During the summer months, Bill Brown K4NYM, wasn’t on nearly as often as before – perhaps avoiding the heat, or dodging the many storms that Florida has endured.  Even so, Bill and I worked each other 500 times.  100 of those contacts were at a single park, Florida Trail US-4559.

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.

As of today, I have 1426 unique POTA parks confirmed.  Twenty days ago, the count was 1401, so I’m adding a scooch over 1 park a day.  So the end of September seems like when I might get my goal of 1500 completed.  And the CWT Gold Medal should wrap up by the end of October, which is when I should hit 120 (currently at 84, so 36 remain).  Fingers are crossed!

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.

I’ve been having fun hunting Bill Brown K4NYM and work him usually at least once a day.  I actually had a SSB contact with him, which was our first time in 212 contacts.  I suspect by early March we will have gotten to 250 Operator to Operator