Wait… It’s September already? Where did the summer go? Anyway, I observed the (unofficial) end of summer with a POTA/WWFF activation—and it was a fun one.
I drove up to Norristown Farm State Park (US-4363, KFF-4363) for an early morning activation. I tend to do early activations to avoid the crowds. There was another reason to get out early this morning: NOAA was predicting some geomagnetic storms starting later in the day.
I parked my truck near a nice shady spot. For today’s activation, I used a 12-foot whip and my homebrew loading coil mounted on the truck. I ran a coax cable over to my table back under the trees. My rig today was my trusty Penntek TR-35 (5 watts, CW) with my Elecraft T1 tuner.
Even though the bands would probably be rough later on, they were in great shape this morning. I logged 25 contacts on 40M, and most of the signals were very strong. After things slowed down on 40M, I made some more contacts on 30M, 20M, and 17M.
After about an hour and 20 minutes, I pulled the plug with 43 contacts in the log, including 7 that were park-to-park. I worked a few of the stations on multiple bands:
- Three bands: W9GTA
- Two bands: KJ4R, K4NYX (P2P), and KI5GTR
One advantage of participating in both the Parks on the Air (POTA) and World-Wide Flora and Fauna (WWFF) parks programs is that you broaden the pool of hunters. Spots on the WWFF website often bring out the European hunters. That was the case today on 17M, with calls from DK9HN, F4ILH, and DM5WW. (Check out this website for more information on “dual activating.”)
So, that wraps up the summer of 2025. It was a fun morning; the bands were busy, and the weather was perfect.
I hope my U.S. and Canadian friends had a great Labor Day weekend.
72, Craig WB3GCK
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 