For those of you who have been waiting to hear my announcement about my "big" activation - here it is!  My regular readers will get a sneak at this post first, but beginning the morning of Monday July 18th, I'll start dropping lines to the social media world at large.  If you read this before then, consider yourself "in-the-know!" 
     Update!  Check out the Amateure Radio Newsline story about this activation!
​     After about a month of planning, we are only a few days from the big event.  Private pilots go for solo flight records for things like time and distance.  As a NPOTA activator, here are the plans for my upcoming solo "flight" attempt:

     Thats right!  In a single day I am going to attempt to activate 12 different NPS units.  I'm not sure what the current record is for activations in a single 24 hour period, by a single operator, but I'm going to attempt to put this in the books. 

     I'll have a special QSL card to send to any US stations who contact me along the way to help me out with this mission (I'll send cards outside the US if you send an SASE to the address on QRZ.)  Your card will be customized with the locations I was at when you contacted me, and I'll give special recognition right here on my blog (for what that's worth....) to the person that contacts me at the most locations, or to anyone who contacts me at all the stops I make.  Depending on the number of contacts I make, I may even create a "scoreboard" after the day is complete, so everyone who contacted me can see where they landed!

     Please ride along for my adventure, on August 1st, starting at 5:22 EST (9:22 UTC).  My planned schedule and route is below.  Because of the time pressure I am putting on myself, I'll most likely be sticking to 40 meter phone, starting at 7.220 and sliding up in frequency until I find a clear spot.  During mid day I may move to 20 meters depending on the conditions.  
     Times listed below are approximate based on travel and band conditions, but represent the earliest time I will likely be starting each park:

• Gettysburg National Military Park, MP03, 5:22 EST, 9:22 UTC
• Eisenhower National Historic Park, NS13, 6:05 EST, 10:05 UTC
• Catoctin Mountain Park, DZ01, 7:09 EST, 11:09 UTC
• Antietam National Battlefield, BF01, 8:15 EST, 12:15 UTC
• Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, HP14, 9:12 EST, 13:12 UTC
• Cedar Creek and Belle Grove, HP06, 10:37 EST, 14:37 UTC

• Blue Ridge Parkway, PK01, 12:30 EST, 16:30 UTC
• Shenandoah National Park*, NP51, 13:02 EST, 17:02 UTC
• Appalachian National Scenic Trail*, TR01, 13:02 EST, 17:02 UTC
• Bluestone National Scenic River, WR02, 17:23 EST, 21:23 UTC
• New River Gorge National River, RV03, 19:09 EST, 23:09 UTC
• Gauley River National Recreation Area, RC09, 20:01 EST, 0:01 UTC

                                                       ​* These 2 parks area a 2-for-1 activation

     I will attempt to operate for about 30 - 45 minutes at each location, but I will stay longer if needed to reach the minimum number of required contacts for the activation.  As long as I don't get too far behind my planned schedule (I have left some wiggle room) I'll try to stay at each location for at least 30 minutes to give everyone trying to join in the fun an equal chance.  The only exception to this will be the Appalachian Trail / Shenandoah activation where I am planning for 90 minutes, since I will need to leave my vehicle and move my a gear a few yards on foot in order to satisfy the NPOTA requirements for trail activations.  I recommend checking my Facebook page, or the NPOTA Facebook group, if you are trying to keep tabs on when I arrive at each park (links provided at the end of this post).

     While I was planning the trip, I wanted to make sure I could get in and out of places quickly, so aside from the above activation, the rest of the activations will be from my vehicle.  The first 2 units are parks that technically are not open yet at the time of my activations, however they also have public roads that remain open 24 hours passing through them, so those 2 stops will be from pull offs along those local roads that the park has for stopping to view markers, etc.  I also e-mailed the superintendent of those parks, so there shouldn't be any surprises.  
     For the river activations, I was lucky enough to be able to locate boat ramps that I can park along to be able to get within the necessary distance of the river. Luckily, all the parks I will be hitting in the evening are open 24 hours, so I'll still be in good shape when it gets dark.

     If anyone wishes to contribute to the event, I am asking for no monetary support.  All I need is your best wishes, prayers for safety on my travels, and for you to be there on the other end of the radio waves when I call:

CQ CQ CQ November 3 Victor Echo Mike for Parks on the Air

I hope you can join me on my NPOTAthon!  When the day comes I'll try to do some live posts on my facebook page and in the National Parks on the Air Facebook group.

