What on Earth?!

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This post is for all the campers, RVers, park-goers, and park Rangers who can't quite figure out what is going on in the park, or at that neighboring camp site. Most of my posts are written for an audience that knows exactly what I'm up to, but with this one I wanted to try and reach out to some new people. (PS - to all my usual readers, stick around - there's a fun little video at the end!)

I wanted to write this post because for every person that has stopped and asked about what I was doing, I have noticed about 3 who looked long and hard out of curiosity but walked on by. So what is it that I do, that generates all the confused looks? This:

My tent and radio mast set up at Darien Lakes State Park. For the frequency and type of camping I do, this tent is great. The picture is clickable affiliate link in case you are looking for an "instant-up" tent yourself.

The tent is pretty self explanatory - I do all the things in there that one normally does in a tent, plus one extra thing that involves that giant yellow pole (I call it a mast.) That one additional thing is Ham Radio, and the mast (giant yellow pole) is holding up some wire that I use for a portable antenna.

Do people still do that you say? The answer is yes, and lots of them! When you think of Ham Radio you might think of old guys in their basements, with huge equipment and giant towers, making small talk via 2-way radio across the globe, but there is much more to the hobby than that (and we're not all old! Some of us are teenagers, and some of us are dads in our 30's with only the beginnings of a bald spot😱) The easiest way to understand what Ham Radio is, and how extensive it can be, would be by comparing it to something else, so I'll give you two examples:

We might compare it to the hobby of "Hunting" because within the hobby there are people that do archery, people that use rifles, people that are into muzzle-loading, and some that are into trapping.

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Additionally, we might also compare it to "Camping" as a hobby, because within camping, some people are into car-camping, some are into RVing, some are into back-country, and some are into over-landing.

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If you have any familiarity with the depths that these other hobbies can go to, you also have a basic understanding of what Ham Radio can be. Rather than tell you about all the corners of Ham Radio that obtaining a license opens up for you, I just wanted to introduce you to the one you might come across in State and National Parks, on Mountains, and even on some remote Islands - Portable Operating!

Portable operating is just what it sounds like - we take small (relatively) equipment out with us, and set up. The folks doing the portable set-up are often called activators because we are "activating" or "putting on the air" a park, a mountain summit, an island, or some similar location. Other people who are at home then try to contact those of us who have set up our portable operation so that they can "collect" those parks/islands/mountains as places they have contacted. We usually call these folks "chasers". On any given day you might be either one, or even both at the same time!

To take this a step forward, we have created our own "awards" programs (they're just for fun - mostly😜) and when we do an activation we send our logs (the list of people we contacted) to the group that organizes the programs (there are several.) Our logs get dumped into a database, compared for some basic validation, and then we can get fancy awards, like our name on a website, or a pretty certificate to hang on the wall (remember, it's just for fun and bragging rights!)

The portable operating I do most often is part of an international program called "World Wide Flora and Fauna" which focuses on operating from a specific list of natural spaces. The places on the list for the US devision of the program are mostly state and national parks, so we often refer to it as "Parks on the Air." So the next time you see someone setting up an odd campsite, like you can see me doing in the short video below, stop by and say hi! Most of us love to chat, and if you are curious most of us are even willing to put you on the air so that you can try and make some contacts yourself (we call that 3rd party traffic, and we can help you do that as long as you have us helping as your "control operator".)

If you're at all curious about ham radio, a great place to start is the American Radio Relay League Website.  If you're into any type of outdoor activity, ham radio is an awesome compliment to that.  Not sure how?  Drop me a line and we can chat more!