Activation Report: Sawgrass Lake Park (US-6700) — July 16, 2026
- 5 min reading time
A comeback POTA activation at Sawgrass Lake Park (US-6700) on 20m FT8 — 12 contacts and 8 grids at 5 watts QRP into a Radioddity HF-010, cut short by a fast-moving Florida storm.
Mode: FT8 (Digital) · Band: 20m · Radio: Xiegu X6200 · Contacts: 12 · Park: US-6700
Some mornings you head out looking for a challenge. This one, I just needed to get back on the air. It had been a few weeks since my last activation — and just as long since I’d gone live on TikTok — so I loaded up and pointed the truck at the home park to shake off the rust. Twelve contacts, eight grids, and one fast-moving storm later, the rust was gone.
The park
Sawgrass Lake Park (US-6700) sits in the heart of Pinellas County — a boardwalk-laced cypress wetland that has quietly become my go-to home patch. I set up at the picnic tables under a clear morning sky: 87°F, a light breeze, and the kind of calm that makes it easy to forget July in Florida rarely stays calm for long.
The setup
The Xiegu X6200 came out of the pack and onto the table, with the Radioddity HF-010 up alongside it. DigiPi handled digital duty as always — WSJT-X on the Pi’s VNC desktop, tablet up front for logging — running five watts of FT8 straight to the waterfall. On paper the day looked promising: solar flux at 126, a calm K index of 2.33, and a forecast that liked 15, 17, and 20 meters.
On the air
Reality had its own opinions about those bands. I gave 40 meters a shot and got nothing but static; 15 meters, which the numbers had pegged as a top band, was just as quiet. Twenty, though, was wide open. First in the log was AD4K in FM08 at 7:44 AM, and the pace held steady from there — the Mid-Atlantic stacked up early with KQ4PAK (FM18) and WA4CHJ (FM16), then things opened west and north: AG5PC and N6CWS out of Texas and Oklahoma (EM12), WJ8Y up from Michigan (EN81) with a healthy +07, and KD9WES in Wisconsin (EN61). The park qualified at 8:22 AM, and I closed the log on AA5HH in EM21 at 8:42. Twelve QSOs, eight grid squares, every one of them on five watts.
Then the morning turned. A text from my wife landed — check the radar — and one look told the whole story: a big cell bearing down, moving fast. So I thanked the folks still watching the TikTok stream, cut it short, and went into full pack-up mode. Nothing motivates a fast teardown quite like a wall of green and red marching toward your antenna.
Would I activate here again?
YES — and clearly I already keep doing exactly that. Sawgrass is close, reliable, and consistently kind to a QRP signal. It wasn’t a record-breaker, but for a first activation back after a few weeks off, a clean dozen on five watts before the storm ran me out is exactly the re-entry I wanted.
73 de W4GGJ
Activation Stats
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Park | Sawgrass Lake Park (US-6700) |
| Date | July 16, 2026 |
| QSOs | 12 |
| Band / Mode | 20m FT8 |
| Frequency | 14.074 MHz |
| Power | 5W (QRP) |
| Antenna | Radioddity HF-010 |
| Grid Squares Worked | 8 |
| First QSO | 7:44 AM EDT (AD4K, FM08) |
| Park Qualified | 8:22 AM EDT (W4JHV) |
| Last QSO | 8:42 AM EDT (AA5HH, EM21) |
| Farthest Contact | KD9WES, Wisconsin (EN61) — ~1,250 mi |
| Conditions | SFI 126 · K 2.33 |
| Weather | Clear, 87°F, light breeze — then a fast-moving storm |
All-Time POTA Stats
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Activations | 31 |
| Unique Parks | 14 |
| Activation QSOs | 743 |
| Parks Hunted | 347 |
| POTA Awards | 15 |
Gear used in this activation: Xiegu X6200 · Radioddity HF-010 · 50L MOLLE Backpack · LiFePO4 Battery · DigiPi on RPi 4