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59 viewsThursday March 19 was a busy day for POTA. Allen KN4FKS, John KB4QXI and a friend Dean KK4EB activated the Otting WMA US-7913. Also on Thursday Ed KM6UTC activated the Chickamauga Battlefield US-0716 from the Cravens House site with Dan K2DTS assisting. Danny AG4DW was a bit further afield as he activated Monte Santo State Park US-1048 in Huntsville Alabama.
Allen KN4FKS made 45 SSB contacts with 32 on 20 meters and 13 on 15 meters. He had 10 Park to Park contacts with three of those being DX parks. For DX 15 was open and he made 3 contacts in England, Italy, Canada, Croatia, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain, Puerto Rico, and Ireland.
John made 73 SSB contacts on 20 meters using his roof mounted Hamstick. He had 33 Park to Park contact two of which were Canadian Parks. He had 32 additional DX contacts Puerto Rico and Canada.
Dean KK4EB made 27 contacts with 16 FT8 contacts on 40 meters, 2 SSB P2P contacts on 40 meters. He then went to 10 meters and called CQ for over an hour for 10 SSB contacts there.
Danny AG4DW at Huntsville made 48 SSB contacts on 20 meters with 7 DX contacts to Canada (2) Canary Islands (2), Germany, and Spain, He used his Yaesu FT-710 and his Pota Performer Vertical with elevated radials.
Ed KM6UTC at the Cravens House made 34 contacts with 12 DX to Canada, France, Germany, Slovenia, England, and the Netherlands.
As a side note when Allen turned on his radio he heard a Ham in Florida calling CQ so he answered him. in the QSO I related that I was operating portable from a POTA Park this evolved into a discussion on how to get started activating for POTA. He had all the equipment but was unsure about logging, the POTA rules, and such. I explained that logging could actually be done on paper then typed directly into the POTA web site or you could use any number of software applications at home to prepare the data to send. I also suggested that the way to start easy is to go to a park , set up and hunt Park To Park contacts. Less stress and you get your feet wet slowly. As for POTA rules there are very few. One you have to be licensed, two you have to be on the POTA listed park, Three no repeaters allowed, Four you need to submit your logs. Simple enough. For a successful activation you need 10 contacts any mode, any band, any legal power. There is no 'official' exchange required. Just make the contact, have fun playing radio in the park.
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58 viewsEven though our esteemed leader, Allen (KN4FKS), and I both had to go out of town this week, there was still a LOT of POTA activity despite there being no organized group effort!
Ed (KM6UTC) solved a but of a POTA activation problem/mystery this week that made a gigantic difference in the number of contacts! And it had nothing to do with his equipment! I mention this not to embarrass Ed but, rather, to point out how easy it is for us humans to make the wrong assumptions and maybe there is someone else wanting to do POTA that has made the same assumption. Up until this week Ed says that he thought the only calls you could log for a POTA activation were calls to another activator or a hunter answering his CQ POTA call! In fact, almost any valid QSO counts and can be logged (no repeaters can be used, however). You can answer someone else’s CQ and have a rag chew. It counts as a valid POTA contact. Make a contact with a DXExpediton? It counts!
Armed with the new knowledge, Ed activated US-0716, Chickamuaga and Chattanooga National Battlefield, from the Cravens House location on the North side of Lookout Mountain, on Thursday. hw wound up with 85 contacts for the day with a number of DX. The DX included the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Romania, Spain, France, Canada (eh), Puerto Rico, Italy, Azores, & Hungary.
Ed noted that the views from Cravens House were wonderful due to the excellent weather. He also commented on what appears to once have been a beautiful Mansion and adjacent Coach House at the Cravens House location and noted that the Nation Park Service seems to have allowed these structures to deteriorate, probably past the point of no return!
Ed asked if anyone had any information about this and someone sent a link to a 13-year old link to the Chattanoogan.com that sums it up quite well! A copy of the link is attached if you want to find out more!
https://www.chattanoogan.com/2013/3/25/247432/John-Shearer-History-Of-The-Hardy-Home.aspx
Before heading out of town Allen (KN4FKS) got away Tuesday afternoon for a few hours to Estelle Mine Road on Pigeon Mtn.WMA (US-3742). He set up his 25 ft vertical with the faraday cloth radials and mainly chased parks for P2P contacts. He had 22 SSB contacts with 20 P2P and 2 special event stations. Also one P2P to Puerto Rico. On 20 meters he had 16 contacts and 6 more on 40 meters.
AND… a bug congratulations to Dan Strickland (K2DTS) for achieving a Kilo (1000 activator contacts) from US-0716 on Wednesday. Dan has been working on this goal for a while and he can finally put that notch in his belt!
