Couple of points about setting up in a park.

I know that for some reason the last thread about this was closed, but these are points that seem important to share.

One is to be wary of operating from the car in a park.

I was playing with the mobile in the winter one year at a county park in NJ - Van Saun park in Paramus. Because it was cold and I didn't want to operate outside, I just sat in the car and yakked - had a great operating session. I saw rangers drive by and check me out regularly, but none of them did anything until I was all done and putting the radio away. At that point I was informed that "just hanging out in a car" wasn't permitted. I had a real quick thought of defending myself and saying I wasn't "just hanging out", but discretion (and fear) told me there was no way to win that argument, so I submissively accepted the information. It's probable that if I had found a spot to set up on a picnic table where I wasn't in the way of anything that would have been perfectly acceptable.

There other is about hanging stuff from trees.

I believe it was in CT where I did a solo FD some years back. The campground prohibited hanging anything from trees or tree limbs, not even clotheslines. But other than that, there didn't seem to be any restrictions. I ran the '857 on a picnic table with coax running to the mobile antenna. Got a few friendly waves from the rangers! (OTOH, I won't do a solo FD again - it's much too lonely especially when compared to the great time a group FD is!)

Camping and ham radio are GREAT together! You can back right up to the picnic table so getting the coax from the radio to the antenna is easy-peasy...if you use headphones nobody's gonna gripe, and it's fantastic to sit out on soft summer evenings working the world.

 

I've been to the park twice so far. Had a park 'ranger' stop by looking for an alligator lol and he thought it was cool to see a ham radio setup.

I set up the string/weight (that out of focus orange blob in the lower left) to be in-line with the tree trunk and I'm sitting near another tree where the UNUN is attached to a branch using one of those cool rubber coated wire ties. The antenna setup is totally in the air and the only way to walk into either end is by walking into the tree trunk.

 

I saw the weirdest thing this winter whilst skiing in a local park. Someone was set up in the middle of a field in exactly such a way a backpacking QRP operator might. But, there were no antennas nor a radio, only a "laptop" computer.

 

Hmmm operating wifi to his mobile to a remote base???

 

It may seem "whacker-ish" but perhaps it might be appropriate if you make it clear what you are doing like displaying call letters, making the audio heard (not too loud), fiddling with antennas, lay out a map with contacts, books, etc.

 

I don't know. I wasn't curious enough to ask, for several reasons: I was busy skiing, it would have taken me some time to get close enough to ask, and most importantly, he probably wouldn't have appreciated me asking. I still think of a time about 7 years ago, incidentally in the same park, where a ham was setting up in the parking lot with a pretty impressive-looking setup, and it seemed as though he was geared up to operate that way regularly. I tried to politely inquire about what he was doing, and he not only shooed me away, but he packed up and left.