Built from the approaches of the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge at the mouth of Tampa Bay, now the longest fishing pier in the world. Two very different operating environments — beach sand at the base and solid concrete out on the pier — with an unobstructed salt water takeoff from both, and open 24 hours.
At a glance
Entry
$4 per vehicle ($12 for oversized vehicles). An additional $4 per person...
Listed by
Florida State Parks
, checked
August 2026.
Not verified on site. This is only what affects operating —
see the park’s own page for everything else.
You can drive to the operating areas and work tailgate-style out of the back of the vehicle. The north pier is reached from the St. Petersburg side off I-275.
Hours
Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Access
A Florida state park built on the remains of the original Skyway bridge, struck by the MV Summit Venture in 1980.
Setting up
Where to operate
Two options, and they behave differently. The sandy stretch at the base of the pier — the north rest area, where the beach meets the water — takes a staked vertical directly and allows a tailgate setup a few feet away. Or the north pier itself, which is solid concrete and will not take a stake at all.
Noise floor
Noticeably clean. The RF environment over open water was described as visibly better than inland park activations, with a clean waterfall and strong signals through a full session.
Antennas
Salt water does the heavy lifting here. On sand, a Radioddity HF-010 went straight in with no guying — roughly two minutes from case to deployed — and measured 1.017, 1.16 and 1.18 SWR on 20 m across three separate visits with no tuner adjustment. On the concrete pier, staking is impossible: a JPC-12 on a tripod was used with six radials in a pier-adapted layout, two run flat along the pier surface through the antenna base, two hung off the railing toward the bay, and two threaded through holes in the concrete on the opposite side. The four dropping toward salt water performed well and the X6200 internal ATU absorbed the remaining impedance variation.
Before you go
Conditions to plan for
Check the tide chart before choosing a spot. The flat sand at the base of the pier floods on an incoming high tide, and vehicles parked near the waterline have to move with it. Wind off Tampa Bay is relentless and sustained — a tripod-mounted vertical on the pier needs ballast. Red tide affects this stretch of coast; check current status before committing to a morning here.
