POTA activation and social evening at Longhill Park (GB-4292)

It was a great turnout for the Bracknell Amateur Radio Club’s POTA activation at Longhill Park (GB-4292) on Monday! We had two stations on the air under our club callsign G4BRA. Dave G3YMC was busy on CW with his Elecraft K2 and a doublet with a clever switcable 4:1 / 1:1 Balun, while operating alongside the CW station was Aaron 2E0TLO with his Xiegu G106 and various antennas; the SSB station saw enthusiastic participation with several club members taking turns at the microphone.

Despite running QRP (max 5W!), we made 24 contacts – 14 on CW and 10 on SSB, with our furthest being all the way to Canada!

It wasn’t just about the contacts though! It was a brilliant opportunity for members to socialize, chat with the public, and get hands-on with portable operating and different modes. Plus, there was plenty of cake to fuel our radio adventures.

Gopan M0XUU brought along a homemade vertical beam to evaluate its ease of erection and to take measurements for fine-tuning, with a view to potentially using it for future expedition stations. Exciting stuff.

All in all, a fun and enjoyable evening for everyone involved. We’re already looking forward to the next activation