In the past month, I've attempted a Parks on the Air activation on two different occasions at Thornton State Beach (US-3577). I failed to obtain the required ten contacts to activate the park both times. Despite that, I had a lot of fun and am writing this blog post about my experience getting there via public transit and operating at the park.
I live in the city and do not own a car, so I'm always on the lookout for transit-friendly SOTA and POTA destinations. I've had decent success attempting POTA activations via transit at San Bruno Mountain and Candlestick Point. Thornton Beach proved to be a bit challenging to get to via transit.
Looking on Google Maps from downtown, if you just type in the destination "Thornton State Beach," it might direct you to Daly City BART, then to take the 120 bus, then walk to an intersection that doesn't actually exist. If you follow the path shown in the image (fig. 3), there will be no way to access the beach. What you should do, instead, is take the 120 bus or 110 bus to the Westlake Shopping center after arriving at the Daly City BART station. This should only be one or two stops. From there, walk down John Daly Boulevard, take a right on Lake Merced Boulevard, then a left onto Glenwood. From there, walk down Glenwood towards the ocean, take a left on Eastgate Drive, then a right to N Mayfair Avenue which turns into Northgate Avenue. Follow this street until it curves. At the curve there will be an old cut down fence with several desire paths leading to the highway (fig. 2). At the highway, there will actually be a pedestrian crosswalk (fig. 4). There was definitely an urban planning oversight here, as the only connection to this pedestrian crosswalk is desire paths that lead from cut-down fences. Presumably, these fences were not even cut down by the city, but by residents just trying to access what amounts to their local park.
Upon arriving in the parking lot, it wasn’t immediately obvious to me how to get down. If you take a right and go far enough, you should see the trail down. From there you can take one of three paths along the cliff above the beach. I still don’t know how to get all the way down to the beach from here, as both times I operated, I stayed on the cliff above the beach (fig. 1). It's pretty much cold, foggy, and windy during all parts of the year, so be sure to dress accordingly. Another thing to know for this POTA destination is that there are regular group tours done on horseback, so watch out for horses and manure.
I operated only 10m Upper Side Band, QRP 5 watts. The first occasion was during the All Asia DX (Phone) Contest, which I did not plan for but was a nice surprise. I found several Japanese hams calling CQ and once I figured out the required contest exchange from the first person (in this contest, we exchanged ages), I was able to rack up six contacts. I did not have much luck calling CQ POTA on my own on the first day. Furthermore, band conditions were decent, but I came later in the afternoon and the eastern US was closing up, so that left pretty much only Japan to contact.
The second occasion was driven out of determination to obtain ten contacts for POTA activation and to figure out how to enter the beach as a pedestrian. On the first occasion, I had to take a ride share from the ill-fated south side of John Daly Boulevard with no cut down fences with which to enter the beach on foot. On this second visit, the weather was a bit clearer and I was able to see more of the ocean. I came a bit earlier this time, so the eastern US was still open. I made eight contacts ranging from Japan to Texas and a few other US states. I operated for a couple hours but it was starting to get cold, and my battery was dying, so I had to end my operation for the day. I may not have made ten contacts, but I had a few nice contacts with people all over the world, and making connections is what ham radio is all about. Maybe I’ll come back someday to attempt an activation again.
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