POTA May 3 Sunset Beach
This coming Saturday the 3rd, will be our monthly Parks on the Air club event. Jim, Martin and I did a site visit Sunday at Sunset State beach, off Sunset beach rd. Watsonville. Sunset beach road goes down to the park kiosk, group camp and beach side parking. (near the end of the road, in the sand dunes)
The parking area is at the bottom of the cliff and stretches 200 yards between the sand dunes and said cliff. The road runs North/West and South/East. There is one large group pavilion, and several other park tables along this (beach access) road. (see the pictures) There are bathrooms at that location.
The sand dunes are approximately 30’ tall and separate the Ocean beach from the road. Today, the wind was blowing even in the sheltered parking lot area. We explored the thought of putting antennas up on the sand dunes. It would take 50’ of coax to make a connection from the top of the sand dune to the Pavilions. There were obvious foot paths going up the sand dunes to the beach area. Between these paths were brushy areas, which coax could be run. I noticed there was quite a bit of poison oak in these brushy areas.
Due to the weather, we considered working this site out of our trucks. Antennas could be on the top of the vehicle or mounted up on a trailer hitch mount. An operator could operate in the protection of their vehicle. If the weather and wind was kind, operators could setup in the pavilions. Additionally, Operating out of our cars would protect our radios from the sand. The pavilions are first come, first serve and one of us would need to be there early to reserve a spot. Operators will need to bring their own food. We could put food on the portable griddle I have.
Jim checked the long range forecast and it appears that it could rain on this coming Saturday. We wouldn’t operate in those conditions.
This site is quite remote and in not conducive to visitors walking in. Car pooling is a possibility to get members to this park, but if we have to operate out of our cars, this will be tough. The pavilions would be nice areas for our lunch. Warm clothing and wind protection is recommended
Operators who are interested in POTA this Saturday, should track the weather closely and keep in touch with Jim KN6NCG or myself. N6SBN. If the weather is good, we might put up bigger antennas, but it appears that working out of our vehicles would be best. There are things to be learned at each site… This one included.
On our way out of the beach area, we stopped by the “Group” campsite. This area was up in the wooded area, back from the cliff. We were very impressed with this site. It had parking, bathrooms, good access, trees to hang antennas to. There was a nice bon-fire area. This area was protected from the wind. We checked with the park and found that they charge $329 to use this area and most of the weekends were booked. This would make a nice place for a club party at some date.