[HN Gopher] Parks on the Air
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Parks on the Air
Author : thepuppet33r
Score : 63 points
Date : 2024-10-22 10:55 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (parksontheair.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (parksontheair.com)
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| If you're wanting to see who's active right now, https://pota.app
| is more useful.
|
| And if you don't have a radio, and want to hear the
| conversations, check out a web SDR like this one:
| https://www.sdrutah.org/
| radnor wrote:
| And here's a website that maps out where the current POTA,
| SOTA, and WWFF (the precursor to POTA) radio operators are at
| right now.
|
| https://fieldspotter.radio/
| grhmc wrote:
| This is such a good and fun way to get in to radio. It is why I
| picked up my radio after being licensed, and inactive, for like
| ten years.
| jkingsman wrote:
| Also shout out to Summits on the Air; same idea, but for
| mountain/hill/local-prominence-tops: https://sotl.as/
|
| It's real easy to get your Technician class license in the US,
| which will get you limited line of sight range via VHF/UHF and a
| few other misc. bands. General class unlocks High Frequency
| operation which allows you to talk around the globe with the
| right radio.
|
| For my field operations, I use a handheld 12V battery pack and a
| (tr)uSDX, a souped-up ATMega platform that does QRP (<=5W power)
| operations via CW (Morse code) and SSB (voice). It's the cheapest
| radio out there that will reliably do (passable) quality SSB, and
| it's real handy to have something so tiny and light when I'm
| heading out to hike up a mountain.
|
| This is everything I take into the field, and have talked to
| people states and countries away when geomagnetic conditions were
| favorable (being on top of a mountain helps haha):
| https://i.imgur.com/HOx5buc.jpeg
|
| Full kit breakdown: https://imgur.com/gallery/ultralightish-tr-
| usdx-sota-shack-b...
| thenobsta wrote:
| Wow, this is very cool. I might upgrade to General just for
| this.
|
| Do you take both up? Fishing in mountain lakes and SSB to pass
| the time sound fun do to simultaneously.
| jkingsman wrote:
| Haha the fishing rod is actually a mast for my antenna; I'm
| not much of an angler myself. Collapsible telescoping
| fiberglass rods are light, cheap, and an easy way to get a
| reasonably stable point 20 feet up in the air :)
| ljsprague wrote:
| Start a YouTube channel.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Neat, and timely for me, as I'm studying for my first HAM exam
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I feel like there is some implied knowledge I am missing. This
| describes what this is:
|
| > Welcome to the Parks on the Air(POTA) site for international
| portable amateur radio operations that promote emergency
| awareness and communications from national/federal and
| state/provincial level parks.
|
| The first part, alright, but the second part? Why are we
| promoting using a ham radio within a national/state level park?
| Why is there "awards" (certificates mostly) for doing this? Why
| is this work important?
|
| For those in the "in-group" I'm sure this all makes complete
| sense. For me, I don't get it.
| dgacmu wrote:
| I don't think there's anything to get - it's just for fun. It
| started as an AARL one-off for the 110th anniversary of the
| establishment of national parks in the US, and proved popular,
| and turned into its own thing.
|
| I think if you look at things like Niantic it's a similar two-
| for-one appeal: a motivating excuse to go someplace you would
| like to go but might not have otherwise gone and engaging in
| activity you like.
| chefandy wrote:
| > I don't think there's anything to get - it's just for fun.
| It started as an AARL one-off for the 110th anniversary of
| the establishment of national parks in the US, and proved
| popular, and turned into its own thing.
|
| > I think if you look at things like Niantic it's a similar
| two-for-one appeal: a motivating excuse to go someplace you
| would like to go but might not have otherwise gone and
| engaging in activity you like.
|
| I believe the GP is saying that it doesn't say what "it" is.
| AARL and Niantic aren't exactly household names outside of
| people already interested in radio.
|
| If they're trying to attract new people to amateur radio with
| this as floatrock surmised, (and maybe they're not! and if
| not, maybe they should be?), you need to assume this is going
| to be people's first point of contact... and this website
| isn't particularly useful for that use case.
