Well I went and did my first park activation yesterday. It was awesome! We got there around 10am, a little later than I had planned. We found a quiet spot up against the beach where I could set up. It was cold so there was pretty much nobody else up there. I don't think my little hamstick was quite up to the task. The area was up against a 2000ft tall rock mountain directly to the east, and it seemed like my signal was only getting out to the west. But I did make a couple contacts in Utah, probably near vertical skywave.

Any way I made twenty contacts from the lake and submitted my log as soon as I got home. I'm still waiting for my first activation to show up. But I did it, and had a lot of fun. It's definitely something I'm going to enjoy getting into more.