I had the day to myself but had the dogs so any radio was going to have to include them. My local POTA park has goats currently in it clearing the scrub so could not really take 2 dogs there.
My next nearest park is a heavy wood so it a work from the car park, again not good for dogs.
The next park is an old stately home and grounds which is ok for dogs, it’s a 10 minute drive from my QTH but where would the fun in that be? So got my kit packed and got my walking shoes on and got the dogs ready. It is about 7KM to walk there on public footpaths, it’s quite a pleasant walk cross the fields.
As I set off walking it was a bit overcast so it was not too hot but as I walked the sky started to clear and it warmed up. As we started to get closer to Lotherton Hall I was sure I could hear music, a quick search on my phone and found there was a mini festival there today. Oh nuts that might make activating quite hard. Oh well we have walked this far let’s go and see what’s like.
Getting into the grounds I saw where the festival was set up and figured if I skirted the boundary I would be able to find somewhere behind the stages and away from the noise.
I found somewhere in a bit of shade, put the dog stake in the ground and fastened the dogs to it. I would have preferred to let the roam but it would not have been a good idea here. With the dogs secure I got out their water bowl and filled it up and put a few treats in the grass to keep them busy whilst I set the mast and antenna up.
With everything set up I had a look at the spots and found an Irish station EJ0M calling CQ POTA and replied to their call. Always nice to get a P2P to start your activation.
I then messaged the YPRG (Yorkshire Portable Radio Group) group chat and we found a frequency and I worked Leandro G5LSI. Neil M0NJH was out doing a SOTA and he had messaged YPRG to so I changed the frequency and replied to his call.
40m had not been brilliant so I changed to 20m and found another POTA station OZ/D01EDK and managed to work them.
Now it was time for me to call CQ, I got 4 more contacts quite fast then nothing. I needed 2 more to activate, fingers crossed I would get them.
I had a look on the spots and saw F/DK8YS was doing a SOTA so I had a listen and replied to his call and managed to get him. 9 in the log, one to go.
I was thinking about swiping the antenna for a 2M one and seeing what local VHF contacts there might be when Darren M0UDB said in the YPRG chat he was out doing a POTA, so I changed bands and managed to work him!
The sun had moved by now and we were all a bit warm so I got packed up and we headed off to complete the walk.
The XYL called to see how we were doing and suggested she could met us at a watering hole for a cold one which I thought would be a great idea. I told her approximately how long I would be and headed in that direction.
She got there before me and had started walking towards me so was nice to finish the walk, walking together.
We got to the pub and the pint was wonderful.
| Operation Details |
| Park: https://pota.app/#/park/GB-1703 Grid square: IO93lt WAB square: SE63 |
| Working Conditions |
| Icom IC-705 Icom AH-705 Sotabeams tactical mini Sotabeams EFLW Ham2K Polo |
| Operation Totals |
| 10 QSOs 8 DXCC Entities 3 P2P 2 Summits Hunted 2 Band and 1 mode 40m – 4 SSB 20m – 6 SSB |