As for me, Danny (AG4DW), I had to travel to Florida for the weekend but did manage to activate two new-to-me parks in Florida on the trip down. Payne’s Prairie Preserve State Park (US-3647) and Price’s Scrub State Park (US-10463). These two parks are about 4 miles apart and are totally different! Payne’s Prairie has luscious tropical foliage and Spanish Moss everywhere and a large lake and picnic pavilions. Price’s Scrub is a relatively new park and is pretty primitive and expected to remain that way. One picnic table, one porta-potty and one trash can! I managed 25 SSB contacts on 20 meters at both parks!
And, in a first for me, we saw a park ranger pull in at Price’s Scrub in an unmarked truck and headed towards a small trailhead. He saw us watching him and backed up to us, identified himself, and told us he was there on official business! He was afraid we were going to call the cops and report HIM! You hear reports of rangers investigating POTA activators but usually not the other way around! We had a good laugh and he was very familiar with Parks on the Air. He said if the apocalypse ever happens, he is getting in touch with us POTA guys!
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58 viewsWell we braved the tropical storm, totally avoided the threat of flash flooding and activated Johns Mountain WMA US-3758 from the overlook site. The rain came in bands so we were able to all get set up in the dry and take down in the dry but every now and then it would rain, sprinkle or pour down rain. We all elected to operate out of our vehicles.
Allen KN4FKS set up his 17 ft vertical with Faraday cloth radials and made 28 SSB contacts, 26 on 20 meters, 1 on 15 meters and 1 on 40 meters. He had 4 Park to Park contacts and 1 DX to Canada.
Danny AG4DW set up his 17 ft vertical with elevated radials and made 44 contacts, 17 SSB on 40 meters, 21 FT8 on 40, 1 FT8 on 30, and 5 FT8 on 17. He had 5 P2P and 1 DX to Canada.
Jim K4WWE set up his odd looking tripod antenna thing (see attached photo) and made 20 SSB contacts on 20 meters with 8 P2P contacts.
Once again we were ham radio ambassadors, A Forest work crew stopped by to have lunch at the overlook and one of the young men was interested in what we were doing. After answering lots of questions we loaded him up with information sheets on Ham Radio, TSARC and, POTA. On the way home Allen stopped in the Villanow store to get a drink and the clerk saw his Ham Radio related t shirt. She exclaimed her grandfather was a ham and she had fond memories of being in his shack as a child. You never know how you can represent the hobby so be prepared.
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58 viewsWell we braved the tropical storm, totally avoided the threat of flash flooding and activated Johns Mountain WMA US-3758 from the overlook site. The rain came in bands so we were able to all get set up in the dry and take down in the dry but every now and then it would rain, sprinkle or pour down rain. We all elected to operate out of our vehicles.
Allen KN4FKS set up his 17 ft vertical with Faraday cloth radials and made 28 SSB contacts, 26 on 20 meters, 1 on 15 meters and 1 on 40 meters. He had 4 Park to Park contacts and 1 DX to Canada.
Danny AG4DW set up his 17 ft vertical with elevated radials and made 44 contacts, 17 SSB on 40 meters, 21 FT8 on 40, 1 FT8 on 30, and 5 FT8 on 17. He had 5 P2P and 1 DX to Canada.
Jim K4WWE set up his odd looking tripod antenna thing (see attached photo) and made 20 SSB contacts on 20 meters with 8 P2P contacts.
Once again we were ham radio ambassadors, A Forest work crew stopped by to have lunch at the overlook and one of the young men was interested in what we were doing. After answering lots of questions we loaded him up with information sheets on Ham Radio, TSARC and, POTA. On the way home Allen stopped in the Villanow store to get a drink and the clerk saw his Ham Radio related t shirt. She exclaimed her grandfather was a ham and she had fond memories of being in his shack as a child. You never know how you can represent the hobby so be prepared.
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57 viewsThis week we activated 'Sloppy' Floyd State Park US-2187 on Thursday May 28th. We used the site on the park up by the bathrooms on top of the hill in the covered Picnic shelter.
Allen KN4FKS set his end fed half wave wire as a sloper into one of the tall pine trees nearby. With 100 watts power made 53 SSB contacts on 20 meters with les to get a replacements than ideal band conditions to be kind to the propagation gods. He had 20 Park To Park contacts and 2 DX contacts (both P2P) to Canada and Puerto Rico.
Matt AH4MH used Allen's set up and made 13 SSB contacts on 20 meters with 5 P2P contacts Band conditions were such that you had to work for every contact and hope you didn't loose contact mid QSO.
John KB4QXI set up his roof mounted Hamstick on 40 meters then realized his logging computer just went toes up. He headed off to Wal-Mart to get a replacement. Now the fun begins getting the logging software set up to handle POTA. It should be easy but there is always some new wrinkle that doesn't quite match the how to You Tube video. We'll get it up and running this week so he can POTA on.
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