Do you think I can do it?  If not, how many parks do you think I'll get?  Leave a comment and let me know!

​73!

     There was recently a fairly large thread that ran through the National Parks on the Air Facebook Group, because apparently a fellow ham, with more enthusiasm than couth caused problems with one of the Parks that Sean Kutzko, (KX9X - the driving force behind NPOTA at the ARRL) had to clean up.  
     Rather than throw my 2 cents into a rather long thread, that was already starting to go down some ratholes, I figured I'd share my thoughts on planning activations and what I have done, to make sure that my operations would go smoothly, follow the rules, and be fun all around.  

     My NPOTA activations are usually tacked onto work trips, so the planning is challenging, because I can't always plan for exact dates and times of activations.  I do generally know however, that I'll be in the area of a park on a certain date range.  By way of example, I knew that I would be passing very close by the Martin van Buren site on my travels today.

     When I know I am going to be near a park, the first thing I do is visit that park's web-site, and check their hours.  I don't want to be the guy poking around somewhere at a time I shouldn't be.  Luckily, many of the national parks have one set of hours for the actual buildings (visitor center's etc.) which are usually somewhat standard 9-5 type stuff.  They often then have a separate set of hours for their grounds - often times dawn-dusk, or depending on the type of park, 24 hours.
     Once I know the hours, I look at the type of park - if it is a park that is a large recreation area, where people would bring all kinds of equipment by the nature of what is in the park (camping, fishing, boating, photography, etc.) I just go, because I know my little activation with my small equipment won't really be any different than any of these other things going on.  If I see (using Google maps) that the park has large parking areas where I could just operate from my car unnoticed, I pretty much do the same thing.
     However, for parks that are small, if I know ahead of time when I'm going, I just e-mail the superintendent and ask.  So far I've only been told no once - I passed that info along through the proper channels on the ARRL site, and I picked another place to go - that simple!  If the park I'm near is a small one, and I have any doubt, I just don't activate!
     Tonight was a good example though, of a case that wasn't clear.  The hours on the park web site looked to me like they were hours for a visitor center, but looking on Google maps, I could see that there was a lot of ground, and even a trailhead parking lot away from the main buildings.  I figured I'd stop and scope it out.  There were no signs posted at the lot when I pulled up, but there was a sign, that had some map / flyer holders, so I grabbed one, and found what I was looking for:
​

     So, according to the flyer, the trail area closes at dusk.  At the time of day I got there, it was after dusk.  There wasn't anyone around, so maybe I would have gotten away with activating anyway, but I didn't - I got back in my car and continued on my journey - sometimes being a good NPOTA activator means you don't activate.  Just learn what you need to learn, and try again another time, or pass along the info to another activator.  In this case, if anyone want to activate this park, there is a nice little trailhead parking area across the road from the visitor center, that would make a perfect place to sit and play radio - just get there before dusk!

First, a couple project updates:

• The Home Shack:  2 more walls to frame, then the framing is done!
• Secret Project:  A small amount of progress involving paint and sandpaper has been made  (paint?  sand-paper?  what kind of radio project is he up to?!)

     Now, on to the actual topic of this post!  If you've been following along, you might remember my Winter Field Day post, where I talked about my setup, and what I did.  Because I had a little one that was only 2 weeks old at that point, I was in and out quite a bit, so I didn't get to operate for a large portion of the 24 hour period, but that's okay, because it was still a blast!  Anyway, every so often I checked the website to see if the results were posted, and when I checked today, they were up!  (To be fair, I haven't checked for a while so they may have been posted a month or two ago.)  Anyway, I consider it a success, because I didn't get last place!  Check out the Winter Field Day Results page and see if you can find my call sign...just a hint, I was in the 1O (1 operator, Outdoors) category.

This is N3VEM, throwing the big switch.

