I’ve been routinely packing portable radio kit on business trips for a year or so now, just in case I get the chance to play, and this week I got lucky with a few hours to pass in Bremen before a flight home. I couldn’t resist the calling of my first overseas POTA activation, so that’s exactly what I did!

I was nervous about the whole thing, of course. My knowledge of German is still about the level of “ein Bier bitte”, so the thought of someone coming to tell me off and me trying to explain amateur radio in German was pretty daunting. Luckily, Harm DK4HAA had helped me prepare, with a suggested place to activate in the Bürgerpark and some Draußenfunker flyers to hand out too. As usual though, I was worrying for no reason. I barely saw anyone else during my half hour on the air, and no-one came to ask what I was doing!

DE-0142 Bürgerpark Bremen is one of only three POTA parks in the Bremen area, and had only been activated four times before me. It’s a huge park, at least 15 minutes’ walk from one end to the other, plus it seemed mostly quiet on an autumnal Friday morning, and only a short walk from the city centre.

A lot of the open grassland is reserved for nature, and has signs asking visitors to keep out, but I found the place Harm suggested roughly half way up the park, which had no signs and therefore seemed like fair game. I set up the equipment I’d brought—the X6100 transceiver, and my home-made 40m dipole on a 4m mast. Despite a 10W limit and an antenna where the ends are only 30cm from the ground, the setup continues to perform well, and I had 17 contacts over the course of the activation. I only forgot the “DL/”… maybe three times!

Autumn was definitely in the air, as I sat on some tree roots I was surrounded by yellow and brown leaves, and pelted with acorns on each passing breeze. But it was still warm, and stayed dry thoughout, so really it was perfect portable radio weather; it provided a great way to end the week here.

With my flight time not that far off, I was going to limit myself to an hour of activating, but the tree roots weren’t the most comfortable of seats so in the end I called it quits after half an hour. I can happily say I’ve activated my first park abroad, hopefully the first of many more to come!

Many thanks to all my contacts this morning. See you on the air next time!