PLS respect QRP ... frequencies of **.060 and above are by ARRL gentlemen's band plan intended for QRP use. POTA and SOTA stations that are QRP are very welcome. SOTA stations especially carried everything in and up, and are both power and antenna challenged. Give them a chance!
Two big problems with Parks On the Air, 1. There are no city parks included which is dramatically limiting the number of activators due to travel time/number of parks and it also dramatically limits the number of non-hams, especially kids who see it( probably excluded 99% of the potential vissiblity). If you look at Houston all the parks are in the middle of nowhere (I live in Houston) and an 1hr+ drive for most hams. 2. QRP limits the number of hunters because there are so few activators because of #1 and unless you have a Yagi you can't hear them (I stopped hunting because I have wire antennas and can never hear the activators). Sorry, this is going to die if you don't fix #1. Note, I have over 50 activations.
I call absolute BS on your point #2. To date I have 475 successful activations out of 475 attempts. All of them have been QRP, 10w SSB or 5w CW. It's never been a problem getting a pile up answering my calls.
I noticed when I was running QRP I always got the same hunters. If watch a bunch of K4SWL CW activations on UA-cam (I used them to help learn CW), about half the hunters are in almost every video. When I switched to 30W CW I the number of contacts increased along with the diversity. You have to have the "gain" somewhere, either the receiving antenna, the transmitter or the distance (see number 1 fix this one), simple math.
The city / county park issue has been addressed numerous times. The POTA database is maintained by volunteers. The sheer number of local parks combined with the fact that there's no source for a list of them makes it simply impossible. There are 10,610 parks in the U.S. that are in POTA. Houston is one of a very few places with the problem you describe. You should be having a conversation with your TX state representatives about the park system before you pronounce a program that's growing 50% every year dead. Making contacts QRP with a limited antenna from an urban area is hard - POTA or not. I did it in the Pittsburgh area for a few years. It was a lot easier to buy a 7300 than to argue with physics.
Ditto: I have been active on POTA for three years using the FT-817 with a 66 foot EFHW 7,400 QSOs and counting. QRP is an exercise in the 'art' of radio.
Houston doesn't look that bad on the POTA map; are those parks in a 50mi radius hard to get to? I often hunt POTA by going to a non-POTA local city park as it's less noisy and more space for antennas than my home lot. So city parks aren't totally out of the picture, although I agree it would be great to have them included.
POTA --- a great American activity !!
Great Presentation!!!
73 de N2NWK
PLS respect QRP ... frequencies of **.060 and above are by ARRL gentlemen's band plan intended for QRP use. POTA and SOTA stations that are QRP are very welcome. SOTA stations especially carried everything in and up, and are both power and antenna challenged. Give them a chance!
Two big problems with Parks On the Air, 1. There are no city parks included which is dramatically limiting the number of activators due to travel time/number of parks and it also dramatically limits the number of non-hams, especially kids who see it( probably excluded 99% of the potential vissiblity). If you look at Houston all the parks are in the middle of nowhere (I live in Houston) and an 1hr+ drive for most hams. 2. QRP limits the number of hunters because there are so few activators because of #1 and unless you have a Yagi you can't hear them (I stopped hunting because I have wire antennas and can never hear the activators). Sorry, this is going to die if you don't fix #1. Note, I have over 50 activations.
I call absolute BS on your point #2. To date I have 475 successful activations out of 475 attempts. All of them have been QRP, 10w SSB or 5w CW. It's never been a problem getting a pile up answering my calls.
I noticed when I was running QRP I always got the same hunters. If watch a bunch of K4SWL CW activations on UA-cam (I used them to help learn CW), about half the hunters are in almost every video. When I switched to 30W CW I the number of contacts increased along with the diversity. You have to have the "gain" somewhere, either the receiving antenna, the transmitter or the distance (see number 1 fix this one), simple math.
The city / county park issue has been addressed numerous times. The POTA database is maintained by volunteers. The sheer number of local parks combined with the fact that there's no source for a list of them makes it simply impossible. There are 10,610 parks in the U.S. that are in POTA. Houston is one of a very few places with the problem you describe. You should be having a conversation with your TX state representatives about the park system before you pronounce a program that's growing 50% every year dead.
Making contacts QRP with a limited antenna from an urban area is hard - POTA or not. I did it in the Pittsburgh area for a few years. It was a lot easier to buy a 7300 than to argue with physics.
Ditto: I have been active on POTA for three years using the FT-817 with a 66 foot EFHW 7,400 QSOs and counting. QRP is an exercise in the 'art' of radio.
Houston doesn't look that bad on the POTA map; are those parks in a 50mi radius hard to get to? I often hunt POTA by going to a non-POTA local city park as it's less noisy and more space for antennas than my home lot. So city parks aren't totally out of the picture, although I agree it would be great to have them included.