Sitting in the shack waiting for my Christmas Eve Shift on the TPN to start I thought I would just wish you all a Merry Christmas again.
Remember that if you have some spare time tomorrow key up and make a general call…. In some cases your voice might be the only cheerful voice some hams might hear. Not everyone has a family to be with…
Just thinking out loud…
73bob
Found this PDF file on my POTA Awards page:
Its a start and everyone to start somewhere….
According to the POTA Stats I have attempted 13 activations and due to a weak battery (if you plug in the charger make sure the power bar was also plugged in) have completed 12 of them. 6 park activations happened last week when I was in Ottawa.
I have found a portable POTA station that “works for me” The next addition will be the 20 ah battery so I can actually operate from the park rather than from the parking lot of the park.
Other than that any other accessories for the Portable Pota Station will be for creature comforts (lightweight table and camping chair) and perhaps one of those small wagons to tow behind my bike to take everything to the park.
That’s not going to happen till the magic time of the year… That’s after the cold and before the black flies/mosquitoes.
73bob
From the Parks on the Air site:
This event happens seasonally, on the 3rd full weekend of the month (Saturday & Sunday UTC). These are ‘activity weekends’ where the main purpose is to get out in the parks, and have as much fun as possible.
As you can see we have one coming up this weekend…. and you will be hard pressed NOT to find someone out there calling “CQ Pota”
With any luck I will be one of them…
The best case is that the weather cooperates and I will be activating at least one park over the weekend.
If the weather is just terrible then I will be hunting a few of the hunters out there without getting frostbite.<— The Portable Station will be my FT891/LDG Autotuner combo along with my recently created 10-40m EFHW.
Now as I have not purchased the 18AH battery I need (yet) I will be operating from my Daughter’s car so I will have some shelter from the elements and also a brand new battery (6 mths old) so powering the rigs should not be a problem.
The above picture (spring of 2014) shows me operating from on of the parks I hope to be activating soon. Told you “I was POTA before POTA was cool.”
The problem might be however that on a list of things to do for the people who drive the plows, I’m guessing that cleaning a parking lot at a park might not be high on their list… We have had a few dumpings of snow in the last week so… I have to be able to get into the park to operate…(wish she had decided on the SUV instead of the gas miser she drives)
These anticipated activations or hunting will be “spur of the moment” for the weekend…. It would be so much easier in the nicer weather…
However it could be a good test run for Winter Field Day which is just around the corner…
Check out the Winter Field Day site for details
73bob
Now remember I did not ask “what’s more important”. I am asking what’s easier… Now I must admit I have only hunted POTA (so far) but over the last 20 years I have operated portable a good deal of the time. Activating Parks is not new. The level of organization that the current POTA team has is new and very well done.
We were operating from Parks because we could not get a decent antenna up at home, we operated from parks because the noise was usually less from the park and we also operated from parks because once you got set up it seemed to attract other amateurs which also turned into a social event.
And more importantly we did it because we could….
So here are my thoughts (my opinions) and feel free to agree or disagree just be nice about it…
Activators:
Has to find a place to operate (has to do their homework to find a site that is clear for antennas, no or low noise floor, and most importantly close to a bathroom, but sheltered from the elements would be good as well….
Has to calculate how much battery power they need and bring twice what they think… Has to bring at least 2 hf antennas, and all the rope needed to get the antennas in the air, along with coax runs….
Has to take into account the band conditions as they don’t want to drive to a distant park to find the band is crap… But they can pick and choose who to contact as they control the pile up
Hunters:
Already set up… Stronger equipment… Higher Power…Better antenna…. normally higher noise floor… has to hear the usually QRP Signals coming from the activators through the loud pileups…. More distractions from family and noises coming into the shack…. Does not get much of a choice as they can only contact who they can hear and who can hear them.
So in my humble opinion:
Both are equally important in the process. Take away the hunters and you have a bunch of activators calling “CQ POTA” with no one answering. Take away the activators and you have a bunch of hunters listening to dead air….
Personally I think that its would be easier to Activate as everyone is looking for you and then control the pile up than be the one trying to break into the pile up.
And that my friends is the view from the cheap seats…
73bob
Some days it seems just like yesterday and other days…. well you know
RAC Winter Contest
Call: CF3RCS
Operator(s): VA3QV, VA3UMP, VE3SBC, VA3CKD, VA3SIE, VA3RKM, VE3WEH, VE3VIG,
VA3TR
Station: VA3UMP
Class: M/S LP
QTH: Bate Island, Ottawa
Operating Time (hrs): 19
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs CW Mults Ph Mults
----------------------------------------
160: 17 9 3 2
80: 11 37 3 6
40: 15 26 3 6
20: 10 46 1 5
15: 0 4 0 3
10: 0 1 0 1
6: 0 0 0 0
2: 0 0 0 0
----------------------------------------
Total: 53 123 10 23 Total Score = 46,860
Club: Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club
Comments:
C F 3 R C S
(Canadians Freezing - 3 - Real Cold Spot)
And we were! We operated 19 hours of the RAC Canada Winter Contest
from Bate Island in the Ottawa River. We set up tarps to break the
wind and we used a propane heater to ward off the cold. We ran two
radios, an FT-897 and an FT-857. The FT857 was used on VHF and the
FT897 on HF. We earned Bate Island a number in the Canadian Island
Award Program (CISA) - Number ON283.
We operated from battery power and the antennas in use were a 275ft
Carolina Windom up about 30/40ft in the trees for HF, a rotate-able
dipole for 6m and a halo loop for 2m. We operated VHF only for the
C.I.S.A. activation during the first few hours of the expedition.
We all had a great time on the island. Some of the highlights were
making contact with Garry Hammond (VE3XN), who manages the C.I.S.A.
program. Garry issued us a new island number right there on the air
to much jubilation on the island. We also made contact with two of
the USA special event stations celebrating the 100th anniversary of
the first broadcast of voice and music over radio by Fessenden. We
were using the CF prefix to mark the same event. We also ran a 40m
phone net from the island, that was great fun and we had great QSOs
in the net. And we had some visitors who enjoyed working some new
contest contacts.
We made contact with other islands as well. We contacted VE2IDX on
CISA QC-027 Blizzard Island and GM3PPG/P on South Uist, IOTA EU-010
in Scotland. For many of us, it was our first try at top band, and
we were amazed at how well top band performed.
73 and Thanks! from the Bate Island DXpedition team.
Back in our younger days a bunch of us (during coffee …no beer involved) got the crazy thought to make a group entry into the RAC Canada Winter Contest. From that thought it mutated into the idea that we should operate from somewhere portable (yes it was winter time but being hardy Canadian Hams it was still at the idea stage).
The idea was starting to morph into a plan….. How can we get more interest and so we though why not operate portable from an island that we could activate for the Canadian Islands Program…. The plan (not sure if it was a good plan) was now defined as much as we could and so we had the choice of two islands easily accessable to play from.
Taking parking and structures into account we decided on Bate Island (middle of the Ottawa River but accessable by the Island Park Bridge and there was a roofed (no sides) picnic table there.
Long story short…. about 2 bbq tanks to run the propane heater… 2 deep cycle batteries for the radio(s) and one very large tarp to cover most of the sides of the picnic table area and we did it.
We were POTA before POTA was cool… but we were more than cool…. we were freezing.
The 2021 version of the RAC Winter Contest starts at 0000 UTC December 18th and finishes 24 hours later.
Listen for the Popgun (VA3QV)giving out the rare “5/9 ON” multi on SSB and CW
For more info go WWW.RAC.CA
73bob
VA3QV Listening more than talking 