I’ve activated a few parks around the area as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA) program. But while browsing around on their maps I noticed one state entity that was not present. I’d hiked at a couple of the Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area sections before. But I could not find it on the POTA site.
I reached out to the CA coordinator for the POTA program (Tracy, WM6T). He confirmed it was eligible for inclusion. Not only did he get the information entered into the system, but also timed things to allow me to activate the park immediately afterwards. So on September 11, 2026 I was able to be the first person to activate the park (US-13578)!
Upon arriving at the park I was a bit distressed. My laptop battery was down to about 25%, even though I had attached its power cord overnight. Turns out I unplugged the charger from the wall a week ago as we left town. I was testing some things out and never plugged back in! To try to get as much life out of the battery as possible, I turned off the laptop’s Wi-Fi and dimmed the screen as much as I could.
I had my usual POTA setup. This consists of a Yaesu FT-991A radio and an end fed longwire antenna which runs about 25 feet long. A pushup pole held up one half of the antenna. The other half rested on a plastic toolbox I use for POTA work.
I ended up logging 42 QSOs, which is fairly close to an average outing for me. So the laptop issue (it did shut down on me eventually) was not as big a catastrophe as I first feared. The first station to officially work Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area was KQ6OB. My best DX was YB7AAE in Indonesia. Plus, I managed to work one SOTA station (KO6ERD) and one other POTA station (W1TF).
All in all, it was a successful outing and I was honored to be the first person to activate the park. Thanks to Tracy (WM6T) for getting this park added to the POTA database!