Parks on the Air

 The desert air has just a hint of coolness to it. A thin morning overcast layer is holding back the strongest of the sun's rays that will surely bake this landscape by afternoon. We'll be long gone by then. To my right, my trusty Volkswagen Tiguan is doubling as counterpoise and five-foot tower, an HF whip magnetically mounted to the car top just in front of the tailgate hinge. On the card table at which I sit is an Icom IC-738, a 20 Ah LiFePO4 battery, an antenna tuner, and my J-38 code key. The desert stretches out beyond the table as far as I can see, tan sandstone dotted with the muted greens of Joshua trees, Mojave yuccas, shrubs, and cacti.

Not wanting to break the morning's silence, I know I'll be using the code key for most—if not all—of the activation. I sweep through the CW portion of twenty meters and, as I suspected might be the case, the band is packed with contesters like a Chicago L train after a Cubs game. I unscrew the twenty meter whip, screw in the 30 meter whip, tune up, slip on a pair of headphones, and select 10,105 kHz. I begin tapping.

CQ POTA DE W6KSR K0041 CQ K

There's no response. I didn't expect there to be. Kept intentionally wild by the National Parks Service, Joshua Tree National Park (K-0041) has no mobile phone towers, so I can't self spot. It'll take time for the spotters to find me. I send CQs for another ten minutes, and then the receiver comes to life with the sound of CW.

KA3QLF

KA3QLF DE W6KSR UR 599 BK

BK UR 559 GA

KA3QLF DE W6KSR TU 73 [dit dit]

[dit dit]

What follows isn't really a pileup, but rather a steady hour and a half of QSOs every few minutes. I log 17 in total—more than enough for a successful activation—before packing my gear, taking a short walk with my wife, and finding a place in the town of Yucca Valley for a good burger.

The logbook shows that I made my first POTA contact with NS6W on 11 November 2020. I'm sure I wasn't actively hunting POTA contacts at the time; more likely I just heard someone calling CQ POTA and thought that a CW QSO that would, of necessity, be quick and prescriptive would be fun. The following spring, I read an article in the March/April issue of On the Air Magazine describing Parks on the Air. I was particularly impressed, after having gone through all the fun of signing up for Logbook of the World, with how quick and simple the registration process was.

About the same time as I was reading that On the Air article, my wife bought a picnic basket for an upcoming trip to the California Central Coast.

"I think I might have an excuse to get some more use out of that picnic basket," I said. "There's this thing called Parks on the Air. You operate from a state park or national park and you get points towards awards, and the stations who work you get points towards awards. There are a bunch of state parks and state beaches around here. We could go in the morning; I could spend a couple hours on the radio while you chill and do some needlework, and then we could have a picnic and maybe take a walk."

We did our first activation at Dockweiler State Beach (K-3425), where we geeked out on watching the airplanes depart Los Angeles International Airport's runway 25R, and made a stop in Beverly Hills on the way home to pick up a chicken pot pie and a lamb curry pie at The Pie Room by Gwen. We've done four activations since then, and have plans to do a bunch more.

If there are unfriendly park rangers or visitors who eye POTA activators with suspicion, we haven't met them yet. We met the volunteer working the merch table for the San Onofre Parks Foundation. We met the dad who couldn't pass up a chance to bring his little boy over for a closer look at all that strange radio gear. We met the two through hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail who, glad to be out of the desert and into the Sierra Nevada, were both rocking Hawaiian shirts. And we've gotten out of the house and seen some places that we might not otherwise have taken the time to see. Since my wife isn't a licensed radio amateur and really has no interest in becoming one, POTA has provided a way of placing amateur radio into the context of doing stuff together.

If you're looking for an excuse to get out of the shack, I hope to one day work you on one of your activations. If it's a day where you can't get out of the shack, then I hope I or one of my fellow activators will get a chance to meet you on the air.

73 and hope to see you in the park.

POTA: Picnics on the Air

San Clemente State Beach K-3554

POTA: Pies ordered for takeout afterwards

It's not all HF all the time; satellites are fair game too

Joshua Tree National Park K-0041

Joshua Tree National Park K-0041

POTA: Providing On-Trail Assistance

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