There is always some new award to chase in the Parks on the Air program.  This morning, I finally received the Late Shift Hunter award.  This took years for me as I am rarely at the radio in the evenings.  But with the solar conditions causing so much difficulty during the afternoon, I have spent some time hunting after sunset.  As it turns out, that often yields excellent results on 40 and 20 meters.

On Sunday, I finally achieved the 1,500 unique park mark for Parks on the Air.  It took me 349 days to go from 1,000 to 1,500 parks. Perhaps getting to 2,000 parks might be a good goal for 2025.

This was also one of my goals for 2024.  My remaining goal for 2024 is the Gold Medal for CWops CWT contests.  I am currently at 95 contests, and need 120 for the gold, so 25 more to go.  I usually do 3 of the 4 contest a week, so I might check that goal off by the end of September.

A nice surprise showed up yesterday when I worked Ricardo VY2AN who was at a park on Prince Edward Island (stunningly beautiful island).  PEI completed my Worked All Provinces award for POTA.  My thanks to him and all the other Canadian activators!

One of my goals for 2024 is to have confirmed contacts with at least 1,500 unique POTA parks.  As of Saturday June 22, I had 1,401 confirmed.

So 99 more parks to go.  Things have slowed down considerably as propagation during daylight hours no longer favors fairly productive areas, as well as the need to work a unique park.

Things have slowed down a bit.  I suspect Bill hasn’t been out in the early morning hours as often as he has in the past due to band conditions (the past month+ has seen very weak signals on most bands up here in New England).

Nevertheless, six weeks after the last Operator-to-Operator award, I received one for 450 park contacts with K4NYM today.  Thanks for always being there Bill!!!

Willy, W1LY, is a dear friend of mine.  He’s the sort of person who is always looking to help, and has serious skills to make things happen.  Here at casa WB4SON, for example, he launched a 160-meter Inverted-L antenna in the air.  That enabled me to complete WAS and DXCC on the 160-meter band, and is the only antenna I use on HF on all bands.

Willy was with me on my first POTA activation, and managed to get me hooked.  I was ecstatic yesterday when I received an Operator To Operator Award for hunting him during 50 of his park activations.  Most recently he has been logistics for his wife Linda during her bucket list hike of the Appalachian Trail.  She has completed the trail from its origin in Georgia through the Vermont border.  Many of his activations have been at various parks along the trail.

Thank you Willy!

A couple of new POTA awards came in this week – first was the Operator To Operator Award with Bill K4NYM.  Unsurprisingly another Bear Cave Award came is as well, this time for Green Swamp US-5330 in Florida (thank you Bill).

I was surprised to receive a QSL in the mail from Bill Brown, K4NYM, who has made over 190,000 QSOs from 388 parks.  I can’t imagine the number of QSL cards he must send out!  I can’t even imagine the amount of work required to log that many contacts and upload them.  THANK YOU BILL!!!

But in non-K4NYM news, I received a Repeat Offender Award for a park in Ohio.  So I do have contact with folks other than Bill.

Well a Bear Cave, of course!  I just received the Repeat Offender Bear Cave Award for working US-4559 sixty times!  This is one of K4NYM’s favorite parks, judging from how frequently he’s there.

Lest you think I only work Bill, I am 156 parks away from hunting 1,500 unique ones.  I usually work about 6 HF Parks on the Air most weekdays, and twice that on the weekends.

As of yesterday, I’ve bumped into Bill Brown K4NYM in over 300 Parks on the Air!  Bill is an avid activator and I usually manage to work him in two different parks (sometimes more) almost every day.

I’m sort of amazed how many times I’ve worked Bill Brown K4NYM as he does activations in Florida.  Usually it is several times a day as he moves from park to park.  Honestly, it’s pretty easy once you start paying attention to his operating routines.  I picked up another Repeat Offender award, as well as completed my 250 Operator to Operator award.

I noted that today I reached the 1300 mark for parks hunted.  One of my 2024 goals was to have 1500 parks in the log, so that is going well.  Perhaps I will be at 2000 by year’s end.

A bit more than a week ago I discovered that there is another level of Repeat Offender award, called the Fox Den.  I picked up that award thanks to Bill Brown K4NYM – he and I are about 16 contacts away from 250.

I’ve now spoken with Bill Brown, K4NYM, over 150 times, as this latest POTA Operator to Operator award indicates.  Since he activates several parks a day, and I keep bumping into him, I wonder how long it will be before we are at 200?

This came in a few days ago, for the Green Swamp Wilderness Park Reserve (K-5330).  Of course this is thanks to Bill Brown K4NYM.  I’ve worked him in 148 parks and counting.

By now you know that POTA is my jam.  I’ve spent many hours in my car, or on benches, activating parks, and many more hours hunting at home.  Having done both, I can tell you the true heroes are the activators, and Bill Brown, K4NYM, is one of the best!  Bill has activated over 3,950 parks, and has more than 171,000 POTA contacts under his belt.  Amazing!

I’ve had the pleasure of working Bill 118 times (so far).  He’s the only POTA operator that I’ve had more than 100 QSOs with.  He’s also responsible for my recent Oasis Hunter award, for working the Florida National Scenic Trail (K-4559) 20 times.

Thank you Bill !!

Operator to Operator award with Bill Brown, K4NYM, including the 100 endorsement