Since my first activation gave me the “outdoor radio” bug, I had been checking out the local POTA spots to see what the local scene is like. Some spots have dozens or hundreds of QSOs from some monster activators like M0MJA and 2E0HPI, whom I could never dream of catching. Then I checked out probably the most famous local park, and home of Scouting, Brownsea Island. I expected some big numbers there too, but…

Nothing?

Seriously? Our most famous local park has never been activated at all?

Alright then, I guess we’re going to make a name for ourselves.

We arrived on the midday ferry, on a lovely sunny day, warm but not too hot, perfect for Parks on the Air. Ten minutes later and £35 lighter, we emerged from the ticket office wondering if the reason behind the lack of prior activations might have been financial rather than anything else.

Regardless, we pushed on, hiking most of the way down the main central path across the island, then turning down a side path towards St. Michael’s Mount in search of a quiet spot. Despite everyone’s kind words to boost my confidence, I still feel anxious about playing radio outdoors, feeling like passers-by will be angry with me for disrupting their enjoyment. No such thing has ever happened, at least not that they’ve expressed to me, but the worry is still there nonetheless.

With our trusty FT-891 and Sotabeams 20/40m dipole set up, and my daughter logging once again, we kicked off on 40m. We rattled off a few contacts very quickly, but then the number of callers tailed off fast. Despite spotting ourselves on the POTA site, even Mastodon and Discord, 40 minutes and eight calls later we were out of luck.

Quickly detaching the croc clips on the antenna to repurpose it for the 20m band, I had high hopes that better propagation might net use a bunch more calls there. But… nothing. We spotted, we tried moving around the band, we tried looking for spots of other POTA folks to call, but the band seemed completely closed to us. Very strange, possibly strange enough to double-check the equipment later in case there’s a problem with it.

We were on a deadline for the 16:00 ferry, with a 15-minute pack-up time and 45 minutes to hike back. By 14:45 we were fast running out of time, two QSOs short of an activation. Back to 40m we went, on a last-ditch effort to save the day and get ourselves on the board.

I started desperately trying to spot ourselves despite the glare rendering my phone almost unusable. We got one response within a minute or two. Then we called and called again with an increasing sense of urgency… until at last, the tenth caller got through, and made our day.

Time for one last cup of tea, a rapid station disassembly, and a hike back east across the island. In the end we stopped for a minute to watch a red squirrel, and still made it back in time for ice cream before the ferry home.

Thanks to all our contacts today:

UTC	Freq	Call	Rpt Sent	Rpt Rcvd	Name
1243	7.135	F5PYI	57	57	Larry
1247	7.135	G8HXE	45	44	Keith
1250	7.135	M0MBX	33	57	Bill
1252	7.135	M0TTQ	59	59	Stuart
1259	7.135	G0TRB	47	55	Roger
1309	7.135	F4LDT/P	47	57	Alain
1315	7.155	MI0AIH	49	59	David
1321	7.155	GW6GCK	37	48	Jim
1355	7.150	GM6ZAK	47	55	Andy
1359	7.150	G0KTW	59	57	John

The logs are uploaded, so fingers crossed we are the first official POTA activators of Brownsea Island. Next time, I think it would be a nice idea to get the local Scouts involved too.

73, OM. (Yes, I know, not that kind of “OM”…)