Below is the newsletter for August 12, 2024. Please let me know if you can help with the newsletter so we can keep sending one out regularly.
I am trying to include original articles and I could use some help. If you can write an article or even if you have a suggestion for an article, please let me know!
Steven Christy, N5ZQ
n5zq@n5zq.us
New Mexico Camping Trip and POTA (Parks on the Air)
Last month my family took a long-awaited vacation to New Mexico. We had originally planned to take this trip, which consisted of visiting Carlsbad Caverns in southern New Mexico and then camping in northern New Mexico, in 2020. Due to several circumstances including COVID, the trip has been delayed until now.
After taking a couple of days to recuperate after LibertyFest events and a surgical procedure, we left home on Sunday, July 7th. Of course it was just our luck that we finished packing and left in the monsoon that happened that morning. I was so wet I had to change clothes before we could leave! It was about an 8-hour drive to Carlsbad, NM. After spending the night in a hotel, we headed about 20 minutes south to Carlsbad Caverns. It took most of the day to walk in the natural entrance all the way to the bottom and then walk all of the paths at the bottom. The kids had a blast!
We checked out of the hotel the next morning, Tuesday, July 9th, and we headed north to the mountains. Of course the route took us right through Roswell! We stopped in Roswell to do our grocery shopping for the camping trip. It was interesting to see aliens everywhere including in Walmart!
It took us about 5 hours in the car to make it to our campground. We stayed in the Agua Piedra national campground in the Carson National Forest. It is POTA (Parks on the Air) entity US-4513.
I am sure many of you are familiar with or have heard of Parks on the Air. For those of you who have not, Parks on the Air is a program for getting out into national and state parks (and other state and national entities) and making contacts with other stations. The activator, station in the park, makes contact with other stations commonly called hunters. There is no formal exchange which keeps the program flexible and adaptable. The most common exchange is signal report and state. Since there is no formal exchange hams have been known to work a contest from a park and they get POTA credit for it!
The program has been wonderful for ham radio. If you tune around the HF bands you will hear POTA stations all the time. This is especially true on weekends! The POTA website is https://pota.app and you can find all of the rules and documentation at https://docs.pota.app. You can also find all of the possible parks (BTW, there are a ton of them!) listed there as well.
Since we tent camp, the first order of business is always to start setting up the tent and get the kitchen set up so we can fix dinner. Of course right after these tasks are complete, the next agenda item is setting up the antenna and radio! I did manage to get my station set up and I was on the air that evening. My first contact was at 0303z on 7/10 so it wasn’t until after 9pm local (mountain) time but I did get on the air!
We camped for a total of 3 days and 4 nights. The highs were right at 80 degrees while the lows were close to 45 degrees. It was fantastic camping weather! The elevation at our campsite was 8500 feet which did not bother me most of the time but I had a few times I had some difficulty. There was one time I took a very quick break from the radio to move my solar panel and by the time I sat back down a minute later I was already out of breath!
It was beautiful in the mountains. Below are a couple of photos. You can click on them to enlarge them.
Now that I have shared some info about the camping trip, I would like to share some of the detail of my radio operations. I use a 12m (40ft) fiberglass mast with an end-fed half-wave dipole. This trip I took my Icom 746Pro instead of my Icom 706MKIIG that I use for most of my camping trips. The 746Pro has a much better receiver and I have plenty of battery power so I decided to give it a try this time. It worked really well!
I use 2 30Ah Eco-Worthy LiFePo4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries in parallel to give my 60Ah of battery capacity. I have a Harbor Freight 100w solar panel to keep the batteries charged. In full sun, it can charge at close to 6.5A so it really does not take long to top off the batteries. I am typically able to fully charge them by some time in the afternoon.
I either log with my iPad or my MacBook Pro laptop. The last few trips I have spent some time operating FT8 so more recently I have logged using my laptop. My logging software is a MacOS application called RumLogNG. The MacOS application is free while the iOS version of the application has a small fee. I have been using it for several years and I highly recommend it if you are using MacOS!
Now that you have read my descriptions, on to the photos!
Below you can see some details of my antenna and antenna installation. The exact installation location and direction depend entirely on the particular campsite. I need to keep the antenna within our campsite and set it up safely where it will not contact any power lines. That was not a problem here as there is no power anywhere near the campground! It also means the HF bands don’t have any local electrical noise which is always appreciated!
My typical setup consists of the radio, computer, headset and notepad. When operating POTA it is very common to get large pileups. The way I work a pileup is to type a callsign (or partial) into the logging software and then copy 1 or 2 additional partial callsigns. I will go back to the one I put in the logging software first and then go to the others afterwards. It really helps keep the pileup moving along!
One of the best ways to generate contacts quickly is to spot yourself on the POTA website when you start operating. Unfortunately that was not possible in this location as we had no data service on our phones. I had to find an open frequency, start calling CQ and wait for someone to find me. There were a couple of times it took a few minutes to make contact with someone who knew how to spot me on the page. Once I was spotted, though, the contacts usually came flooding in!
I ended up making the majority of my contacts on 20m. I did operate a little bit on 40m but propagation was just not great. I had a massive pipeline out to the west coast, though, and I did make a bunch of contacts. I ended up with a total of 456 valid (non-duplicate) contacts in my log. My busiest day was July 12th when I made 220 contacts! I made 411 of those on SSB and 45 on FT8.
Playing radio while camping is fun! I encourage any of you who camp or spend time in the state or national parks or just enjoy the outdoors to look into the Parks on the Air program. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!
73
Steven, N5ZQ
n5zq@n5zq.us
Fall Technician Class
The EARS Fall Technician Class starts on Tuesday, August 27th and it is a 9-week course. It will again be taught on Zoom. The best part is the course is FREE! All of the class details are available on the Technician License Class page on the website. There is also a link on the front page. I have also included a class flyer below.
