Parks On The Air: A Challenging Activation Experience

On Saturday April 26^th 2025 approximately 15 amateur radio operators descended on VOA game lands in Washington, NC for a Parks On The Air (POTA) activation.  During this activation several operators made 38 SSB contacts to 19 states.  As POTA activations go, this one was tough.  The band conditions were not in our favor so the contacts were few and far between.  We had a couple of visitors that have never been to one of our club meetings, and we had a few that are able to only attend occasionally.  

The activation was attempted for several reasons.  The number one reason was to simulate having to simulate what it would be like to set up our comms trailer in an emergency situation using only battery power and a little solar backup we were able to accomplish this simulation.

The next reason was to expose club members and visitors to POTA activation.  I am hoping that those who participated enjoyed their day.  I did get some good feedback from several hams who are now looking to upgrade their license so they can go activate parks on their own.

The third reason for utilizing the comms trailer for this activation was simply to put it to use.  I am planning to have more of these activations in the future and look forward to having even more members attending these events.  On a side note, I did see a need to go through the trailer and create a checklist of what to do first when taking the trailer to a site to setup.  A lot of it is self-explanatory to hams that have been in the hobby a good while but to others it was not.  We did notice another “nice to have item that was missing” an auto-tuner for the Tarheel Antenna would have been a wonderful accessory to have.  This would make it so much easier to stay at the radio and operate the controls.

Since I was in my second week of recovery from having a total knee replacement I would be amiss if I didn’t thank everyone for coming out and assisting where needed.  Clint (KQ4VJU) was there with me at 0730 helping me setup and I really appreciated the extra help.  Also most everyone stayed til the end to make cleanup and tear down a breeze.  Thank you all!

73, Daryl Shaw

N4OHK

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