Posts in Category ‘POTA’

Disclaimer:  I believe if you don’t like what a group is doing, either get involved or take it for what it is.  Said another way, use it as is or move on.  After all it is not yours to change and most likely as for a ham radio the group is run by unpaid individuals who truly believe it what they are doing.

As for POTA and me.  I am only a hunter, but often thought it would be fun to activate a park.  My activity, thoughts and goals (if I truly had goals) for POTA are forever changing as the following list shows:

1. My first step was to work 1,000 parks.  Once that level was reached the number of parks logged slipped to the background.  I hear the same park and often activated by the same operator.  It appears pointless to get in a pileup to work the same op/park for the fifteenth time.  Unless it is with one of my one and a half to five watt radios
2. Working a park in all states was the next logical milestone.  As of this post I am missing a park in Hawaii.  I was surprised when after working a park in Alaska (at that point one of the two states I needed for Parks WAS) a WAS certificate was issued.  An e-mail exchange told me that Washington DC is a wild card so therefore I received the WAS certificate.  YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING!  How does that make any sense?
3. Currently I mostly work parks with low power.  That is 1.5 to 5 watts.  (Unless I hear a park in Hawaii and then I go QRO – 25 watts).

Final note:  I cannot understand why the group went from identifying parks using DXCC Entities to the use of country names.  Again, it is none of my business what they do as it is not my organization.  It does affect how I view and patriciate in the program.  But I am sure that my opinion means nothing to the POTA team.

Once I reached 1,000 parks hunted the activity started to take on new meaning to me.  Running a compromise station getting others to hear me can be a challenge.  I noticed many of the same parks were being activated by the same station over and over again.  I get it, an activation is an activation so go where it is easiest.  But why get in a pileup to work the same station in the same park for the twentieth time?  So now I view my POTA hunting as follows:

• If I have a park in the POTA site’s log I will not get in a pileup to work it again.
• If the activator appears not to be getting calls, I will call no matter how many times he is in the log.  My contact may be needed for the ten (probably not).
• I like using my one to five watt radios to call parks so I will call any park at all with those radios even if I worked it 100 times.

Some other POTA related items.

• At the time of this posting the POTA site’s log shows that I have 1,236 parks hunted.
• I would like to activate a park at some point.
• I watch too many Ham Radio YouTube videos.  At times they add to the activity’s appeal, but at times I think they detract from it.  (Just my opinion.)