Kanaskat Palmer State Park (US-3209) Dec 10, 2024 amateur radio & POTA Looking at my stats on the POTA website, I saw that I need three new activations to hit the next level of activator award. I am fairly resolved to Lake Sammamish SP (US-3216) 12/3/24 Dec 7, 2024 amateur radio & POTA As the weather turns less pleasant, my willingness to activate new parks diminishes, because I often have very little idea if I will be able to find Yet another Lake Sammamish Activation (11/25/24) Dec 6, 2024 amateur radio & POTA After our Big Windstorm, I had tried to do an activation of Lake Sammamish State Park and arrived at the park to find, to my horror, all the gates Redemption at Marckworth State Forest Dec 2, 2024 amateur radio & POTA Having narrowly avoided a ‘invalid’ activation attempt at Lake Sammamish SP when I inadvertently had a QSO fall into a new UTC day, I was feeling a One activation, two days Dec 1, 2024 amateur radio & POTA A week of looking around for another set of parks that would give me an opportunity to do two parks in one day left me at the end of the week having One Year of Parks on the Air Nov 13, 2024 amateur radio & POTA I made my very first POTA QSO on October 4, 2023. I did my first POTA park activation on October 30, 2023. Prompted by a desire to hunt (and then Two Activations in One Day Nov 10, 2024 amateur radio & POTA With the itch to get out and do an activation growing, and a Friday with no commitments scheduled, I started eyeing the POTA map looking for Activating two parks, one day (US-3168 & US-3169) Oct 30, 2024 amateur radio & POTA One of my goals is to activate more different parks. I’ve been eyeing the cluster of parks on Whidbey Island for some time, contemplating a two day Optimizing POTA Oct 29, 2024 amateur radio & POTA & musings I’m an inveterate optimizer. I’m not suggesting that I optimize for what other people expect - in fact, often the opposite. But it’s a peculiar Thoughts on Fun and US-3216 (Lake Sammamish SP) Activation Oct 19, 2024 amateur radio & POTA As we head deeper into autumn here in the PNW the weather can only get colder and rainier until spring. If I want to keep doing activations, I need Yet Another Activation of Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216) Oct 16, 2024 amateur radio & POTA On Oct 14, I was champing at the bit to do an activation, despite a sort of wet weather forecast. Figuring I’d start figuring out how to work in Another fun activation of US-3216 (Lake Sammamish State Park) Oct 12, 2024 amateur radio & POTA Despite the dour outlook of various propagation prediction tools and reports of cruddy band conditions I was eager to get back to doing activations More Relaxed Activation of Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216) Jul 12, 2024 POTA & amateur radio Presented with the possibility of a clear schedule in the afternoon I cleverly packed the day’s vital tasks into the AM with a goal of sloping off Thinking about QRP POTA activations Jul 5, 2024 amateur radio & POTA My recent struggles during POTA activations have had me thinking hard about QRP, activations, and antennas, specifically antennas for POTA park POTA activation of Olallie State Park (US-3239) Jul 3, 2024 POTA & amateur radio The weather has been wonderful and with pleasant temps and a day free I resolved to head out for a POTA activation or two. Propagation forecasts CW first activation of Lake Easton State Park (US-3214) Jun 27, 2024 amateur radio & POTA Propagation conditions continue to be crummy but I am resolved to continue to do activations anyway. I am not using the ‘number of QSOs’ metric, I Bad Condx at Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216) Jun 20, 2024 amateur radio & POTA Notwithstanding crappy band condx, today was POTA day. Off I trundled to Lake Sammamish State Park, US-3216. I had a cunning plan: do enough (ten) An Exciting activation of Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216) Jun 14, 2024 amateur radio & POTA Today I did a very exciting (well, exciting to me) POTA activation at Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216). This activation was exciting for several Important New Ham Radio Equipment Jun 10, 2024 amateur radio & POTA I’ve just added a new, critically important piece of equipment to my field operating kit for POTA: Introducing the fun-o-meter, which is used to Thin Radio Jun 9, 2024 amateur radio & POTA My participation in Parks on the Air, both hunting and activating, has increasingly been pushing me toward operating in ways where more and more of A challenging activation at US-3216 Lake Sammamish State Park Jun 8, 2024 amateur radio & POTA Good weather and a day of rest from training were calling me into doing a POTA activation, but when I checked propagation, it was in the dumps, Two Activations - Bridle Trails SP (US-3166) & St. Edward SP (US-3261) May 24, 2024 amateur radio & POTA We had to go pick up Paula’s car at the shop yesterday, mid-morning, and so I loaded up my car with the radios/antennas, &c, and planned on Kanaskat-Palmer State Park (US-32090, US-3236 (Nolte State Park) Activation, Flaming Geyser State Park (US-3187) May 21, 2024 amateur radio & POTA With an appointment at 3:30pm, I was hoping to squeeze in three POTA activations: Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, Noltle State Park, and Flaming Geyser US-5744 (Tiger Mountain State Forest) Activation May 14, 2024 amateur radio & POTA This morning I was hopeful that I’d be able to slope off and do a four park POTA activation at a cluster of four parks not far from my home: Tiger Xiegu G90 First Thoughts May 11, 2024 amateur radio & POTA I’ve been wanting to do more POTA park activations but the overhead of pulling either the IC-7300 or the KX3 out of the station setup, and then POTA rove lessons Mar 28, 2024 amateur radio & POTA One of the problems I encountered about halfway through the multi-day expedition was an intermittent problem with the coax connection to the three The N3JCJ(sk) Memorial POTA rove Mar 18, 2024 amateur radio & musings & POTA My dad died on Jan 30, 2024. I spent half of January whammied while I recovered from Across the Years, and the other half on the East Coast helping K-1732 Brandywine Creek State Park Activation Mar 4, 2024 amateur radio & POTA While my Dad was in the hospital I went back east to help my Mom. I took along a field kit of radio gear (described below) vaguely thinking that I’d Learning CW Dec 24, 2023 amateur radio & POTA I’ve been working on learning CW/Morse Code for some time, now - essentially for as long as I’ve had an amateur radio license. That works out to, POTA Activation #1 K-3216 Oct 30, 2023 amateur radio & POTA I’ve been making a lot of QSO’s hunting POTA activations, which is hella good fun. One of my goals was to do an activation before the end of Parks on the air Oct 23, 2023 amateur radio & POTA I made a bunch of FT8 and FT4 QSOs recently, and they highlighted a problem I have with modes like FT8 - they’re utterly impersonal. A good example: