In the past couple of months, a not-insignificant number of people have recommended that I try out POTA as a “youngster".

What even is POTA?

"Parks on the Air (POTA) is an international radiosport award program that encourages licensed amateur radio operators to visit, enjoy and operate portable equipment in a variety of parks and public lands, always respecting other park users and local regulations."1Quick blurb from Wikipedia

That sounds fun! I had an upcoming trip to Yosemite, and I just got a HF radio, so I wanted to try it out.

I would have practiced by hunting before, but I was leaving for the trip 2 days after I got the QMX. It’s okay though, I’ll figure it out as I go!

Turns out operating from inside a giant natural well doesn’t lead to very good reception

We were going to Tenaya Lake on Monday, so I figured I might as well attempt my first operation there. Most places in Yosemite that are not the valley seemed to be pretty high up, so I thought it would work out. What I forgot:

  • There are lots of trees everywhere, and while it’s good for throwing up EFHW antennas, it was less good in terms of interference.
  • It’s a lake. For water to pool in a lake, the surrounding land has to be higher up. I just tried to operate in a giant basin.
  • The pine trees have pretty flimsy branches, and it’s not the best for throwing up antennas? I didn’t have much of a choice though (only antenna I have is an EFHW).

Second try

Glacier Point was higher up and seemed much more promising, so I tried once again the day after.

Would you like to learn about the wonderful art of amateur radio

I set up just a few yards off from the back parking lot of Glacier Point. The setup got the attention of a few curious tourists and one tour guide who was very excited to see something new happening in the park. I got to explain what amateur radio was to people and introduce it to them!

…Can people hear me?

I was operating with a QMX, a QRPGuys EFHW antenna, and a CWMorse straight key. I could hear people anywhere from Washington to Illinois, but when I picked an empty frequency to send out calls, I wasn’t sure if anyone could spot me, or if I’d even been picked up by the RBN. I was eventually spotted, but after a handful of botched contacts where neither of us were able to receive properly, I decided to switch to P2P.

P2P was the right choice. Even though I was operating with ~4 watts, I was able to be heard and given priority since P2P contacts are worth more in POTA. It was also easier for me in the same way hunting is easier for beginners — I was able to listen to the activator’s QSOs over and over again to ensure I had their info, so that when I did make a contact with them, I only had to really worry about sending my info correctly and completing the exchange.

Oh no I can only hear 5NN BK

Uhhhhh 5NN CA CA TU 73 dit dit.2**I promise I didn’t respond to actual signal reports like this

Before this first attempt, I practiced with Morse Walker and Morse Ninja audio files to get up to at least 15wpm. And I did! For standard exchanges.

Since standard exchanges were the only things I really trained to get up to speed, I could receive entire chunks of exchanges but went back down to ~10wpm max for anything outside of the standard phrases... including callsigns...

Yeah, it was not the most fun time for receiving spotty CW.

In conclusion, I am very sorry to whoever stumbled across a bumbling new ham on 20m on August 5th.

Yay!! Contacts!!

The receiving struggles didn’t lead to as many busted calls as you might expect, though! I mostly listened in on activators until I got their callsign and state down, so as long as they got my callsign (which they did if they responded to me), we had all the info needed to confirm a contact :)

I made 5 P2P contacts total, although only 3 of them got logged (presumably because I wasn’t in the other person’s logs). That meant I failed at activating the park, but it was a fun couple of hours regardless!

Once college applications are over, I’m going to go to some California state parks to try activation again. Maybe Mt. Diablo?