Activation Report: Skyway Fishing Pier State Park (US-1916) — April 9, 2026
- 4 min reading time
Mode: FT8 (Digital) · Band: 20m · Radio: Xiegu X6200 · Contacts: 75 · Park: US-1916
75 QSOs. Best activation yet — and one that nearly didn't happen at all. Skyway Fishing Pier State Park, POTA reference US-1916, north pier, Tampa Bay. Arrived at 7:30 AM and wrapped up at 1:00 PM. What happened in between was equal parts frustrating and rewarding.
The park
Skyway Fishing Pier State Park sits at the mouth of Tampa Bay on the remains of the original Sunshine Skyway Bridge — the same one a freighter struck in 1980, collapsing a section and sending vehicles into the water below. What survived became the world's longest fishing pier. The north pier is accessed from the St. Petersburg side off I-275, and once you're out there you have open water in every direction, the new Sunshine Skyway Bridge towering to the south, and a steady parade of cargo ships moving through the shipping channel.
It was a beautiful morning — clear skies, good visibility across the bay — but the wind off Tampa Bay was relentless. Sustained gusts that had me watching the JPC-12 vertical on its tripod and wondering whether it was going to stay upright for the whole session. It did, but it was a close thing more than once.
The antenna setup
The north pier is solid concrete — no staking radials into the ground here. I ran 6 radials in a pier-adapted configuration: two running along the pier surface in a straight line through the antenna base, two hanging off the pier railing down toward Tampa Bay, and two more threaded through separate holes in the concrete on the opposite side — also hanging down toward the water. Six radials, multiple directions, all taking advantage of Tampa Bay saltwater as a ground plane.
Power for both the X6200 and the laptop came from the home-built 32Ah LiFePO4 battery box — ran both all morning without any power concerns.
Saltwater is an excellent ground conductor, so the four radials dropping toward the water performed really well electrically. The X6200's built-in ATU handled any impedance variation without complaint. The tripod held the JPC-12 vertical against the wind — barely, but it held.
The technical issues — two hours lost
This is the part I want to document for any operators who hit the same wall. About 30 minutes into setup I lost the connection between the laptop and the X6200. Traced it down to a corrupted USB driver on the laptop — the radio was showing up but WSJT-X couldn't establish audio or CAT control. Spent nearly two hours troubleshooting, reinstalling drivers, and getting everything talking again before the first FT8 contact went into the log.
If you hit a similar issue in the field: check Device Manager for any yellow warning flags on the USB audio or serial port devices, uninstall and reinstall the driver, and do a full WSJT-X restart after. It's the kind of thing that's obvious in hindsight but costs you time when you're sitting on a windy pier trying to figure it out on the fly.
On the air
Once the driver issue was resolved the session was excellent. Twenty meters was wide open and the POTA spotting network did its job — contacts started rolling in quickly and barely let up for the rest of the session. 75 QSOs total, 99% domestic, all FT8 on 20 meters. The X6200 and laptop both ran off the home-built 32Ah LiFePO4 battery box all morning — arrived at 7:30 AM, wrapped up at 1:00 PM, and never once worried about power.
Running the X6200 into the JPC-12 vertical over Tampa Bay with saltwater as the ground plane, the waterfall was clean and signals were strong throughout the entire session. The clean RF environment over open water was noticeable compared to inland park activations — worth keeping in mind for future coastal sites.
The highlight
At one point a couple of other pier visitors stopped to ask what my pole was. When I told them it was a radio antenna they assumed it was some kind of specialized fishing device. On the world's longest fishing pier, my ham radio vertical got mistaken for fishing gear. I'll take it as a compliment.
Would I activate here again?
Absolutely — and soon. The Skyway north pier is one of the best activation locations in the Tampa Bay area. The RF environment is clean, the views are dramatic, and 75 contacts in a half day of actual operating time speaks for itself. The wind is a real factor — bring weight for your tripod base or plan to babysit the antenna. And pre-check your USB drivers before you leave the house.
Full log uploaded to POTA and LoTW. 73 de W4GGJ
All gear available at Radioddity — use code W4GGJ for $15 off.