A Year of POTA
Monday, January 1st, 2024 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flwydAt the end of 2022 a Ranger friend gifted me a SuperAntenna, an adjustable vertical antenna which can operate on any amateur radio band from 40 meters to 70 centimeters and packs up into a small and portable bag. This friend knew I might be interested in this antenna because I'd organized a Parks on the Air (POTA) activity at the 4th of Juplaya which involved a fairly hilarious misadventure erecting an end-fed wire antenna on a telescoping mast at the edge of a flat and treeless desert. A ham radio operator might tell you that a vertical antenna with a loading coil is less efficient at radiating radio waves than a dipole half a wavelength above ground. This is true. But what I realized with the SuperAntenna is that you'll make a lot more contacts on an antenna that can be set up anywhere in 15 minutes than you will if you have to get a 33-foot wire 33 feet off the ground.
In 2022 I did POTA activations on two road trips, Arkansas and California/Nevada/Utah. They were fun, but I tended to spend an hour flinging fishing line and paracord into trees so I could get a wire antenna up in the air, and if it turned out the placement wasn't very good there wasn't much I could do about it. That long of a setup period meant a POTA activation Needing a tree or bringing your own tall pole also limits the parks you can set up in: out here in the western U.S. the tallest vegetation in many parks is a bush, or a delicate tree species the park rangers would rather you not tie things to. The amount of effort required meant I didn't get on the air much when I was back in Colorado. But having an antenna I can carry anywhere and quickly erect on a picnic table or parking lot meant I could play radio as a side activity for just about any trip, whether across the country or on the way to an evening event.
I got interested in ham radio in 2021 in part so I would have a hobby that didn't involve staring at a screen in my living room during the pandemic. Parks on the Air became a great excuse for me to get out of the house in 2023. My first activation of the year was on a great sunny Colorado day with six inches of snow on the picnic table. I'd visited Sawhill Ponds on several field trips in elementary school, but hadn't visited it much as an adult. Now I'm in second place for contacts from park K-9669 :-) Most of my operating was outside, though I would occasionally hide out in my truck in cold winds or intense rains. I activated parks in Colorado, Washington (DC), Virginia, Maryland, Wyoming, Nevada, and Hawaii.
Not including "2-fers" where an operator is in two parks at once, I made a little over 1600 POTA contacts in 2023 from 27 parks. I contacted 1240 different stations, including folks in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Chile, Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, and Sweden. Through park-to-park contacts I reached the "Worked all states" milestone with DC standing in for Rhode Island, which I still haven't worked. (Band conditions often aren't great between Colorado and New England, and by the time I'm awake, fed, out the door, and set up folks up there are often packing up to go home.) Including my outings in 2022 I've contacted 430 parks, with 520 park-to-park contacts. As an activator I've made 60 contacts on 40 meters, 1662 on 20 meters, 69 on 17 meters, 169 on 15 meters, 46 on 12 meters, 67 on 10 meters, 16 on 2 meters, and 3 on 70 centimeters (all of the latter going as far as the nearest parking lot :-)
All my radio contacts so far have been voice, but I now have a portable morse code paddle and straight key and am hoping to get enough code practice to make at least one CW contact during each activation (though I've already missed this goal on my New Year's Day 2024 activation :-) I'm also hoping to get back to throwing wire in trees in the right circumstances… like a camping trip to the national forest. For all that I love the quick setup of the SuperAntenna, its bandwidth on 40 meters is pretty narrow and it seems silly to get the extensions for 60 and 80 meters with even more coil fussing when changing frequencies. I've also yet to make 6 meter contact, and my with my IC-705 and the Beam Spinners group I should be able to have some fun with long-distance SSB contacts on VHF and UHF. I should be able to pick up a few more towards "Activated all states" en route to the eclipse in Arkansas and maybe as a side quest after lobbying Congress.
In 2022 I did POTA activations on two road trips, Arkansas and California/Nevada/Utah. They were fun, but I tended to spend an hour flinging fishing line and paracord into trees so I could get a wire antenna up in the air, and if it turned out the placement wasn't very good there wasn't much I could do about it. That long of a setup period meant a POTA activation Needing a tree or bringing your own tall pole also limits the parks you can set up in: out here in the western U.S. the tallest vegetation in many parks is a bush, or a delicate tree species the park rangers would rather you not tie things to. The amount of effort required meant I didn't get on the air much when I was back in Colorado. But having an antenna I can carry anywhere and quickly erect on a picnic table or parking lot meant I could play radio as a side activity for just about any trip, whether across the country or on the way to an evening event.
I got interested in ham radio in 2021 in part so I would have a hobby that didn't involve staring at a screen in my living room during the pandemic. Parks on the Air became a great excuse for me to get out of the house in 2023. My first activation of the year was on a great sunny Colorado day with six inches of snow on the picnic table. I'd visited Sawhill Ponds on several field trips in elementary school, but hadn't visited it much as an adult. Now I'm in second place for contacts from park K-9669 :-) Most of my operating was outside, though I would occasionally hide out in my truck in cold winds or intense rains. I activated parks in Colorado, Washington (DC), Virginia, Maryland, Wyoming, Nevada, and Hawaii.
Not including "2-fers" where an operator is in two parks at once, I made a little over 1600 POTA contacts in 2023 from 27 parks. I contacted 1240 different stations, including folks in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Chile, Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, and Sweden. Through park-to-park contacts I reached the "Worked all states" milestone with DC standing in for Rhode Island, which I still haven't worked. (Band conditions often aren't great between Colorado and New England, and by the time I'm awake, fed, out the door, and set up folks up there are often packing up to go home.) Including my outings in 2022 I've contacted 430 parks, with 520 park-to-park contacts. As an activator I've made 60 contacts on 40 meters, 1662 on 20 meters, 69 on 17 meters, 169 on 15 meters, 46 on 12 meters, 67 on 10 meters, 16 on 2 meters, and 3 on 70 centimeters (all of the latter going as far as the nearest parking lot :-)
All my radio contacts so far have been voice, but I now have a portable morse code paddle and straight key and am hoping to get enough code practice to make at least one CW contact during each activation (though I've already missed this goal on my New Year's Day 2024 activation :-) I'm also hoping to get back to throwing wire in trees in the right circumstances… like a camping trip to the national forest. For all that I love the quick setup of the SuperAntenna, its bandwidth on 40 meters is pretty narrow and it seems silly to get the extensions for 60 and 80 meters with even more coil fussing when changing frequencies. I've also yet to make 6 meter contact, and my with my IC-705 and the Beam Spinners group I should be able to have some fun with long-distance SSB contacts on VHF and UHF. I should be able to pick up a few more towards "Activated all states" en route to the eclipse in Arkansas and maybe as a side quest after lobbying Congress.