| ianburrell wrote:
| It really should say what it is about. Go the park, setup
| radio, and communicate with other amateur operators. It
| doesn't even mention activating parks which at least ham
| operators would understand.
|
| I think there is assumption that visitor would know what
| Summits on the Air is since that is better known.
| emptybits wrote:
| I'll take a run at why a promoting amateur radio is important.
|
| 1. Hams develop highly technical skills while interacting
| socially.
|
| 2. With entry low cost and no subscription fees, hams have
| global communication abilities without cellular, internet, and
| power grids.
|
| 3. Hams support community, often with important emergency comms
| roles during disasters, war, or search and rescue efforts.
|
| Why parks? They're easily accessed. They're free. They're
| visible to newcomers who wouldn't otherwise know amateur radio
| could be fun and social.
| floatrock wrote:
| Not a ham (not against it, maybe one day), but my take is it's
| a sport-ification that's trying to appeal to the younger crowd.
| From the outside, at least to me ham sometimes seems like a
| bunch of old guys sitting out in their shack. And those old
| guys are dying out. Which is a problem if you believe cultural
| EM proficiency is important to a technology-oriented economy
| and communications-driven global military power projection...
|
| So "emergency comms from parks" appeals to preppers and
| outdoorsy folks (who skew younger), and maybe gives a reason
| for the young nerds to go outside. It ain't darts or cornhole
| or spikeball, but it's on that spectrum of sport if you look at
| it the right way.
|
| (None of this is meant to be anything against ham radio...
| there's been some great stories out of NC where it was the hams
| who kept comms running after Helene knocked out power and cell
| towers. And honestly, there's a certain ultimate-freedom beauty
| to a communication medium where you don't need to pay anyone a
| subscription, you're not using someone else's wires, and the
| only firewall is what the sun is doing to the ionosphere today.
| Just hard to compete for attention in the dopamine tsunami
| world of xbox and youtube and arduinos.)
| jkingsman wrote:
| Yup, I'm not a big one for ragchewing (holding long, full
| conversations over radio) but I really enjoy the combination
| of tech and outdoors. The idea of scoring points for climbing
| hard mountains and getting tech up and running out there is a
| fun, objective-based way for me to do the wildly-cool-when-I-
| think-about-it activity of talking with people hundreds of
| miles through the air away without repeaters or general
| infrastructure.
| bityard wrote:
| Have you ever played a video game with side-quests? There are
| lots of side-quests in ham radio and POTA is one of them.
| Awards in ham radio are exactly the same as "achievements" in
| video games where you collect all the special items. They don't
| MEAN anything, you can't sell them, they are there for the fun
| of chasing them, and--tangentially--bragging rights.
|
| There's no "work," it's just another part of the ham radio
| hobby.
| fullstop wrote:
| My brother in law does this. He travels a lot for work, and
| brings some HAM equipment with him if possible.
| benatkin wrote:
| When I went to the map and declined to give me my location, it
| sent me to Null Island.
| tomcam wrote:
| Yet in a sense, my friend, we are all of us dwelling in Null
| Island.
| ConanRus wrote:
| Note that there's not only Phone/Voice, but also CW and digital
| modes (Like FT8), so it's possible not to speak with ppl at all
| and still do the activation.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| ... digital modes that work even below the noise floor! So
| extremely long distances on extremely low power are possible
| bityard wrote:
| I'm a ham radio operator but don't currently have the means for a
| decent HF antenna where I live. I like making contacts, but I'm
| not much for small talk and conversations. Contests are fun for
| me, even though I'm not at all a professional at it and likely
| will never be. The problem is, there's not always a contest
| running.
|
| POTA is amazing because it lets me toss up a temporary antenna on
| any arbitrary weekend and still have a good chance of making a
| few SSB contacts. Especially now with the solar cycle at its
| maximum.
|
| Thank you to all the people who go and activate parks! You are
| awesome!
| CliffColvin wrote:
| I've been a ham operator since 1999, and in 2020 started doing
| POTA. It is a blast, the ability to get out in the sunshine, and
| play radio is an awesome combination!
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(page generated 2024-10-23 23:00 UTC)