     This was another one of my NPOTA activations that was tacked onto a work trip.  There are a couple things about this activation that made it a special one for me, and they aren't specifically related, so I apologize in advance if this post seems like it rambles or gets long - I'll at least do my best to keep it moving in a logical order!   
     The way this story starts, is that I was making a trip to my company's Rochester office. Rather than sit around in the hotel for the evening, or sit around doing work (I love my job, but I still don't want to do it for 100% of my waking hours!), I decided to sneak in an activation.  The Women's Rights National Historic Park was close(ish) to my hotel, so I checked the website, and found that their grounds are open 24 hours - the perfect place to do a late evening activation!

     The first significant thing about this activation was the 2 famous hams I got to contact as part of this activation.  I'll circle back to the first in just a moment, but the second of those two contacts jumped out at me after just a second's hesitation.  When I am doing these activations, I usually log on my laptop, and as I answer the station calling I'm typing their call sign at the same time.  In this case I was saying Kilo Bravo 6 November Uniform you're"  and then I stuttered.  This was because I didn't recognize the call sign until I saw it in writing after I typed it - KB6NU.  Once I realized it, I right away said, into the mic, when I should have been giving a signal report, "I recognize that call sign!  Is this Dan?"  from the other end of the airwaves "Yes it is."  At that point I had to fill him in that I read his blog, and listen to a couple of the podcasts that he regularly appears on....I guess my wife would call it acting like a "Fangirl" but I thought it was cool to make a contact with the guy that writes a blog I read, whose study guides I used for my tech and general exam's (I did them both in one sitting - upgraded to Extra about a year after that) and who I hear on the Ham Radio 360 and ICQ podcasts.

     The other contact that I wanted to mention was something that didn't even dawn on me at the moment, but after I realized it my mind was just blown!  Even thinking about it now as I write this, it's almost emotional.  Here's the story:  As I wrapped up the activation, I saw a message on my post in the NPOTA Facebook group that said "Thanks for the new one!"  Anyone want to guess who that was from?  Okay, I'll tell you.....Kay Craigie!  That's right Madam President!  I know she is not the current president, but for a geeky ham like me, being president of the ARRL is like the being president of United States - once a president, always a president!  When I saw that comment I scrambled to look back at my log, and sure enough, there it was, N3KN, number 1 in the log for this activation!

     This contact leads me to the second significant part of this activation for me.  Think about it!  How awesome is that!  I'm at the National Park that memorializes women's rights, my first contact is with someone who is also getting this park in their log for the first time, so it was a first in both directions AND that person just happens to be someone who was the Female President (first female president I believe!) of an organization that represents a hobby/service that is dominated by men.  How do like them apples?!

     So here's my challenge with this in mind.  Let's make ham radio as inclusive of all groups of people as possible, women included.  Our culture is still ripe with inequalities for women, and while I'm no expert on the subject here are a couple things that jump out at me - the US women's soccer team, that has multiple world cup championships, is paid on average something like 60% (don't quote me on the math here) of the US men's team, which can barely get out of their own way to get through the qualifying rounds.  I also personally feel that our rules for FMLA leave in this country are woefully inadequate, and we still force women to choose between careers, and spending the time with their children that their children really should have, and those in power often shrug it off.  There are even some religious institutions that encourage this behavior with some of their ideas, but in the interest of not going down the religion/politics rathole, because ham radio isn't the place for that, I'll move on.

     In the interest of moving on, I'll end with this:  A big part of National Parks on the Air is about bringing attention to the Park Service, the individual parks, and what they represent.  For me, the activation in this park struck a nerve with something that we discuss in our house regularly, and the serendipitous 1st contact of that activation being with Kay Craigie, N3KN just helped cement the significance of this park in place for me.  After all, "Women's rights are human rights."

     I've never really read a lot about how people handle mobile logging when they work HF mobile, so I figured I'd share what I do!  I read this tip a while back, in a home magazine, because a reader said they used it to make notes so they wouldn't forget things when they got a phone call while driving.  I heard it and went, "hey!  I can use that to keep track of my contacts while mobile!"

     Basically, I write down my contacts, and then type them into an app on my phone when I get home or when I get to my destination.  The method I use to write them down is the unique part...a good old dry erase marker!  This way I can write on the windshield while still looking through it, so I can scribble notes without taking my eyes off the road.  After I'm parked and punch them into my phone, I just grab the eraser and wipe the slate clean!

     I had a bunch of contacts on my recent drive home from Boston, partly because the 13 Colonies event was starting...here's what my windshield looked like by the time I got home...

Catch you down the log!