#Nature

I Got Some ‘Splainin To Do

/ KB3CVO / Leave a comment

Ok, I guess my posts have been somewhat obfuscating and confusing to folks who are not familiar with ham radio and/or with my sense of humor, so I am going to strive to clarify a few things. 

First off, the owls. No owls have been harmed in the writing of this blog.  I like to take one of my owl decoys along with me when I am doing an activation as a sort of mascot/decoration. I have 3 owl decoys: Zarathustra, Tootsie and Ptolomey. I also have a plastic flamingo named Charade. Yes, I am a big kid and like to have toys. 

Next I should explain the whole POTA thing. Back in 2010, some hams got together and put together a program to get hams more physically active. There is a SOTA program (Summits On The AIr where folks can climb to a mountain top and operate from the top) but not everybody is cut out for that. Some hams are older or not physically able to climb mountains so HAMPARKS.ORG came into existence in September of 2010. The idea was to encourage hams to get outdoors to State and National parks and operate portable stations. It caught on and became very popular … so popular that in 2016 the ARRL (American Radio Relay League, a national organization for ham radio operators) ran a year-long event called National Parks On The Air. This sort of melded into the POTA program and it has evolved into what it is today. There are hams who go into the parks and operate (activate) and there are hams who contact these hams from home (hunt) and there are hams who do both. There are various awards and certificates for levels of achievement and thresholds crossed. The program is run by dedicated volunteers. It is also a way for hams to practice setting up in off-the-grid situations and to practice operating in less than optimum conditions. Myself, I use it as a way to keep active and maintain mental acuity and to have fun. It gets me out into the woods. 🙂

Well that is all for now. My fingers are all finged out from the typing. Namaste, kidlets until next time!

Plans are very likeable when they assemble

/ KB3CVO / Leave a comment

Yesterday was a very nice day so my long suffering wyfe and I set out to do an activation. Instead of the usual large scale British-mountain-climbing-expedition style of gear I only brought the bare essentials necessary to activate from my car. It was in the low 50’s F (about 11.5 C or those who use a proper temperature measuring system) so the pod was not necessary. We decided to operate from the car for the first time. We did it as sort of a practice for vacations when we will be activating on the road. I used my Buddistick antenna which only requires a tripod, a strip of copper mesh for the ground, a 1 gallon jug of water as a weight and some coax. We went to Kings Gap and got set up in a very short while. As I was setting the antenna up, SWMBO went for a short walk and took some pictures. Once the antenna was in place it took only a couple minutes to hook up the radio and tuner and find an empty frequency. I showed my wonderful wyfe how to log and we were POTAing. It didn’t take long to make the required 10 for a bonafide activation and soon I decided to switch bands. All in all I worked 40 and 15 Meters, had 2 Park-to-Park contacts, 1 hunting and 1 hunting me, and made a total of 32 contacts in about 1/2 hours. At one point I had to open the car door as it got too hot in there. We had some curious looks from people driving by and there was some work going on by a couple of men driving skid loaders with smelly exhausts, but all in all it was a great day and a very successful experiment. Namaste for now, kidlets.

Ptolomey keeping an eye on me.

It’s All Fun And Games When Someone Loses An Eye

/ KB3CVO / Leave a comment

Yesterday was January 6th, the first Saturday in 2024. What is the significance, you might ask? Well it was the beginning of the week-long PA Farm Show held in Harrisburg PA. Local legend would have it that the Farm Show is a harbinger of bad weather (go figure, it is held in January) and this year it has held up to that reputation. Late morning yesterday it began to snow. A nice, pretty wet snow. Within a couple hours we had around 76.2 MM of accumulation on the ground ( ~ 3 inches for those who use the outdated measuring system) and then the temperature started to rise slightly above freezing. It remained that way overnight. This morning I spent over an hour with my snowblower clearing my driveway. My wyfe and I then went out to lunch and got a few groceries. When we got back i settled in with a cup of coffee and started trying to work some POTA stations. I began to wonder why I was getting lousy signal reports when I looked out the window. A couple of tree branches had succumbed to the weight of the wet snow and fell, taking down my dipole and breaking the rope which ran through the pulley on the tower which held the center support up. My long-suffering wyfe agreed to leave the warm comfort of the house and assist me in getting the antenna back up in the air. It took some doing. My antenna is now in a different position than it was, is lower and the setup is temporary. Once the weather gets a bit better I am going to make the installation more permanent. At least I am back on the air and making contacts. I, however, did run out of expletives which is highly unusual as I studied under a master, my father. As for blame, I place that squarely in the lap of the PA Farm Show. Namaste Kiddos.

