28/03/2026
The POTA Wild Streets Experiment
David VK4DCP came up with a clever way to activate parks and he and I managed to activate 15 parks in a single UTC day. Before the UTC rollover we even activated an extra five parks. The method complies with the rules and we felt great about getting active and out of the shack into the wild, ... the wild streets and paths
of Brisbane’s CBD. Still, like our previous N1CC achievement of using ’10 bands at each of 10 parks’, and our ’10 Parks in a single day’ using 6 meter rigs plus handhelds, it was a challenge we set for ourselves and it was achieved. This time, we used handheld radios alone.
First we both have handheld Retevis RT3s radios with GD77. The radios are programmed with simplex VHF and UHF frequencies and simplex DMR frequencies for both VHF and UHF. We both have two callsigns each.
We are both (former) keen cyclists so dusted off our bikes and set off from David’s City location early one Sunday morning. Our only real luggage was our handheld radios. Most of the Parks we activated were on the Brisbane River and therefore TWOFERS with the River. David even found three THREEFERs with the Howard
Smith Wharf, the River and the Story Bridge, plus the Former Victoria Bridge abutment, the William st. retaining wall, and the River, and finally the Old Naval stores, the Kangaroo Point Cliffs and the River. David used technology to accurately measure locations between each point to ensure compliance with the rules.
The Secret is each time David and I arrived at a location eg. William Jolly Bridge, we contacted each other on 2m FM, 70cm FM, 2m DMR, and 70cm DMR, using fractions of a watt. That's 4 contacts to each callsign, making 8, and then because of David’s Twofer location, the end result is 16 contacts.
Working out the Threefer to Threefer contacts can make your eyes glaze over. Just believe it, it was fun. Every site wasn't that easy, as we had to ride from end to end at Raymond Park East and West air Raid Shelters and back and contact the other person from both locations, to accumulate the 16 QSOs. We did the same swapping at Spring Hill where we were additionally challenged by the steep terrain. Part of the secret was also in David’s careful planning and measurement, and the way we were able to each have a printed sheet and simply fill in the times we made each contact. Logging all this later did prove a challenge, but finally the logs were all accepted and we each received the Cheetah Award for 15 parks in a day.
Overall we covered about 15 kilometres mostly on bike paths around the city which is achievable for most people of reasonable fitness. We made almost 400 Park to
Park contacts, and each activated several new parks. And of course, inevitably, David is now looking at how we can do 20 in a day. Watch for the next instalment.
Graham VK4CEG.
