Missed Opportunities

Summer can slip away easily.

Here we are a month in, at least from when my kids all wrapped up their academic years, and I feel like I’ve not made much progress on my summer radio goals.

The biggest was to attempt a POTA activation weekly, at minimum. I haven’t been out since my very first activation over a month ago.

Why?

Bad weather. Waiting on contractors. The flood of appointments that get scheduled when the students in the family are no longer in class. More bad weather. My own appointments. Summer sports for one kid. Waiting on other contractors. Not to mention bad weather.

I finally got the issues with my POTA antenna resolved last week. I made a couple contacts from the backyard with the IC-705 so I should be squared away there. The forecast for this week looks brilliant most days. Yet I have a very small window to get out. Again, appointments, waiting on one contractor, plus the mad rush that will come later this week as we prepare to host a family gathering on Father’s Day.

If I don’t lock in and take advantage of the opportunities ahead, we’ll soon be in the sweltering days when the last thing I want to do is sit in a park and sweat and slap at bugs while trying to make 10 contacts in difficult conditions.

Perhaps I had it all wrong and I should have been looking forward to fall, when the kids are all back on campus and in class and I have all the free time I need to get to a park in the morning. Baring bad weather, of course.