Blog Archive — 2025

POTA/BOTA Activation Report: Greenham Common

Written on Friday 11 Apr 2025

Family stuff saw me in Newbury this morning with three hours to kill and nothing planned. Obviously it was time for more outdoor radio nonsense. While Newbury and the surrounding area have a number of nice-looking parks, I settled on the only one with a cafe, its own amateur radio...

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RaDAR Rally Report, Spring 2025

Written on Sunday 6 Apr 2025

Unless this is your first time reading my blog, you probably know that I like amateur radio and hiking. I’m also a fan of poring over maps, meticulous planning, and madcap races against the clock. I spent months agonising over backpacks, eventually settling on one I could operate my radio...

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POTA Activation Report: Higher Hyde Heath

Written on Tuesday 1 Apr 2025

40 activations into my “POTA phase” and every time I head out, I still start feelling sick, and think about calling it off. I push through it of course, because you have to get out and do these things—the alternative is retreating into my ever-shrinking comfort zone until I never...

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POTA Activation Report: St Catherine's Hill

Written on Saturday 29 Mar 2025

Parks on the Air has, in recent months, turned from a hobby to more of an obsession. I spend too much time thinking about potential future activations, and often dreaming about them too. Case in point, in the early hours of Thursday morning I woke up from a dream that...

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POTA Activation Report: Pinecliff Gardens

Written on Friday 28 Mar 2025

Small, busy town parks aren’t my favourite POTA spots, but GB-4194 Pinecliff Gardens is the last of them that I’d never activated in my town—its time had come to get checked off the list. I’ve actually been here for POTA before, as it’s almost exactly the location I picked for...

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POTA Activation Report: Kingston Great Common

Written on Sunday 23 Mar 2025

With 30 minutes to kill en route to Burley, I decided to hit up GB-0079 Kingston Great Common for some radio nerdery. Although I’ve activated the New Forest National Park before, I’d never been to this bit, so it was another park to tick off the list. Hopefully I’ll return...

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52 Week Ham Radio Challenge Roundup: Weeks 9-12

Written on Saturday 22 Mar 2025

If you’ve read the first post in this series or are playing along yourself, you’ll be aware of the 52 Week Ham Radio Challenge. If not, hit up that link for the details! This post covers the challenges from weeks 9-12, which were: Try to work an FM repeater on...

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Christchurch POTA Rove: Eight Parks in Eight Hours, on Foot!

Written on Friday 14 Mar 2025

As the priory bells tolled twelve noon, I was propped up on a fence, wringing the brackish water from my socks. My boots and trousers were plastered in stinking mud, I was down a shoelace, and I was contemplating how this activation had gone so badly wrong. This was supposed...

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POTA Activation Report: Holt Heath

Written on Sunday 9 Mar 2025

Another sunny afternoon on another heath, as Spring comes slowly to life all around me. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know what to expect from GB-0157/GFF-0101 Holt Heath: heather, gorse, birch trees, sandy paths, and marshes. But now there are flowers, and the first bees, and birdsong that never...

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Hotel Room HF Adventures

Written on Thursday 6 Mar 2025

My portable radio kit that I typically use for POTA and similar is now even more portable, but while there’s now plenty of space in the bag for other kit I might need, it’s definitely a kit that I use to go out and play radio. If radio isn’t the...

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POTA Activation Report: Luscombe Valley

Written on Sunday 2 Mar 2025

“There’s no such thing as a bad day in the Great Blue Sky Shack,” they say, but despite the bright sunshine and the beginnings of Spring all around me, this one started to make me doubt. One of Luscombe Valley’s watercourses With most of Poole’s POTA entities already activated, today...

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POTA Activation Report: Boscombe & Southborne Overcliff

Written on Saturday 22 Feb 2025

I’m continuing to work my way through the Local Nature Reserves recently added to Parks on the Air. It was a fine sunny afternoon, and therefore what better than a trip to Bournemouth East Cliff, otherwise known as GB-4053 Boscombe & Southbourne Overcliff Nature Reserve. I can’t believe I get...

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52 Week Ham Radio Challenge Roundup: Weeks 5-8

Written on Saturday 22 Feb 2025

If you’ve read last month’s post or are playing along yourself, you’ll be aware of the 52 Week Ham Radio Challenge. If not, hit up that link for the details! This post covers the challenges from weeks 5-8, which were: Update your profile on QRZ.com, HamQTH.com, etc. Take part in...

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POTA Activation Report: Iford Meadows

Written on Sunday 16 Feb 2025

A dry Sunday morning offered a chance to clear off another of the local nature reserves that were recently added to Parks on the Air. GB-4054 Iford Meadows Nature Reserve is much prettier in Spring, but like most local nature reserves and commons, Winter sees it looking dreary and muddy....

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New POTA kit for 2025

Written on Sunday 9 Feb 2025

My interest in outdoor portable radio operating started last year and has only grown since then, with my 20th portable outing today and many more planned for this year. With that in mind, it was time to update some of my equipment to make life easier. The actual radio and...

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POTA Activation Report: Pug's Hole

Written on Sunday 9 Feb 2025

If you struggled through last week’s activation report where I wittered on about my childhood, good news! This week is GB-4056 Pug’s Hole, I’ve never been there before and didn’t even know it existed until it popped up on POTA. I parked at the Branksome Hill Road end of the...

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POTA Activation Report: The River Stour

Written on Sunday 2 Feb 2025

If you’re a regular reader, you will probably know that I’ve not moved far from where I grew up, and that in my POTA activation reports I like to talk about the history of the parks and sometimes how they’ve been important in my life. Fair warning about this one...

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52 Week Ham Radio Challenge Roundup: Weeks 1-4

Written on Monday 20 Jan 2025

A new amateur radio activity for this year that you may not be aware of is the “52 Week Ham Radio Challenge”. Coordinated via the website and via a Mastodon bot, it provides 52 challenges for 2025, approximately one a week, for players to work on alongside each other. The...

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POTA Activation Report: Avon Heath Country Park

Written on Saturday 18 Jan 2025

Most of the local POTA parks are just open areas of heathland, but for POTA’s Support Your Parks Winter event, I wanted to choose somewhere I could actually support—in this case largely by paying £5 for parking. This is Avon Heath Country Park, GB-0362. Compared to nearby Moors Valley, my...

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POTA Activation Report: Ham Common

Written on Friday 3 Jan 2025

From my regular childhood haunts, to this place—despite being in my home town, I don’t think I have ever been here before. This is Ham Common, POTA ref. GB-1302, an area of heathland with a large fishing lake and two look-out points to enjoy scenic views of Poole Harbour. And...

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POTA Activation Report: Upton Country Park

Written on Thursday 2 Jan 2025

Since I discovered that POTA had an award for activating in the first week of the new year, naturally I had to kick off 2025 by getting my nerd on in a field. January 1st was a write-off, with wind and warnings in place and a G4 solar storm lighting...

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