3 States, 7 Parks, 1 Day

Everything came together on Friday, October 27, 2023 to do a POTA Rove. Looking at the forecast, 80 degrees for a high temperature? Are we really in New England? Yes we are and yes it was 80 degrees.

I called Eric, N1JUR, and asked him if he could take off Friday and head to the coast to activate some parks along the coast. He was in, and so was I. We met up at 8:30am at his home, went to Pressed Cafe and grabbed breakfast and headed to our first park in Salisbury Massachusetts, and activated Park K-8426, Salisbury State Reserve.

We activated right on the beach and were set up an ready to go in 10 minutes. We used the Yaesu 891 and the Buddipole Pro for our antenna. Since the antenna was already set to 10m, we started there. This was a great decision, because 10m was wide open, and we had a straight line to Europe. When 10m is open, it is my favorite band. We quickly made 11 contacts, packed up, and headed to the next park.

We quickly left Massachusetts, and made our way back to New Hampshire and arrived at Hampton Beach State Park, K-2656. At this park we were able to set up under the pavilion and use the picnic benches. 15 quick contacts later, we were of to our next park.

Our next park was K-266, North Hampton State Park. This park we activated right next to the ocean. It was high tide, so beach space was limited. We quickly made 11 contacts and made our way to park K-2677, Rye Harbor State Park.

We quickly arrived at Rye Harbor State Park. We were going to use the pavilion, but it was taken. It looked like someone was getting ready for a party. We ended up finding a picnic table and made another 11 contacts on 10m.

Next was Odiorne Point State Park, K-2671. We activated by the boat ramp and used the back of Eric’s truck as a table. We also switched radios, and brought out the Yaesu DX10. Made a quick 12 contacts, still on 10m. Off to K-8018, Fort Constitution State Historic Site.

10m died so we switched to 20m where we quickly got a pile up. We made a quick 34 contacts and helped a Ham get an IOA (Islands on the Air). This park is located on the island of New. Castle, NH. We quickly packed up, and grabbed a quick bite to eat. Then it was across the bridge to Maine where we finished our day at Fort McClary, K-7978.

I was excited for this park because I had not activated a park in Maine. This is a very cool park with great views. We chose to set up in front of the fort along the water. We switched back to the Yaesu 891. We were expecting to get a ton of contacts, but we only made 37. seems it was getting close to dinner and people were not hunting. There was also a wedding going on with a very loud MC. We felt like we were actually at the wedding.

Around 5pm, a guy wearing shorts and a T-Shirt approached us. We initially thought that he was someone to ask us what we were doing. We were wrong, it was the park ranger and told us we needed to move our car. The park was closing. Perfect timing because we were pretty tired and ready to pack up anyway.

This was an awesome experience. We had great band conditions, great weather, and great company. Once I uploaded my logs to Parks on the Air, I received a certificate called “POTA Rover, Warthog”. Did not realize there was an award for what we did at the start of our day, but it was nice to see there was one.

We will be back again, and we will try an beat 7 parks and get our goal of 10 parks in one day. I want to thank all the hunters who hunted us and made this all possible.

73,

Todd, W1STJ