If you know anyone who may be interested, please share this information with them. The Technician License Class page has a sign-up form at the bottom.
Please let us know if you have any questions!
Harvey, W0HGJ
class@k5eok.org
EARS August Board Meeting
EARS holds a monthly board meeting on the second Tuesday of each month. The next board meeting is Tuesday, August 13th at 7pm. The meeting is at Edmond Fire Station 5 in the training building down the hill by the tower. The blue pin on the map below shows the meeting location.
Fire Station 5 is located at 5300 E Covell Rd which is just East of I-35. If you need any help finding the meeting location, please give us a call on the repeater and we can help you out.
I am planning to have a Field Day 2024 debrief at 6pm prior to the board meeting. If you helped, attended or participated in Field Day in any way I would love to have you there so we can get your input which is valuable as we start planning for next year!
EARS August Dinner
It is time for our next club dinner! The dinner will be this Thursday, August 15th at 6:30pm at Blue Moon Chinese Restaurant. The address is 1320 S Broadway. All club members and their family members are welcome.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Logan County ARES Meeting
The Logan County ARES group held their bi-monthly meeting last Saturday. The next meeting is schedule for September 21st. If you are interesting in getting involved in ARES in this area, please make plans to attend. You can contact either Clay Mayrose, WA6LBU, or myself if you have any questions.
Steven Christy, N5ZQ
EARS Volunteers
I am sure all of you are aware that EARS is an entirely volunteer organization. That means we alway need volunteers. There are many tasks to get done and the more we share the load, the more this club will be able to do!
Below is a summary of just some of the events and activities in which the club participates:
St. Patrick’s Day Parade
LibertyFest Parade
Cowboy Christmas Parade
Cycle 66 Bike Race
Monthly Siren Test
Weekly Information Net – 52 Net Control Volunteers
Monthly VE Test Session
Bi-Monthly Club Dinner – 5 Dinners
Christmas Dinner
Technician License Class – Spring and Fall
Field Day – Also One of the Club Dinners
Severe Weather Spotting
This list does not include all of the administrative and management function of the club. The website needs frequent updates, this newsletter needs to be written, etc.
What does all this mean? It means We Need You! If you are able to help in any way, please let us know. Even if you are unsure how to help or where you might best fit, please let us know and we will work with you to find the best fit.
If you are willing to help, please contact us at k5eok@k5eok.org. That will send a message to both myself, Steven, N5ZQ, and Clay, WA6LBU and we will be in touch!
Space Weather
Space (Solar) Weather is important is impacts our radio communication. While the greatest impact is usually on HF frequencies, it can also impact VHF, UHF and even higher frequencies. The video below comes from a YouTube page that is updated about every 2 weeks with new space weather reports. I encourage you to watch her channel for updates when you can as it is very educational.
Contests
Below are a few upcoming HF contests. The ARRL has a more complete list in their Contest Corral from QST which is available as a downloadable PDF file. You can also find a list of upcoming contests along with contest details at contestcalendar.com.
| North American QSO Party, SSB | 1800Z, Aug 17 to 0559Z, Aug 18 |
| Hawaii QSO Party | 0400Z, Aug 24 to 0400Z, Aug 26 |
| U.S. Islands QSO Party | 1200Z, Aug 24 to 0300Z, Aug 25 |
| Kansas QSO Party | 1400Z, Aug 24 to 0200Z, Aug 25 and 1400Z-2000Z, Aug 25 |
| Ohio QSO Party | 1600Z, Aug 24 to 0400Z, Aug 25 |
| Colorado QSO Party | 1300Z, Aug 31 to 0400Z, Sep 1 |
| Tennessee QSO Party | 1700Z, Sep 1 to 0300Z, Sep 2 |
| Ohio State Parks on the Air | 1400Z-2200Z, Sep 7 |
| Route 66 On the Air Special Event – 25th Anniversary | Sep 7 to Sep 15 |
| ARRL September VHF Contest | 1800Z, Sep 14 to 0300Z, Sep 16 |
Web Links
Here are a few links to other websites that may be of interest.
- ARRL (American Radio Relay League) – https://arrl.org
- CORA (Central Oklahoma Radio Amateurs) – https://coraok.org
- Ham Holiday (OKC Hamfest) – https://hamholiday.com
- ARRL Oklahoma Section – https://ok.arrl.org
- South Canadian Amateur Radio Society (SCARS)
- DMR Info – https://w5nor.org/okdmr/
- They have lots of other good info on their website such as modes of operation, weather/emergency info etc.
- ARES
- ARRL ARES – https://www.arrl.org/ares
- OK ARES – https://aresok.org
- Winlink – https://winlink.org
- AREDN – arednmesh.org
- POTA (Parks on the Air) – https://pota.app
Upcoming Events
- EARS Information Net – Every Monday at 8pm
- EARS Breakfast – Every Saturday at approximately 6:30am at Around The Corner, 11 S. Broadway, Edmond
- Field Day Debrief – Tuesday, August 13th at 6pm (Prior to the Board Meeting) at Edmond Fire Station 5, 5300 E Covell
- August Board Meeting – Tuesday, August 13th at 7pm at Edmond Fire Station 5, 5300 E Covell
- EARS Dinner – Thursday, August 15th at 6:30pm – Blue Moon Chinese Restaurant, 1320 S Broadway
- Fall Technician Class – Starts August 27th on Zoom – Register on Technician License Class page
- EARS Licensing Testing – Saturday, September 7th at 8am – Sign Up on License Testing page
- Edmond Siren Test – Saturday, September 7th at 11:30am
