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World Amateur Radio Day Open House and Club POTA

Summary Info

Saturday April 26, 2025 @US-2435 Great Brook Farm State Park, Carlisle (Rain Date May 3rd)

Open House advertised 11AM - 1PM; POTA concurrent with Open House and continuing in the afternoon according to interest

Updated April 25th - we are postponing to the rain date of Saturday, May 3rd, due to inclement forecast.? Hope to see you in the park!

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Overview

World Amateur Radio Day is Friday April 18th, celebrating the founding of the IARU 100 years ago.? ARRL has in recognition of the event, and in collaboration with HamSCI and SciStarter for "One Million Acts of Science" in April.

Conveniently, PART POTA activators had been looking for a time to hold a first Club POTA activation, so we're combining the events on a Saturday in April (weather permitting).? ?Given our past activation experience, we'll activate Great Brook Farm State Park (US-2435), at the area near the .?

We anticipate setting up three stations at the Park, to welcome both club members and the public to the Open House and POTA events:

• For the Open House: a low-power WSPR / digital modes station? to demonstrate innovative communications modes
• For POTA: an SSB voice station and a CW station?
  • POTA stations also provide demonstration of transmission modes and possible contacts, for Open House visitors

We'll need member support to talk to visitors at the Open House station, and to organize and run the POTA stations.

During the announced Open House time, it'd be nice to give priority to talking with / demonstrating the radios to visitors.? But the POTA stations could be active during this time with member-operators, and can continue through as much of the afternoon as there is interest (can we set expectation at club meeting that we'd be around at least through mid-afternoon, assuming good weather etc?).

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Proposed Station Details - What we need and what we plan to do

NOTE: the bolded items in the lists below are NEEDED, please let Adam AA1N know if you can bring something to cover one of these needs!

As noted above, we intend to set up specific stations in the park for this first activation -?please don't bring your own radio to operate for this particular event, as we're concerned about interference issues.? We'll do more events and plenty of the POTA-active folks would be happy to help others try out their own gear in the park, figure out logging, etc - but, for this event we'd like to focus on helping folks try out the on-air activity itself.

If band conditions aren't great, or if we have issues with station-to-station interference, then we'll back off to one POTA station plus the Open House station, or just keep one station running and do POTA (SSB or CW) when the Open House isn't active.? The objective is to have fun and get some new folks on the air in the Park, not to maximize contacts or see how complex of a setup we can run.? We'll get a good chance at coordinating multi-station ops at Field day in just a couple of months.

Open House / Station

The W.A.R.D. Open House station is meant to introduce the interested public to Amateur Radio and to the club and to emphasize the innovation and current impact of ham radio as a hands-on STEM gateway and activity.? It will operate WSPR at low power in order to show a map of propagation reports, with the capability to run low-power FT8 or JS8call, or SSB in a "GOTA" style.? It should be located near the main trail entry to the park, for best visibility, or to the back-right of the parking lot (SE corner) if we need to separate SSB and CW stations more - in the latter case consider a sign near trailhead / parking permit machine directing public.

• Canopy/large tent for shade, table for operating station?(confirming KB1OIQ & KC1TJD have these)
• Club banner, club info handouts (AA1N has handouts, K1IG or CK1TJD has banner)
• Club FT-897 radio (AA1N has this)
• Use WARC bands 12m/17m with ?? antenna (EFRW or linked-dipole?)
• Laptop or computer & monitor capable of WSPR and WJST-X digital modes (confirming KB1OIQ has one that will work)?
• Batteries for radio and computer for minimum 2-3 hours (confirming N1CEO can bring primary and spare)
• Station leads (unconfirmed) Andy / KB1OIQ and Kevin / KC1TJD

POTA CW Station

This station will operate morse code for POTA and to demonstrate that "yeah, people still do that" :)

• Canopy/tent for shade?(hopefully KB1OIQ can bring), seat(s) for operators, table for station (use picnic tables or KA1ULN camp table)
• Club IC-7300 (AA1N / club radio)
• Use 15m or 40m bands with Buddistick Vertical (KA1ULN) or OCF/endfed
• Need battery for radio (confirming - 15Ah from KA1ULN)
• Keys/paddles per user choice (KC1UML bring shareable key, bug, paddle)
• Need a way to do logging, ideally computer/mobile to generate ADIF (also paper log sheets for backup)
• POTA SPOTS should use "WB1GOF/R1" or "WB1GOF/CW" for distinct ID
• Station leads (unconfirmed) Michelle / KC1UML and Niece KA1ULN

POTA SSB Station

This station will operate single-sideband for POTA and can act as a "GOTA" station for voice during the Open House.? This should be located either at the southeast (inner-righthand) corner of the parking lot in the open field, or in the picnic area near the barn if we need greater separation from CW station.?

Adam / AA1N can provide the equipment for this station

• Canopy/tent for shade, seat(s) for operators, table for station
• IC-7300 radio
• Use 10m or 20m bands with OCFMasters OCFdipole/half-wave, or alternate EFRW
  • orient slope of? antenna away from CW station and use minimum effective power
• 20Ah LiFePo battery
• Logging device / supplies (iPad or Surface Go tablet, and paper for backup)
• POTA SPOTS should use "WB1GOF/R2" or "WB1GOF/SSB" for distinct ID
• Station leads (unconfirmed) Adam / AA1N and Steven / KC1UBT and/or Will / WJ1WJ

POTA Protocol and Logging Reminders

POTA stations in a club activation use the Club callsign exclusively over the air and for spotting.? Since the POTA spotting site removes earlier spots for the same callsign when a new spot is made, we can use /R1? and /R2 to distinguish the stations, but over the air always use simply "WB1GOF".? No specific exchange is required for POTA apart from logging the hunter's callsign (and relevant QSO info below).? ? POTA discourages "passing the mic" to multiple operators/callsigns during club activations.? In addition to the club getting credit, each operator gets QSO credit on the POTA site for the contacts they're logged on.? Apparently Park-to-Park credit only goes to the club, but I hear that an operator making 10 contacts will get an activation credit at the park.

Stations making POTA contacts need to keep a log for submission to pota.app.? Each station should generate an ADIF, which must record STATION_CALLSIGN (WB1GOF) and OPERATOR (e.g. AA1N), as well as CALL (received/hunter’s callsign), QSO_DATE, TIME_ON, MODE, BAND, and MY_SIG_INFO containing the park number (US-2435).? Park-to-Park contacts should ideally log SIG_INFO with the remote park identifier(s).? All this is only different from single-activator POTA in that you need to update the OPERATOR for each contact or string of contacts.

All logs should be shared with Adam / AA1N after the activation for upload to the POTA site.? We can also get them uploaded to the Club's LoTW logbook.