Camping and POTA at Blakeley State Park

July 2026

Back in September 2024, I spent a night camping and activating at Historic Blakeley State Park (US-11292) – one of the bigger POTA parks in South Alabama, and one I keep coming back to.

Getting the digital rig set up

I got there in the evening and had the digital station up before dark. While I waited for the new UTC day to roll over so I could start logging, I scanned around on the Baofeng and listened to local repeater traffic. The plan was to start on 30 meters as soon as the day changed.

Campfire, crickets, and contacts

Once the digital rig was running, I got a fire going and settled in for the night. By 1 am I was still on the air – crickets going, fire down to coals, FT8 decoding in the background. CQ POTA doesn’t stop just because it’s the middle of the night.

The tent

The tent in that photo is a TIMBER RIDGE Instant Pop-Up Camping Hub Tent (affiliate link) – a 4-person hub tent that’s up in about 60 seconds, which matters a lot when you’re setting up camp and a station in the same evening before it gets dark.

Looking ahead

Blakeley keeps pulling hams back – the South Alabama POTA Posse has already been out there more than once as a group, and there’s talk now of turning an overnight trip like this one into a proper group campout. More on that once plans firm up. See the South Alabama POTA Posse page for the group and its activity.

Nights like this are why I like POTA as much as I do. No rush, no crowd, just a fire, a radio, and whoever’s out there answering CQ at 1 am. 73 de AE4JC.