What To Think About BEFORE Doing Parks On The Air

In this video I briefly discuss what to think about before doing a Parks On The Air activation.

This is video is *MY* opinion. I believe these are the first four things that you need to think about before you get into your car and drive to a park with all of your gear.

1) Sign up for Parks On The Air!
2) What radio do you plan on using?
3) How are you going to power your radio?
4) What antenna or antennas do you plan on using?

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MUSIC COPYRIGHT 1993 & 1994 BY GANGSTER PUMP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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I am not affiliated administratively with the Parks On The Air organization, but a happy participant in the POTA program.

Q: What is Parks On The Air?
A: Parks On The Air (or POTA) for international portable amateur radio (ham radio) operations that promote emergency awareness and communications from national/federal and state/provincial level parks.

There are activators and there are hunters. Activators go into POTA approved parks, set up their amateur radio equipment and call CQ (CQ is an invitation for any amateur radio operators listening on that frequency to respond and make contact). Hunters will contact the activators and upon a successful contact, the activator puts the hunter into their logs that will be uploaded to calling area representatives who will then upload those logs to the POTA system. Hunters do not need to upload any logs.

Q: What are the Parks On The Air rules?

Q: What are the Parks On The Air frequencies?

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[kenthufford]

Good video, thanks. I love to activate POTA parks. I do it from the leather chair in my SUV, at 100 watts and a full size TARHEEL screwdriver antenna with the long whip and a capacitance hat. I did NPOTA with engine running, a little noise added. Now, I use a Bioeno 20 amp battery directly to the 7100. I can do 3 parks, each about 1-1.5 hours on the battery. My normal count is between 25-200 contacts. I do see some get 10 or 11 contacts and go QRT. I did 30 years in the US ARMY, so I don't camp anymore.

[kenburnett]

Thank you for your video. It answered some question for me and where to go for more info.

[Bobu]

I just got back from a POTA activation. I had a truck full of stuff and only used 1/8th of it. But! If I wanted it I had it. Five hours of trying got me 16 contacts and that was pulling teeth. There were two of us and NOBODY could hear us. The band conditions changed and we got our ten each.

[donz]

Jeff, did you ever do dry runs of portable setups before doing official POTA activity? As I understand it only state and national parks qualify so I am thinking before I venture 40-50 miles maybe I should just try a random local park to test things out and learn from that a couple times. Thoughts?