Parks on the Air had another record breaking month!

You have an awesome portable setup!! Hope I can work you guys from a park in CO sometime.. I had a blast on 20m CW yesterday from the wildlife refuge.

What do you use for portable power ??

 

Glenn, it would be our pleasure. We'll be about soon, I may well be out mobile tomorrow on 20-40M over saltwater.
Backatcha, that is some set up! Check out GP0STH on QRZ here, Ronni has put massive amounts of effort into his portable set up, we run 1/4 wave verticals over 120 radials - sometimes over salt.

CU on the Bands!

Kev

 

Glenn, we use 9KW Honda portable power

 

Wow, that weighs 400 pounds ! Now I see why you use the generator frame for the vertical antenna mount, it's not going anywhere Pretty nice idea since the generator is there anyway..

Glenn AE0Q
(ex GM5BKC 1974-78, USN at RAF Edzell)
ex ZB2WZ
https://www.qsl.net/ae0q/contest/zb2wz.htm

 

Most of the park operating I have done is from Metro Parks that are farther out from the city/burbs. I get good results but they don't count for Special-Parks on the air.

 

You should sign up on the Parks On The Air site, you have a bunch of parks within 40 or so miles of Toledo !!
Operate from any of those on 20m and you would make a lot of park hunters happy

Parks on the POTA list are yellow dots on the map.. And more going north along the lake..

Glenn AE0Q

 

Undoubtedly POTA is the single most important program for getting hams on the air today in my opinion. Thank you so much for what you have fine with this!!

The SOTA online logging is fantastic. Any chance you guys can roundtable with them to see if they would share their knowledge?

For activators, even hunters/chasers, POTA and SOTA are not the same program conceptually. Mountaineers are first mountaineers who also play radio. POTA atttacts hams for the sake of ham radio (and all the benefits of the outdoors). My point is the programs are not in competition, so maybe sharing of the programmimg is possible?

Mindy

 

I'm glad to see the POTA program keeps growing and I'm looking forward to working more activators as they come on board. I've had fun this past year hunting/chasing activators all over the country (and the world actually). I hope to get an activation in one of these days, but for now I'm still having plenty of fun chasing. Keep up the good work.

 

Had a lot of fun this past weekend. Put 49 in the log
Kx3
9ah lifepo4
Ground mounted vertical

 

I have actually had discussions myself even with their database lead. They are very cordial, and I adore both programs.

What makes it a bit challenging is to incorporate our server-less AWS Lambda technology with it. The pro is that we are in a prime position for scaling and growth with our present back end systems. The difficult issue is finding folks with time AND also ones with knowledge of AWS Lambda. 73 W3AAX

 

I am not an IT person, so I don't pretend to know any of the tech solutions.

That said, the ham interest in POTA is so immense that if you were to put the project out to some sort of bid, acquired a hard financial amount to make it happen, and then crowd-sourced the funding, it would happen.
Perhaps the ARRL could spearhead this initiative?

POTA is clearly the ticket to growth in ham radio right now. It would be a very worthy investment.

(Just my 2 cents from the peanut gallery, I have no financial interest or gain in this matter for the curious lurkers. I just want to upload my own logs...)

Mindy

 

Did my first activation back on October 23rd. Went out with a couple of friends. Had about an hour and a half pileup and logged 125 contacts. I was instantly hooked. Have 14 activations since then. My setup isn’t ideal but it works. I use my Kenwood TS590SG and a 20ah LifePo battery. My antenna setup consists of a hamstick dipole with sticks for 40 and 20. Mast is a 14 foot telescopic painter’s pole and an old patio umbrella base. Very crude and not highly portable but it works and I’m having a blast. Took me 14 yo daughter out on three activations last weekend. I got her running the log and by the end of the day let her make some contacts. She got 14 in about as many minutes. Gonna take her and the YL out to the WMA shooting range on Sunday and hopefully get an activation in late afternoon. It’s such a great way to get out and explore what our parks system has to offer. Big thanks to the region coordinator for getting my logs uploaded and all who make this program possible. I’m currently studying for my Extra and then gonna get back to learning code. QRP CW is high on the bucket list.

 

I have hearing aids, I manage fairly well although in fairness my hearing impairment is mild compared to some. Maybe consider some over the ear headphones. KS4KY Neil

 

I use some headphones and it does help a huge amount. Thanks for the encouragement.

 

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