Here it is, Dec 16th 2025 and I am sitting in the shack enjoying coffee and watching Scout, my motional sports cat, run around and cause mischief.

I activated Little Buffalo State Park US-1376 today. I did it without SWMBO who was feeling a bit under the weather. I had asked my friend, Mike, if he wanted to come along but he had an appointment. So I was alone logging. I didn’t put my gnomes on the dashboard (no real reason).

I arrived at the park at around 16:45 UTC and got on the air by 16:50 UTC. The temperature had warmed up to 1C and there was no wind. I had decided to operate on 17 M as propagation seemed good. I spotted myself on the POTA page and also on DXSummit.fi. Things flowed along rather smoothly. I was sitting in the passenger seat as it made it easier to use the board I put my log on. Actually my log is in a notebook that I put on the board, to clarify the issue. In about 35 minutes I was able to log 30 contacts ranging from California to Spain. The band seemed to be in good shape. The majority of the contacts were from Florida. I had no sad-hams telling me to get off the band, so that was a good thing.

One really cool website I can recommend is https://potaparkpics.com/ It is an online repository where hams can post pictures of the parks they activate. It is interesting to browse through. Earlier I had mentioned DXSummit.fi This is a page which has spots from around the world and where you can spot yourself or another ham.

Well enough for now. Gnomes or no gnomes, I had a good day. Namaste y’all.