JTPinTX
Custom Call Maker
I enjoy the threads from Dave and others where they take us along on their trips, and show us their hobbies other than predator hunting. Taking inspiration from that I am going to show you guys one of my hobbies. My pictures won't be the quality of Dave's and other guys here but I'll slog through it and maybe they will be ok.
I have been a HAM (amateur radio) operator since 2012. My wife is the administrator of our local hospital and she needed an operator for emergency communications. The hospital paid for me to take the amateur radio Technician class and get my Tech license for VHF/UHF comms. Being a Tech was OK, but really I wanted to play on HF and "talk around the world." So I kept studying and took my General, and then Extra. I passed all three licenses in about 8 months. I started with HF just talking on my radio at home and that was pretty much it for quite a few years except for being active in the local club with Emergency Comms and such.
Two years ago I discovered the Parks on the Air program. In POTA, you have "activators" who go out to recognized entities in the POTA system and "activate" the park by getting on the air and making contacts with other HAMS. Most of these contacts will be with "hunters" who are looking for all the various parks and trying to add them to their logs. Some contacts are also made that are "Park to Park" contacts where two different activators in two different parks talk to each other. For the first year I was a hunter, chasing parks from my radio at home.
Last summer I made the crossover into being an activator. Now I go to parks with a portable HF radio setup (normally under battery power), and make contacts from the field. My wife started going with me and taking my logs for me. She enjoyed it enough she finally got over her fear of taking the tests last year and got her Tech and General licenses. She is an activator now too. She completed her first HF contacts and first park activations this last weekend.
Sometimes we do activations as part of our camping trips where we are set up in our RV. Other times we just load the pickup with our gear and go take a drive. We might just do one stop after work. Other times we have done a "rove" activating multiple parks and locations in a single day. We love seeing new places and POTA is a great excuse to get out and see them.
We have different ways we set up. If the weather is nice we will put up a table outside. If the weather or bugs are bad on a quick activation we may activate from inside the truck. I can run my radio off the truck battery or a carry along LifePO. The radio and tuner are in a welded up carrier I made myself from plastic at work. It holds radio and antenna tuner in a very secure and adaptable setup. I have different antennas I use depending on the situation. Maybe a Wolf River Coil on a tripod, or a 31' end fed wire on a 32' telescoping fiberglass mast that goes in a socket on my kayak racks. It just varies from day to day.
A neat hobby though that lets us see lots of neat places that we would not otherwise go to see.
My wife with her new General "ticket."
The carrier for my radio/tuner is cut with different angles so it can be used various ways. Inside the truck, flat on a table, angled up on the ground, whatever. Components are not bolted in, slip fit in brackets, all the wires tucked in neatly. QD hookup for power and antenna.
Here we have radio/tuner, battery, paper logs, UTC clock, refreshments.
We might set up on a table like this, antenna on the truck.
Or under the shade of the camper, antenna attached to it.
This is with the Wolf River Coil antenna, and us set up under the pavilion at Hackberry Flats WMA. Many of the parks are not actually parks at all, but small WMA's, historic sites, museums, trails, all kinds of things. Lots of various sites to be activated.
This is what a "QSO map" of our contacts can look like during an activation. Each one of those pins is the location of someone we made contact with from that park. When propagation is good and the bands are open it can get really busy. Especially if you are in a fairly rare park a lot of people want. Big pileups can happen and a good operator can make a contact every 45 seconds or so.
I have been a HAM (amateur radio) operator since 2012. My wife is the administrator of our local hospital and she needed an operator for emergency communications. The hospital paid for me to take the amateur radio Technician class and get my Tech license for VHF/UHF comms. Being a Tech was OK, but really I wanted to play on HF and "talk around the world." So I kept studying and took my General, and then Extra. I passed all three licenses in about 8 months. I started with HF just talking on my radio at home and that was pretty much it for quite a few years except for being active in the local club with Emergency Comms and such.
Two years ago I discovered the Parks on the Air program. In POTA, you have "activators" who go out to recognized entities in the POTA system and "activate" the park by getting on the air and making contacts with other HAMS. Most of these contacts will be with "hunters" who are looking for all the various parks and trying to add them to their logs. Some contacts are also made that are "Park to Park" contacts where two different activators in two different parks talk to each other. For the first year I was a hunter, chasing parks from my radio at home.
Last summer I made the crossover into being an activator. Now I go to parks with a portable HF radio setup (normally under battery power), and make contacts from the field. My wife started going with me and taking my logs for me. She enjoyed it enough she finally got over her fear of taking the tests last year and got her Tech and General licenses. She is an activator now too. She completed her first HF contacts and first park activations this last weekend.
Sometimes we do activations as part of our camping trips where we are set up in our RV. Other times we just load the pickup with our gear and go take a drive. We might just do one stop after work. Other times we have done a "rove" activating multiple parks and locations in a single day. We love seeing new places and POTA is a great excuse to get out and see them.
We have different ways we set up. If the weather is nice we will put up a table outside. If the weather or bugs are bad on a quick activation we may activate from inside the truck. I can run my radio off the truck battery or a carry along LifePO. The radio and tuner are in a welded up carrier I made myself from plastic at work. It holds radio and antenna tuner in a very secure and adaptable setup. I have different antennas I use depending on the situation. Maybe a Wolf River Coil on a tripod, or a 31' end fed wire on a 32' telescoping fiberglass mast that goes in a socket on my kayak racks. It just varies from day to day.
A neat hobby though that lets us see lots of neat places that we would not otherwise go to see.
My wife with her new General "ticket."
The carrier for my radio/tuner is cut with different angles so it can be used various ways. Inside the truck, flat on a table, angled up on the ground, whatever. Components are not bolted in, slip fit in brackets, all the wires tucked in neatly. QD hookup for power and antenna.
Here we have radio/tuner, battery, paper logs, UTC clock, refreshments.
We might set up on a table like this, antenna on the truck.
Or under the shade of the camper, antenna attached to it.
This is with the Wolf River Coil antenna, and us set up under the pavilion at Hackberry Flats WMA. Many of the parks are not actually parks at all, but small WMA's, historic sites, museums, trails, all kinds of things. Lots of various sites to be activated.
This is what a "QSO map" of our contacts can look like during an activation. Each one of those pins is the location of someone we made contact with from that park. When propagation is good and the bands are open it can get really busy. Especially if you are in a fairly rare park a lot of people want. Big pileups can happen and a good operator can make a contact every 45 seconds or so.
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