1st ever Parks on the Air Activation at US 1189 Red Rock Canyon State Park! HAM Radio

I've recently got into amateur radio and HF. I practiced and passed the upgrade to general and I purchase a Yaesu FT-710, Wolfe River Coil antenna, and other items to get prepared to get on the air. This last trip I was able to do my first ever Parks on the Air (POTA) at Red Rock Canyon State Park US-1189 in California!
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📨 Send Mail To:
Duane Robert
P.O. Box 225
Edwards, CA 93523
📨 Email To: [e-mail]
🕸 Website: www.duanerober...
#HAMRADIO #yaesu #parksontheair

[@itumblers]

Nice! Thanks for posting!

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Thanks @itumblers hope the video was interesting!

[@NHRebelsthoughts]

Nice to see you Duane !!!! You were missed

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Yeah it's been a while, this year so far has kind of been a little weird - but HOPEFULLY smooth sailing from here!

[@NHRebelsthoughts]

@@dustyroaddestinations I am glad you are ok

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Yeah doing much better! Once my doc finally filled the medications my numbers and such came back down. Nice to see "normal" ranges again. Hope you're doing good as well!

[@NHRebelsthoughts]

@@dustyroaddestinations my health is good . My ex is up to her usual Shenanigans. Gotta love predictability

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Yeah. They generally can’t stop and are pretty darn consistent. Glad your health is good! 👍🏻

[@scythezilla9163]

Awesome, thanks for the video!

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Thanks for watching! Hopefully it wasn't boring I know it focused mainly on the radio stuff!

[@scythezilla9163]

@@dustyroaddestinations radio stuff is cool, nice addition to the dusty times

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Yeah I've kind of went off the deep end on radio. I went ahead and studied/passed my general license upgrade so now I can do more and use more radio bands. This parks on the air things seems like it will be fun to do when I go camping. They count National Forests so when I'm in my normal places I can "activate" those "parks". Kind of bummed I messed up the way I recorded the video and audio though.

[@michaelgiles6450]

Nice to see the sun shining, have a wonderful time Duane 😊 Mick from lreland

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Yeah it was a nice day that day. The wind picked up but it wasn’t too bad. Hope you enjoyed the video.

[@WoNkY_eYe_bURtOn]

Cool

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Thanks for watching!

[@VanLyf]

Glad to see you making videos again! ❤

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Yeah its definitely been a bit. It's amazing how time can just slip by!

[@camerasandcoffee3466]

GREAT video Duane! Love it!

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Hey Mike! Glad you liked it! I'm still hoping to convince you to come join the radio dark side!!!

[@AnthonyEarl]

Great to see this. Just got my license (tech & general together) & the radio you have is top of my shopping list

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Congratulations on getting the license! That's really good that you did both. I've been doing it piecemeal and just got the generally a few weeks ago. I've been really happy with the radio. The waterfall definitely helps to see whats going on and find signals. If you don't mind let me know what you ultimately get? There are a lot of great options out there! Thanks for checking the video out!

[@AnthonyEarl]

Thank you. I look forward to getting out there & will let you know

[@jmathre44]

Love this video. It's a hobby I've been considering for a little while. Thanks for the content!

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Thanks for watching I really appreciate it! I think it's going to be a cool addition the overland stuff - go out find a place to camp AND do some radio stuff. The Parks on the Air thing just kind of fits with it pretty well! Have you done any of the amateur radio testing yet?

[@jmathre44]

@@dustyroaddestinations I'd like to know more about the "parks and activation" thing. I have a FB friend I went to HS with, and he's posted some info about Ham Radio the past couple yrs, apparently he's really skilled and knowledgeable about it. I really know next to nothing about it, but I would enjoy the aspects of overlanding, technology, and telecom. Also, just in case all other communications fail, though I'm not a prepper or anything like that.....yet. ;)

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Check out Ham Radio Prep - their course isn't bad and the videos walk you through the material. The test is a published question and answer and the course will go through all the questions and track your results. Once you pass all of them you should be good to go. With the first license (technician) you can do all the handheld stuff and a limited amount of HF. The general opens up the HF stuff to you and that is where you can talk across the country and world. I started into all of this with that same mentality of backup and emergency communications. You can find more information about the Parks on the Air program at www.parksontheair.com and pota.app. The also have a youtube channel where they go over the how to do it. My main backup real-world-emergency device though is a ZOLEO satellite SOS device that also always me to send text messages and breadcrumb my route every 6 minutes. If you have any questions let me know! I definitely understand how confusing all this stuff is and it's tough when you don't have someone you can talk to. Oh my "gateway" drug into ham radio was GMRS, I got that license first and when I heard about all the interlinked repeaters on AMATEUR/HAM radio I then did that. TBH that was a bit of a disappointment because of where I go - but HF looks like it just might fix that problem. You can also send SMS and EMAIL from HF radio (although I haven't successfully tried that yet).

[@jmathre44]

@@dustyroaddestinations Thanks so much for the info and links, I really appreciate it. I think there may be a couple of clubs here in Albuquerque that could be beneficial to me too. I'll hit you up if I have any questions. I've heard this, like Overlanding, can be as expensive as you want it to be, but not sure. lol I've spent way to much on my rig, but would love to get into amateur radio if there's a budget friendly way to do so. ;)

[@dustyroaddestinations]

@@jmathre44 that is true if you want to go crazy you can spend a lot of money - but there are more budget options that are solid. What's cool about the mobile stuff is the antennas can literally be a length of wire and that can get you on the air. That coil thing I was using was I think $120 but it's a pretty solid setup. I think The Tech Prepper is in your neck of the woods and his videos are pretty cool. Probably more in line with what you're wanting to do - like targetted comms - I liking the POTA thing because it's kind of a reason to get outdoors and set up a radio. Plus I'm learning a lot about my gear and propagation. Post a video of your rig on your channel I'd love to see your setup !

