CQ POTA

April 21, 2025 — Day 16

Kiptopeke State Park, Cape Charles, VA

Not much to say today, another lazy day. Oh, we didn’t want to be lazy. We’d planned on kayaking out to the concrete boats. But the winds were high, gusting to over 25mph. It would even have been unpleasant to head out on the bikes. We’re in the trees and the gusts were moving the RV a little. We’ll take a pass on that thank you very much!

Paul went and played radio. The ham radio propagation was horrible, the big solar flare is wreaking havoc with the radio waves. But still, he got some contacts in.

The purple markers are all the people Paul talked with today. We not that far from Washington DC, there’s a marker there. Another ham was right across the street from Paul and he “worked” him at his park. Paul moved to another park, and that ham drove to Paul’s first park, and they talked again. Paul warned that ham about the nasty dog that we’d encountered the other day at the park at the end of Bullis Road.

Oh, there was a contact in France, but we don’t talk about France. It would make the map look weird, too.

Except the person who was mentioned above, some of you might notice that Paul didn’t talk with anyone nearby. That’s because Ham Radio signals bounce off the atmosphere and come down far away. It is possible to talk with people who are closer via “ground wave.”

We’re doing laundry now before we go the next couple weeks without full hookups. What fun (not)! The boats are back up on the Jeep and the bikes remain on the RV where we put them the other day. Tomorrow is a short jaunt of 80 miles so one of us will drive the Jeep and the other will drive Clifford. It’s easier that way and gives us certain advantages when we arrive at Pokomoke State Park.