POTA Activation: Hillsborough River State Park, KFF-1878

On Tuesday, I made my first activation for Worldwide Flora-Fauna Parks on the Air, or simply just “POTA.” This was my first time setting up a portable HF station. I chose Hillsborough River State Park, KFF-1878. It was a good chance to test out my recently-purchased FT-450D and homemade speaker-wire dipole. I’ve had no luck using either from inside my apartment.

I set up the antenna as an inverted-V, with the center support about 17′ tall. The support was a tripod light stand and PVC pipe, guyed from about 12′ up. It held up well. I fed the antenna through 50′ of RG-58/U and powered the rig off my car battery.

I worked 20 meter SSB with varying success as the band faded in and out. Overall, I made 50 contacts between 1451Z-1718Z.

36 contacts were in mainland USA, 1 in Puerto Rico, 3 in Belgium, 2 in Canada and 1 each in Portugal, France, Denmark, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Canary Islands.

Thank you to the people who called back! I look forward to doing another activation soon.

Solar data for activation: SFI 72 / SN 11 / Ap 7 / Max Kp 3