[@tmcmsail1]

Glad to see you making content again..

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Thanks Tim I appreciate that - it's been an interesting process this year (so far). Hoping to turn things around. I did really enjoy doing the radio thing - that was kind of a challenge to get everything working.

[@ab-kh4hm]

Great!

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Thanks for watching! 📻

[@nutritionperfection]

Awesome. If bands are up and down as they are some days you can always jump to digital to finish out an activation. I've activated a couple parks and done 5 activations in total now. It's always fun. Just bought some Koss headphones to overcome the issue of guys in the noise floor but still need to make the cable so they will connect to my FT-891 (along with a footswitch).

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Oh thanks for the clarification, I wasn't sure if it was by band or park. I'm REALLY glad I was able to make it work on 10M. I figured I'd just stay there until it happened. That sounds like a neat setup with the headphones and footswitch. I was going back and forth between the 891 and the 710. I still think I might get an 891 at some point. I'm hoping to head back out again this weekend and give it a go again! Thanks for checking out the video and the ideas!

[@nutritionperfection]

@@dustyroaddestinations You did great for your 1st activation. You can actually work the same contact multiple times and it counts if it's on a different band or mode. I did some 10M and 15M digital on a couple of my activations and got enough to activate on those bands alone. 20M is where most activity is but I like using different bands and modes for the fun of it. I'm using a Wolf River 213" whip with the Sporty 40 mostly (with a jumper to bypass the coil when desired) and either the window screen or Faraday cloth and either of the groundplanes work well. I've also tried an activation with a hamstick and it worked as well but I'd really like to get a mast and throw up a wire to see the difference. Good luck on your future activations!

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Oh wow I didn't realize that - the documentation and other videos I've seen haven't really been clear on it. So I could work you on 10m, 20m, then FT8 on the same day from the same park and it would count as 3 contacts? That Wolf River coil has been a lifesaver with the simplicity of setting up. Well let me clarify, the desert doesn't really have any tress so I can't really throw a line up anywhere. I did try to setup an EFHW with a 23' fishing pole and that was a train wreck. I probably need to get a mast but I need to just get some more time with the gear I have. I forgot to put it in the video but I should've put up a contact map showing where my signal ended up. Thanks again for the encouragement and clarification it is VERY much appreciated!!!

[@Rusted_Link]

What can be done on your end to improve the audio? Have you looked into ways on improving that?

[@dustyroaddestinations]

For the "good" strong signals the internal speaker worked great. The problem is those weak signals that don't even really show up on the meter. I think in that situation the best-bet is to use headphones. Honestly once I plugged in my phone's headphone and had the signal punched into my ears it worked pretty good. That once guy that called in that I barely could hear, if I didn't have headphones I would have NEVER copied his callsign. In the future I'm going to record the radio audio separately so that I have that part recorded. Or I'll see if there is a way to keep the speaker on even when headphones are plugged in - not sure if that is an option. Thanks for checking the video out!

[@Rusted_Link]

@@dustyroaddestinations check out my QRZ. KO4TNL I just got done building a POTA Box. I'm trying to find where I bought the speaker from. I had decent audio even with an S0.

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Man that is a really cool setup you have! I'm carry my radio around in a knock off pelican but that's really cool to have a box setup and ready to go! I did buy the AESS version so I have that external speaker but wasn't sure about dragging it outside. Plus my hearing isn't great but I'll have to play around with some things to see if I can get away from using headphones. I tried to see if I could keep the speak on with headphones but if there is an option for that I couldn't find it. I think I'm really going to get hooked on the POTA thing hopefully we can connect one of these days!

[@cindyc]

📻🏜

[@dustyroaddestinations]

LOL exactly radio and desert! Thanks for watching @cindyc

[@tylerdurden7965]

Hey Duane! For the uneducated, can explain what's happening here? lol

[@dustyroaddestinations]

Great question, in amateur radio there are many different events people can participate in. What I was doing there is a Parks on the Air "activation". What that means is I went to the pota.app website, looked at the map, found a dot for a "park near me", and I set up a radio there to try to make contacts with "hunters". To officially activate a park you need 10 contacts, anything below that and you don't get credit for an activation. The pota.app site tracks and validates the contacts (you have to submit logs, which is what I was doing on the computer) and they validate the contacts. So the people who called me get credit/points when I submit the log. So it's a way to encourage people to get out and visit state parks, national parks, and national forest as well as other historical sites. Since I generally end up in those locations anyway for my camping stuff I figured it would be interesting to add that into the mix. I should have included a description about it in the beginning - I'll do that next time. If that is clear as mud let me know and I'll see if I can explain it better.

[@tylerdurden7965]

@@dustyroaddestinations interesting. what is a park "activation"?

[@dustyroaddestinations]

It's when you get 10 people to respond to your call requests - if you get less than 10 then it is considered a failed attempt to activate the park. If that was to happen they still want the activators to submit their logs because the "hunters" still get credit for finding you.