US-8385 Farnham-Connolly SP

At just six acres, this might qualify as the smallest POTA reference I've activated. I had great expectations going in – this is a small park on the site of the former Canton Airport, and on a satellite view you can still make out the outlines of the primary runways in their typical WWII-era triangular layout. I believe it was built as a training field, as were many others along the east coast.

I'm a pilot and had hoped to connect with a bit of aviation history with a walk down one of those runways and maybe an activation from where the windsock would've stood. What I found instead was a tiny memorial, a few benches, and a loop 'trail' that I could toss my arborist's weight clean across.

Parking here is very easy, and the site itself is off of a main road, so there's not any issue finding the location or choosing which trailhead to enter. There's a bus stop here if you are coming in from town, which in this case would be Canton. You are pretty close to a major retail shopping area, and across from a supermarket.

I'd brought both a 20m hamstick dipole and an EFHW with me, and after a walk around the perimeter I settled on a small bench on the south side of the park since there were a few small trees that seemed like they'd hold the dipole. This park was one of three this particular day, so I was just looking for a quick dozen or so QSOs so I could get to the next site.

The bench sits on a low platform overlooking a marsh. I think the idea is that you'd sit here and watch thrushes or warblers or whatever bird happens to like abandoned airfields while you have a light lunch. Its a great concept, but the platform is just feet away from a sewer access manhole that, as best I could tell, was open to the wind, and the wind did drift in my direction on occasion. Still, there were a few scrubby trees, and the bench itself was off the main loop, and so that's where I set up.

When I'm using the dipole, I like to lash it to a large branch. Usually I can find a 15-foot piece of wood that acts as a mast. It works great, I call it The Old Rugged Dipole, and it's fast to set up, just find a rock to brace it and Iwo Jima that baby up. Here, though, the best I could manage was a branch on a sapling that itself stood only about ten feet tall. It didn't work out at all, it was just too low, and I spent the next 15 minutes taking the dipole apart and getting the EFHW into the air.

Even that was a compromise as there just aren't a lot of trees around. I briefly considered tying off to the memorial in the center of the park but it is in the center of the park, visible from every corner. In the end it was enough, and I logged a relatively quick dozen plus a few QSOs.

Because I was doing three parks this day I didn't spend any time at all exploring the area behind the park, which is where the airfield is. There's an access road just to the left of the parking lot that I believe will take you pretty far into the property. The runways should still be there, at least in part, and the outlines are clearly visible on a satellite map. The park isn't that far from my QTH and I'll swing in the next time I'm in the area with half an hour to spend.

This is an unremarkable park that I think would be a short stop for most people in a multi-park rove. It's easy in, easy out, and while the places to set up are few, they at least are close to each other. If I'd brought the vertical instead of the dipole and wire I would have had a few more options. At the end of the day it was a new park in my log, and there's no complaining about that.