w6csn’s outdoor amateur radio

Earlier this past summer I did an East Bayshore POTA rove in which the plan was to pick up Emeryville Crescent State Marine Reserve K-3429 as the final park before heading back across the Bay Bridge to home. However, due to time constraints I was unable to attempt Emeryville Crescent.

Fast forward to mid-Autumn and I had an early morning appointment at the Emeryville Amtrak station to pick up a family member who’d journeyed south on The Coast Starlight. Leaving home at 6:30 am gave me plenty of time to get across the Bay, attempt an “early shift” activation at K-3429, then meet the train at 8:30 am.

Parking across the street from the Emeryville Marina office, I found an open area perfectly suited to setting up the 17 foot quarter wave vertical on a tripod. There weren’t too many people using the park at this hour so I felt comfortable to stretch out the radials needed for a nice resonant match on 20 meters.

Since it was early, the morning dew had not evaporated from the park benches. I had a foam “sports” cushion to keep my backside dry and not too cold, but for the radio kit I just kept it in its Maxpedition pouch set on my lap. This arrangement made logging a bit more of a challenge without a firm surface on which to put the notebook.

After spotting on the pota.app site and sending a few CQ POTA calls I started to get some hunters. With the early morning propagation on 20m, it took just about 30 minutes to log the 10 contacts need for a complete activation. Since there was still time, I hunted K7AZT in K-4557 before packing up and making the short hop over to the train station.

This completes the activations on the east shore, north of the Bay bridge. To the south, I still have Robert Crown State Beach on the island of Alameda as well as Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge near the Dumbarton bridge to add to my POTA conquest.

73 de W6CSN