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 here in future for a more leisurely visit when time allows.

From the lay-by on Charles’s Lane, I followed a series of dirt tracks down through the woods (which largely don’t count as part of the nature reserve), then after a few minutes struck out east towards the qualifying area.

Route taken to the activation spot

The main expanse of the nature reserve is marshland (my favourite) at this time of year, and I didn’t have the time to hike further south in search of higher ground within the boundaries of the reserve. So, I hopped down a bank, found a solid bit of ground that was just about within the park boundary but inside the tree line, and set up.

My antenna and the last few trees before the marsh

Whether it was my location next to a bank of earth or the G2-G3 geomagnetic storm I’m not sure, but the 20m band seemed almost totally dead today. Scanning through the band, I could only hear 5-6 ongoing QSOs in total, and most of the POTA spots I looked up were inaudible too.

I called CQ, and slowly bagged 11 contacts over the next 20 minutes. My signal reports were serviceable but not great, and no pile-up materialised. Once I’d called CQ 10 times in a row with no response, with time ticking on, I decided enough was enough and packed away again.

Many thanks to my contacts during this brief activation. See you on the air next time!