Well, it’s been more than a year since I mentioned Parks On The Air. It’s still a major source of Ham Radio activity for me. I’ve been doing activations when I can. I have activated 86 times from 21 different parks. Sometimes, they are two-fers, where you find a spot that is within two parks so that it counts for both, so that inflates the count a bit. But, it’s been great fun and a good way to get outside and play with radios in the great outdoors.
I also hunt from home quite a bit. When you find and call activators in the field from your home station, it’s called hunting. I have accumulated quite a lot of awards that way. I’ve gotten Worked All States with POTA. I’ve had 4200+ contacts while hunting over 1700 unique parks. Compare that to 5700+ QSOs while in a park. Other than dabbling in Field Day or what not, it’s been the main source of fun on the radio.
I managed to get what’s called a Kilo Award at two parks. That’s making over 1000 contacts while activating. It can be over many sessions. I reached that goal at my two closest parks – K6532 Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor and K8098 Empire State Trail. They overlap for hundreds of miles across New York State, including just a few blocks from my home. I usually activate from a trailhead (parking lot) a couple miles away. But I’ve used several locations from Buffalo to Medina as well.Continue Reading…
Since getting the new radio, I’ve been participating in a program on the air called Parks On The Air. If you’re familiar with Ham Radio, it will probably make sense to you. If not, it might seems a little strange, but it’s a lot of fun and it’s given me a new outlet for my Ham Radio activity.
To put it simply, Parks On The Air, which is referred to by the acronym POTA, is a program where Hams go to certain parks and public locations and set up a radio station. Once there they talk to other Ham radio operators, with the goal being to talk to as many as possible and let the Hams talk to as many parks as possible.
The POTA program is an outgrowth of the National Parks On The Air program which was held for one year to commemorate the Centennial of the US National Parks system.
Each park, is given a number which identifies it in the program. Valid parks are state and national parks, monuments, wildlife refuges, forests, and the like. Local, city, county, and town parks are not eligible for the program. Many countries are included in the program and each has a list of designated parks.
There are two groups of Hams in POTA, Activators, those who travel to a park and set up a station, and Hunters, the rest of the Hams who try to make contact with the ones in the parks. There is a lot of overlap between those groups, but to understand the awards for participating in the program, you need to understand the distinction between them.
Activators keep a log of every contact the make while in a park. For an Activation to be considered successful, a minimum of 10 contacts must be made and submitted. The logs go in to the POTA group where volunteers enter them into their database. All parks are kept track of, and Hunters are given credit for the contacts they made. That in turn is used to give a number of awards to both Activators and Hunters.
Certificate awarded for working 10 parks
There are awards for all levels of achievement and many ways to collect them. But just getting certificates isn’t the point. That would get boring pretty fast. The real fun is in activating a park. Despite it being the middle of winter, I’ve gotten out three times to set up my station in a “park” and operate from there. It’s really not hard.
There are some rules, of course. The park must be open. You must be within the boundaries of the “park,” not on private land. You must obey any rules of the park, which vary quite a bit. Some are wildlife refuges or forest preserves with their own special purpose and rules that you must comply with. But most parks, because they are public land also invite and encourage public use within those limits. Mostly, they are pretty accommodating to Ham Radio.
My fiberglass pole supporting a wire antenna. Bungee cords lash it to a bollard.
So far, I have been able to set up inconspicuously in parking areas and sit in my truck to operate. When nicer weather comes along, a picnic bench will be more comfortable. I have operated from three wildlife refuges and from a trailhead on the Erie Canalway Trail.
Operating from the passenger seat of my truck to keep warm.
There are a dozen or so designated parks within a short drive from me. As the weather improves, I hope to get out to activate more of them. It’s a blast! It’s like Field day, but in small, easy chunks. You can do it however you like. You can drive to a lot in a park. or you can hike deep into it. It’s perfect for QRP operation and is viable for CW (Morse code) Voice, and Data modes. It’s good for HF, VHF and UHF bands. Or, you can set up in a shelter and operate high power. Antennas can be as simple as a portable compact vertical, or a wire dipole, or a high mast with an elaborate antenna, as long as you don’t violate park rules and can manage it yourself. Simple is often the best.
Yellow dots are POTA eligible locations. The dot typically indicates an office or main entrance. The actual territory covered can be large. The dot for the Erie Canalway National Corridor, which runs right through this map is out past Syracuse, but can be activated here. A little research on boundaries is needed.
So, this post is getting long. Where am I going with it? I hope to share a little of what goes into this activity and what about it appeals to me. Isolation due to COVID-19 has limited some of the things we used to look forward to, but with this I can still get outdoors, get some fresh air, and play around with radios. It has me back experimenting with some portable antennas that I’ve had on the back burner for quite a while. It’s a good way to promote our various parks, nature preserves, forests and wildlands, and do it in a low-impact, nature friendly way. It will only be more fun as the warm weather approaches.
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