{"id":11821,"date":"2018-09-11T22:01:40","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T02:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gars.org\/gars\/?p=11821"},"modified":"2018-09-11T22:02:41","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T02:02:41","slug":"september-beginners-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gars.org\/gars\/september-beginners-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"Beginner&#8217;s Corner September 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Taking your Radio on the Road<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; Autumn and cooler weather will soon be upon us.&nbsp; This means we no longer have to sweat it out when going outdoors.&nbsp; Time to take that new radio of yours outdoors!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; It\u2019s nice to go to a local park and see who is on the air.&nbsp; Gwinnett County had a plethora of parks.&nbsp; The XYL (wife) and I have a desire to work all of the Gwinnett County Parks.&nbsp; This is an undaunting task, but it brings us outdoors and we have a lot of fun talking to each other from different parts of the park, or talking to others when they have joined us.&nbsp; I am hoping for a \u201cWorked All Gwinnett county Parks Award\u201d. Would anyone care to sponsor it?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; The author has finally been able to get his base station ready to go portable.&nbsp; We have batteries and antennas galore to do this.&nbsp; Going portable is fun, and it does provide expertise during an emergency.&nbsp; With my handy-talkie, I can throw a J-pole antenna up in the air and work several VHF and UHF bands.&nbsp; I can also get on HF as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; There are also several awards available for activating certain sites.&nbsp; For those of you who had your license in 2016, there was a National Parks on the Air (NPORA) program, sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) to celebrate the 100<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of the National Park Service. <a href=\"https:\/\/npota.arrl.org\/\">https:\/\/npota.arrl.org\/<\/a>. it was an outstanding success!&nbsp; Many individuals and clubs (including GARS) activated national parks all around the country.&nbsp; Contacts were made on HF, as well as VHF and UHF, including satellite contacts.&nbsp; It was fun to do.&nbsp; The author went to the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area twice.&nbsp; It was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; Someone decided that one year of national park activation was not enough.&nbsp; Now we have Parks on the Air (POTA) <a href=\"https:\/\/parksontheair.com\/\">https:\/\/parksontheair.com\/<\/a>. This program is bigger than the original NPOTA, in that it includes state parks, as well.&nbsp; Wanna see what it\u2019s like?&nbsp; Go to YouTube and in the search box, type in \u201cparks on the air\u201d. There are many well documented park activations. The author can watch them for ours.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; If that isn\u2019t enough, there is a Summits on the Air program, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sota.org.uk\/\">https:\/\/www.sota.org.uk\/<\/a>, too.&nbsp; This one started in the UK and has spread worldwide.&nbsp; There are several places in Georgia that count as summits.&nbsp; A recent trip to the Kennesaw National Battlefield was a good site survey for a qualifying summit.&nbsp; Again, YouTube had a lot of fun videos of summit activations.&nbsp; Activate enough of them and you can become a \u201cMountain Goat\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; The fun continues, because there is an Islands on the Air, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iota-world.org\/\">https:\/\/www.iota-world.org\/<\/a>, and a Lighthouses on the Air, <a href=\"http:\/\/arlhs.com\/\">http:\/\/arlhs.com\/<\/a>, sponsored by The Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society.&nbsp; I hope to go into more detail about them in future columns.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; \u201cBut wait,\u201d you say, \u201cI am a new ham and I only have my handy-talkie (HT).&nbsp; How can I activate all these sites?\u201d&nbsp; if you can rig some kind of external antenna, do so.&nbsp; Many contacts have been made on VHF and UHF frequencies.&nbsp; Going to a summit or the top of a lighthouse (Get permission first.) gives you a very high antenna.&nbsp; That will dramatically increase your range.&nbsp; Plan your activation ahead of time and notify whatever \u201cota\u201d group you plan to activate.&nbsp; Tell your friends and notify people on the club reflectors that you are going. There is also a web site called DX Summit, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dxsummit.fi\/#\/\">http:\/\/www.dxsummit.fi\/#\/<\/a> where you should be able to \u201cspot\u201d yourself.&nbsp; I don\u2019t know if they will accept VHF\/UHF spots, but it\u2019s worth trying. Stay on the calling frequencies of whatever bands you are authorized.&nbsp; Remember, technicians have 6 and 10 meter privileges, so those bands might work as well.<\/p>\n<p>Happy activating!<\/p>\n<p><em>David Harden<\/em>, KJ4CMY<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking your Radio on the Road &nbsp;&nbsp; Autumn and cooler weather will soon be upon us.&nbsp; This means we no longer have to sweat it out when going outdoors.&nbsp; Time to take that new radio of yours outdoors! &nbsp;&nbsp; It\u2019s nice to go to a local park and see who is on the air.&nbsp; Gwinnett [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[17,18],"class_list":["post-11821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beginners-corner","tag-beginners-corner","tag-newbie"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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