New Years Day in the Park

Parks on the Air has an annual start of the year event. If you activate a park or are a hunter contacting an activator during the first week of January you are granted the award. I wasted no time in going out and I activated Redwood Park on January 1. I am also in the process of working up my repeat offender award level at Redwood. My next target is 40 activations – the Fox Den Activator award – this would be my 3th activation at the park so only a few more to go.

I left the house at 10:20 and in five minutes I was parked and ready to transfer my gear to the cart. The upper covered table area was open and I soon had the mast raised and my radio tuned to 10 meters. The propagation charts showed that 10m was in good shape and as I dialed in the first activator on 10m I heard a good strong signal from Arkansas and soon had him in the log. That was quickly followed by an activator in Wisconsin, Florida, another Wisconsin and then Ohio. At that point I found a clear frequency and started calling. I immediately had a response from fellow club member Bob a few kilometers away. 

After Bob, stations started responding to my hail from New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Nebraska, New Hampshire … It was a good run. In 20 minutes, I completed 21 contacts and adding the 5 I made hunting I had 26 logged. Though my propane heater was helping to keep me warm, I was still getting chilled. Since I had more than enough contacts, it was time to pack up the station. Packing up went smoothly and I was ready to leave but a chap walking his dog came by and we ending up talking about radio and then world events for 20 minutes. It was a nice visit but I was now quite ready to head home.

A good day at the park and only four more visits to reach 40, then it is on to the Bear Cave Level!