ContestingCWHF

Successful POTA Activation at Dinton Pastures

The recent strong winds and rain thankfully subsided in time for our planned Parks on the Air (POTA) activation on Saturday 25th Jan 2025.

Paul 2E0PNL selected Dinton Pastures country park for a Club activation using the G4BRA callsign. He conducted a thorough risk assessment and notified Thames Valley Police about our planned radio operations in the public access area.

Approximately 10 BARC members attended the event, starting at 2pm, including Toby M7TBQ, who recently passed his Foundation license exam at the impressive age of 14.

Paul and Toby chose a suitable operating location at a wooden table and bench away from the park’s visitors. Paul used a base-loaded vertical extendable whip antenna for 20-meter operation on upper sideband.

Meanwhile, Paul G4HLF and Gopan M0XUU, both skilled CW operators, set up on 40 meters on the opposite side of the park to minimize interference. They utilized a compact FX-4CR transceiver, a miniature paddle, and a vertical antenna.

Both stations self-spotted on the POTA website and quickly began receiving contacts.

Using the club callsign in short turns, Paul 2E0PNL, Toby M7TBQ, Chris M0GRW, and Austin M7OOB swiftly established 19 SSB contacts on 20 meters using Paul’s Yaesu FT-891 with up to 100 watts of power.

Austin M7OOB set up a live video stream of the SSB station, which was streamed to our test Discord server for those unable to attend in person. The video and audio quality were exceptional.

After about 90 minutes of successful activity, the team had completed 19 SSB QSOs and 20 CW QSOs.

The afternoon was completed by an amazing red and orange sunset as we headed home.

After Paul 2E0PNL had uploaded both the SSB and CW Logs to the POTA it confirmed we have made No.1 activator for GB-0383 Dinton! Paul G4HLF has also uploaded our logs to our Club QRZ Page and will also upload them to LOTW.

Thank you to everyone who participated, helped, and supported the activation. Congratulations to all our operators on a successful POTA activation!