More from the POD Person

/ KB3CVO / Leave a comment

Heidi-Ho. Wow, 2 posts in 2 days. Something must be off with me lol. I decided to activate today because the weather was nice …. for January. The temperature was pretty mild …. about 3.5 C (38.5 F) which was not too bad. First, I tried to go to Fowlers Hollow State Park but there was oo much road construction activity there so I decided to go to Big Springs State Park, my old stand by. We got the POD set up and I got on the air. I put the heater in it and soon was in shirtsleeves. BTW, all my owls declined to make the excursion with us so I was mascot-less. Oh well, their loss. We were set up and on the air in a short period of time and I quickly made the required amount of contacts for a legit activation. After about half an hour I switched from 40 meters to 15 meters and made more contacts. I even made 2 DX contacts: Spain and Canary Islands. Overall I made a total of 45 contacts in an hour on 3 bands, 40, 15 and 20 meters using an inverted Vee antenna and my Yaesu ft891 at 75 Watts. My Wyfe is urging me to try operating from the car as a practice for our vacation so I am going to look at streamlining my setup. I will fill in more about that in later posts. Well the log has been uploaded, I am warm and am drinking coffee and my motional sports cat is by my side so I think it is time to sit back and relax. As always, namaste kidlets until we meet again.

The POD
The Pod from the side

Calling CQ

Co-dependency? Symbiosis?

/ KB3CVO / Leave a comment

Since one of my stated purposes of this blog is a study/discussion of the aspects of nature, I am going to start the New Year off with a discussion of the relationship between the POTA Activator and the POTA Hunter. First off, is it a co-dependency? Without the hunters there would be no activators and without the activators there would be no hunters. The existence of either depends on the existence of the other, but a true co-dependence would suggest a one-to-one relationship. Dictionary.com defines co-dependency as: “a state of mutual dependence between two people”. WAIT!!!!! They used a derivative form of the word within its own definition! Naughty, naughty!!  Websters defines it as: “ a psychological condition or a relationship in which a person manifesting low self-esteem and a strong desire for approval has an unhealthy attachment to another often controlling or manipulative person”. This shows that it does not apply at all to the relationship between hunters and activators. 

Let’s look at symbiosis. Webster defines it as: ” 1: the living together in more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms (as in parasitism or commensalism)” This first definition does not really apply. Though we may make friends through POTA activities, I wouldn’t classify the association as intimate or parasitical. Now lets look at definition number 2 in Webster’s arsenal: ”2 : a cooperative relationship (as between two persons or groups)”. There, I think they are onto something! By activating, the activator gives the hunter a purpose and the hunter, by hunting gives the activator a purpose. It is often repeated that without the hunters, there would be no activators. Hmmmm …. something seems to be missing here. 

The group that is overlooked or forgotten is the one that labors in the shadows. The organizers, the administrators, the VOLUNTEERS who run the POTA.APP website and maintain a clearing house of logs, those who track the State Parks and assign numbers to them, those who make the rules for activations and those who watch over the logs and design the awards which mystically and magically appear in our accounts when we pass a threshold. Think of them this year. Maybe donate some time or money to support the effort. 

In any event, continue to support POTA in whichever why your heart tells you to and is within your abilities. If you are a hunter, hunt. If you are an activator, activate. If you do both then do both. Just have fun and POTA on

Namaste, kidlets!