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.
ehLabs blog posts now support tagging! Just enter a comma-delimited list of tags when creating or editing a blog post. Then one or more tags can be used in links such as https://www.ehlabs.net/blog/u/eli?tags=t... Try it out today!
Recently I had the opportunity to visit San Bruno Mountain State Park and activate the summit for Summits on the Air (SOTA), and I attempted a Parks on the Air (POTA) activation. This was a very transit friendly destination to make radio contacts. Starting from downtown San Francisco, I took BART to Daly City, where I caught the 130 bus to the Royce Way Trailhead. You can also take the 130B bus. The trailhead is easy to miss from a distance, but there is a small set of wooden stairs leading to the trail from the street.
From the trailhead to the summit, the hike is around 2.3 miles. A sizable increase from my previous SOTA at Mt. Davidson, but manageable. This was the perfect moderate hike for me. The beginning is quite steep and rocky, however, and I would not recommend it for people with mobility issues. I almost slipped several times. It was particularly challenging on the way back coming down. The trip up was very foggy, but if the fog does break, the journey offers scenic views of the rest of the city and the greater Bay Area.
Once you reach the top, you need to walk along Radio Road to the summit. There’s a small parking lot where I did the activation, attaching my telescopic pole to a fence with a transom knot. I made one contact on 10m and three on 2m, all local to the Bay Area. The propagation for 10m wasn’t very good that day, but I made enough contacts to activate the summit for SOTA, but didn't reach the 10 required for POTA activation.
This convenient location offers the opportunity to activate the SOTA summit W6/CC-072 and the POTA park US-1196. I hope to come back to this location, hopefully when the 10m propagation is better, and make even more contacts next time.
So far this June has been a busy month for me with regards to amateur radio and as of writing this, the ARRL Field Day hasn’t even happened yet. Before Field Day gets started on the 22nd, I decided it would be nice to reflect on my contesting experience thus far. Lately my experience with ham radio has been characterized by challenges, but nevertheless I’ve been having a lot of fun with my operation. Starting with the ARRL hack on May 16th, the Logbook of the World has been offline, setting the stage for a challenging contest experience. Although LoTW is not used for contest log uploads, it does kind of put a damper on my operation in general.
In the preceding month, solar storms assaulted our planet creating beautiful aurora borealis phenomena visible at lower latitudes but unfortunately this disturbed radio propagation in the process. As a result, contacts have been spotty and inconsistent for me on the the 10m band. Generally contacts have been smaller in quantity however some unique propagation patterns have opened up areas which haven’t been accessible for me in the past. As a Technician, I’m limited to the 10m band for Digital Modes and this band is particularly sensitive to fluctuations in solar weather. Nonetheless I gave it a shot during the 2024 ARRL Digital Contest.
My setup for HF consists of a homemade speaker wire dipole antenna with a Xiegu X6100. I have my dipole hung in a bay window in a V formation. It’s not ideal, but I live in an apartment on a hill so I’m able exploit San Francisco’s natural geography to make it work despite my setup’s flaws. I have an external power supply so in theory I could transmit 10w but in practice RF interference in my apartment becomes an issue If I bring it above 5w, so that’s where I keep it. Indoor QRP is the name of the game. I operated pretty casually on FT-8 exclusively for a couple hours each of the two days during the weekend. I spent almost no time on the contest-suggested sub-band of 28.090-28.100 and had much more luck on the regular 28.074 calling frequency. I had few band openings as it was, so I had to go where it was most crowded. I ended up with a half dozen contacts operating for about three hours. Not bad all things considered, but in the weeks preceding the solar storms, I would have FT8 contacts pouring in. Those days are few and far between but with any luck the ionosphere will settle and I can go back to enjoying the peak of solar cycle 25. Overall a fun experience for casual contesting. This was my first Digital Contest and I had a pretty great time making it work.
As the 2m band is much less beholden to the whims of solar weather, the June VHF contest should, in theory, be much less challenging. In practice, my approach creates its own challenges. My setup for VHF overall is better than my setup for HF. I have a 13ft telescopic fiberglass pole upon which I attach an Ed Fong roll-up J-Pole antenna. Attached to this I use a 5w HT, generally my Yaesu FT70DR. It works really well. For VHF operation, I like to take advantage of the opportunity for exercise by hiking up to one of the many hills in San Francisco. My favorite such hill is in Corona Heights Park. Although not an official SOTA summit, its accessibility to public transit makes it one of my top preferred operating locations. Unfortunately, since this past rainy winter season, the summit of the hill has been inaccessible due to erosion concerns. Several large boulders have been carved by wind and rain out of the rock and they really do look to be on the verge of tumbling. So, out of caution, park geologists have prohibited the public from entering and have cordoned off the area. Fortunately, however, there is an opportunity to reach near the summit just about halfway. While not the best location, it is generally higher than the surrounding area. This is where I operated for the June VHF contest. I made about a half dozen contacts on a mix of the 2m and 70cm bands.
While my results may have been modest, the joy I derive from amateur radio exists independent of any quantitative metrics. For me, the goal is participation and learning, rather than winning. I’ve succeeded in those goals, and I’m looking forward to the ARRL Field Day later this month.
I enjoy climbing the various hills of San Francisco and seeing who I can contact over VHF/UHF radio. There are many hills throughout the city which are great for making radio contacts, but only one is actually indexed as a SOTA summit, Mount Davidson (W6/NC-423). What better place to attempt my first proper SOTA activation? I had been here before many times, but never to attempt a SOTA activation.
One of the great things about Mount Davidson is its accessibility via public transit, at least in theory. I started my journey from downtown Market Street where I took the BART to Glen Park. From there I waited for the 36 bus, but it's only scheduled to come every 30 minutes, and there was a delay that day, so I walked a few stops along the path then thankfully caught it for the rest of the way up the hill. Walking the whole way from Glen Park BART station would have been too far. In total, the transit journey there took me over an hour when it should have taken me about a half hour according to transit apps. If you’re looking to activate this summit and are short on time, I recommend taking your preferred rideshare app.
Arriving at the bus stop there is a well-trodden trail up to the summit that can often be quite muddy after a rain. From the bus station to the peak is a very small hike. There were a lot of mosquitos, as always, but the weather was cloudy and pleasant, maybe a bit chilly. When I was there I ran into N6TNO, who was activating the summit on 20m CW. I set my 13 foot telescopic pole up against a park bench and secured it with a transom knot. After I mounted my roll-up J-Pole antenna, I put out a call, and got a lot of static in response. After talking with my first contact, he suggested I might be dealing with an overloaded front-end from nearby Sutro Tower and suggested trying a 2m band pass filter. Despite the challenges, I ended up making 6 contacts on a mix of 2m and 70cm. Maybe I’ll look into a 2m band pass filter for next time. Overall it was a great activation and I had a blast. And as usual, a few curious park-goers stopped to ask me what I was doing, and I introduced them to ham radio to the best of my ability.
Coming back, the transit situation was even worse. Although there was a very nice, newly-installed screen at the bus station indicating the current position of the buses, there was no scheduled 36 bus coming in the other direction at all, so I walked down the hill this time in a different direction, this time catching the M MUNI back downtown from the West Portal station.
Attached to this post are a few photos of the surrounding street, the bus stop for the woefully underserved 36 line, and a few photos from the summit featuring beautiful skyline views of San Francisco and the surrounding area.