I started my Parks On The Air journey on October 2nd; my first activation with John K1JSM, Willy W1LY, and Richard KC1ARO at Brenton Point Park. I quickly caught the bug, and have worked with them and other Newport County Radio Club members to form a POTA group. We try to coordinate activations, somethings having three or more stations on the air (sort of like a mini Field Day), or simply to let folks know where we will be if operating by ourselves. My wife (not a ham – and usually turned off by anything radio) has even asked to join me at future activations so she can explore the areas with our dog while I make contacts.
In the six weeks since my first activation, I’ve put ten parks on the air, earning a “Bronze Activator Award”, and have worked more than 50 Parks On The Air as a Hunter from my home station, earning the “Diamond Hunter Award”. That represents over 300 contacts in my home log, a big boost to my activity.
I have some random musings from my activities:
- My 20-meter hamstick (by which I mean a MFJ-1620T class of antenna) was silly long out of the box, and I had to grind off about 4 inches (leaving another 4 inches sticking out for future adjustments). That resulted in a perfect SWR across the 20-meter phone band when mounted on my truck roof. The 17-meter hamstick was spot on when mounted on my truck roof.
- That same 20-meter hamstick, when mounted on our minivan, was badly detuned. The 20-meter antenna was resonant above 14.350, so it was now too short. Hopefully I have enough adjustment room left to make it useful with both the minivan and truck.
- I tried a 30-meter hamstick on my truck. I was able to adjust it to about 2:1 SWR, but no lower. It turns out that the connector/rig end of the feedline was presenting a very high voltage, causing me to receive RF burns when using my keyer paddle (carbon-fiber finger pieces). I note that the rig is isolated from the truck body as I power it from a separate battery. Likely tying some braid to the truck frame will eliminate the problem. That wasn’t an issue on 20 or 17-meters
- When operating in one park with the rig on my tailgate, I received several comments concerning RF feedback on the mic. I suppose no longer having the rig inside the truck interior led to that issue as I was certainly inside the near-field of the antenna. I suspect some ferrite clamps will solve the issue.
- While other simple antennas have been VERY effective in the field (end fed half wave and end fed random wire), nothing beats the simplicity of popping a 20-m or 17-m hamstick on the roof and getting on the air from inside the vehicle. From drive-up to on the air is usually less than 5 minutes. Doesn’t really matter how wet or cold it is outside either.
- Once spotted, most of my activations with hamstick and IC-7000, have produced a QSO rate of about one a minute. In other words, if you don’t want to spend a bunch of time, you don’t need to as you can have the required minimum ten QSOs in about 15 minutes or less.
- A one QSO per minute activation requires about 7.5 AH of capacity from a LiFePO4 battery.
