Parks on the Air Activation at K-10386 Compton Hollow Conservation Area on March 9, 2024
After lunch, we got back on the road and headed to our next destination. The drive was beautiful, with lots of pretty farmland to see. After a while, we started seeing Conservation area signs and soon found a parking area. We decided to park at the second parking area after checking them both out and looking at the land on the onX Hunt app.
The Park
The Compton Hollow Conservation Area is 831.3 acres or about 336.4 hectares in size. It is a combination of forest and fields, with about 90 percent being wooded. There are several small ponds or wildlife watering holes, as well as food plots located on the property. The two parking lots sit about three-quarters of a mile apart, with access to several hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails. The parking lot we chose had two trailheads. We chose the one on the west side, as there were hikers already on the trail that went north.
We hiked down this trail for a little while, and pretty soon, we came to a nice little clearing. The ground was very muddy, and it wasn’t too fun to slog through it with all our gear. There was even standing water in some places. We finally decided on a location, and I began to set up the gear.
The Site
We were located kind of in the corner of a small field. We were right on the edge of the trail with woods to our north and the field to our south. The trail continued into more woods to our west. We were in the clearing, though, and the afternoon sunshine was beautiful. There weren’t a lot of very good trees for hanging the antenna nearby, but I found one that worked and got my throwline ready to throw.
Setting Up
I brought the folding table along again and really enjoyed using it. It makes field activations without the car so much easier. I got the antenna in the tree without too much trouble and set up the radio and battery on the folding table. After getting the laptop turned on and pulling up World Radio League and the POTA site, I found what I thought was a clear frequency, and began calling CQ.
The Activation
Immediately after I started calling CQ on 14.255, a Canadian station came back and informed me that he had been activating on 14.253 for quite a while. I, being 2 kHz away on SSB, was interfering with his activation. He was very patient about it, and we ended up logging a park-to-park. He asked if I could move to 14.256 so that we would both be clear and not have other operators too near either one of us. I think I was the second or third guy to call that close to him, and he didn’t want it to happen again. So I moved to 14.256 and remained there for the rest of the activation. The last activation broke my previous record of 61 contacts, and this activation more than doubled that number. I had a very nice pileup to work through, and, as the afternoon wore on, the calls just kept coming. After activating for quite a while, I decided to shut it down, but the hunters wouldn’t stop calling me. I didn’t want to cut them off, so I kept at it until no one responded to my QRZ, and then shut everything down and packed up the gear. I logged 124 eligible POTA contacts in exactly one hour. I think that is the fastest rate at which I have ever logged QSOs before, and it’s certainly my most successful Parks on the Air activation to date. I may have been a little bit sore after lugging all that gear around, but it was a great day for POTA.
73
My Gear for this activation:
Xiegu G90 with cooling fan
1/4” Yellow Polypropylene Twist Rope with home brew throw bag
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 with World Radio League online logging
Home brew 20 meter dipole
50′ RG-316 coax with BNC Crimp Connectors
Ozark Trail Folding Chair
Small Folding Table
Propagation was great around much of the continental United States.
