Today the family decided to go to the zoo for the day…. I’m not a big fan of the zoo so it seemed like a great opportunity to get away for a few hours of HF.

I decided to walk from my holiday cottage to Northam Burrows which is the site of a Second World War Chain Home radar station and also Parks On The Air (POTA) location GB-0527.

After about an hour of walking along the coast path lugging my Yaesu FT-891 POTA setup and an ex-military 5.5m mast I arrived a little ahead of my scheduled activation time.

Initially I thought it would be nice to set up literally on the site of the old radar installation but it was right by the entrance to the country park and very busy so instead I walked a little further and found a quieter spot with nice views out over the water and across the country park. The mast was soon up and the 20m band double bazooka hoisted to the top in an inverted V configuration.

The weather was stunning and the QSOs came in thick and fast! I operated for around 2 hours using 25w before I was out of battery. 33 QSOs including one in Canada and 3 park to park QSOs.

All in all a great morning of HF and much more enjoyable than the zoo! I’ve not previously operated my portable setup for long enough to find the limits of the 9ah battery, although I was using the radio quite intensively I was surprised at the 2 hour endurance at 25w, I was expecting more, perhaps it was not fully charged?!?