had a listen on the calling frequency, Steve G0KUY was calling CQ POTA 145.425, so I tuned to 145.425 and listened while he worked a few stations and then called Park to Park, he asked the other stations to wait and called the P2P in so I gave my callsign and we had a quick chat. You don’t get many P2P on 2m FM so was very happy.
I found my own free frequency and did the same as Steve, calling on calling frequency CQ POTA listening on 145.475 and got 4 more contacts including M7WDV who was in Lincolnshire, not bad for 10W on FM.
XYL and radio hounds appeared, so I packed up the radio and we set off to finish the hounds walk.
| Operation Details |
| Park: https://pota.app/#/park/GB-0021 Grid square: IO93lt WAB square: SE63 |
| Working Conditions |
| Icom IC-705 Icom AH-705 Sotabeams tactical mini Sotabeams EFLW Homebrew 2m flowerpot Ham2K Polo |
| Operation Totals |
| 17 QSOs 9 DXCC Entities 1 P2P 3 Band and 4 modes 40m – 1 SSB 20m – 5 FT8, 4 FT4, 2 SSB 2m – 5 FM |
