Good day all!  Just a quick note to share with any of my readers who happened to miss the announcements that we have started sharing about the Summer 2019 Support Your Parks Event:
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   For this second annual event, I am coordinating the sponsorship, and distribution of a series of plaques for Parks on the Air, Inc. that will be up for grabs during the Support Your Parks, Summer 2019 event.  This event takes place on July 20th and 21st UTC.
     These are no ordinary QSO party plagues!  Up for grabs will be premium series plaques, on black piano-finish wood.  The Award is laser engraved on an 8x10 textured black aluminum plate with a silver Florentine border.  Check out these beauties, which were awarded during this event in 2018:

​For 2019, we have a list of plaques that may be available, depending on the number of individuals or clubs that volunteer as Sponsors – if you or your club is interested in sponsoring a plaque, read the “plaque sponsorship information” section later in this document.  The final list of plaques that will be up for grabs will be shared via the POTA Facebook Group and POTA Slack Channel 1 week prior to the event.
 
I will be once again sponsoring the “Most Contacts, Activator” award, to get the ball rolling.  

General Rules and Items for Consideration

•  Plaque winners outside of the continental US will be responsible for any cost over $15 associated with shipping plaques.  Winners will have an opportunity to decline the physical plaque if desired.

 

• The POTA database will be used for data collection for the awards.  All activator logs must be submitted within 3 weeks of the end of the event, winners will be announced before the end of the following month.  Hunters do not submit logs.

 
Plaque Sponsorship Information

• Previous sponsors have first priority in sponsoring the same plaque as they did the year before

 

• Because of the high quality of these plaques, sponsorship of a plaque costs $115.  The price of the plaque varies depending on the number of characters in the winner’s name and information, but is generally between $90 and $100.  Flat rate shipping to send the award to the winner is $15.  After all plaques are paid and shipped, any remaining funds from sponsorship collection will be donated to Parks on the Air, Inc.  If final cost of plaques and shipping is greater than the amount collected from sponsorship, I will contribute the balance.  If the winner of your sponsored plaque declines receipt of the physical plaque, you as the sponsor will have the choice to either have the plague made and sent to you, or to have the full amount of your sponsorship donated to Parks on the Air, Inc.  All Plaque sponsors will be provided with a copy of the final invoice for record keeping and any valid tax purposes.

 

• If you or your club is interested in sponsoring a plaque, contact me at  N3VEM@parksontheair.com and you will be provided with a list of plaques available to sponsor.  If you decide to sponsor a plaque, full payment must be made by July 12th, so that we can announce the final list of plaques that will be available.

     As anyone who has checked in with me regularly could tell you, I help support the database and website for the Parks on the Air program.  I have really been enjoying this for 2 reasons:

• It gives me a practical application for my freshly printed (the ink might not even be dry yet) Information Systems degree
• It keeps me involved in the hobby, even during times when getting on the air is challenging because of the family commitments involved with having 3 little kids while doing some traveling for work.

     In that role, I've gotten a lot of questions about logging, quite often around Park to Park contacts.  If you're into that type of thing, I put together this video to give a high level overview of how it works.  I'll admit I have very little video-editing foo, so consider this informative, if not well polished:-)  If you don't dig taking the 25 minutes to watch it, here's the TL;DW...

• We follow the guidelines of the ADIF format
• We only store "valid" qsos in the database, that meet the program rules (1 contact per call, per day, per band, per mode, per park)
• Make sure you log yourself the way you announce yourself on the air (i.e. N3VEM, or N3VEM/P etc.)
• Make sure you are accurate with time in your log - there is a 15 minute window that the system uses to match park to park contacts
• Best practice is to log the other operators park in a park to park contact.  The system usually finds the matches if you don't, but there is a very specific scenario where it won't, so consider yourself warned if you like to play it loose :-)

    For those of you that have the time to kill, and enjoy an educational video, albeit of questionable quality, here you go!

     Just in case you didn't already know this, I've been putting in a lot of hours helping to get the QSO storage system for the Parks on the Air group up and running.  From the main website, if you go to the dashboard section it takes you to a page of statistics where you can see results from activations, log in, look at your own personal profile etc.  That's the stuff that we've been furiously working on for the last few months :-)

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    Since I just recently finished up my Information Systems degree, it's been nice to have this project to help work on, so that I can get some "real world" use out of my new-found skills, and support a hobby that I enjoy at the same time!

     Fun certainly does not always equate to easy though!  It's been quite a lot of work (I estimate conservatively that I've spent about 12 - 20 hours a week on it.)  The only reason I point out the amount of effort that we have been putting into this, is to highlight that we're all volunteers doing it - Our reward is seeing people enjoy the program, and having a fun time activating parks.  In one case though, one of the individuals who participates in the program, and also helps out with some of the administrative stuff, went above and beyond to show his appreciation, and sent me this in the mail as a way to say thanks:

     So, in return, thank you!  As soon as the new shack is ready to start having furniture moved in, and decorations hung, this will be one of the first things to go up on the wall!  Until then, it's sitting next to me in the temporary closet-shack that I call home while the dirt and dust flies around down in the basement :-)

     If you got to this post by doing a Google search for the title, and you were looking for a song by the same name - shame on you for listening to terrible music :-)  

     Hello all!  There are no exciting pictures to share yet, but my shack project has moved one step further along - last week I reached out to 3 folks to come and have a look at the drywall I hung to give their estimates on finishing it for me - 2 called back, and the first stopped by this morning to check things out.

    The good news is, he told me that for not being a drywall hanger, I didn't do to bad - that was good news to me, because it was the first time I ever hung drywall!  Luckily, he's another ham too, so when giving him directions I was able to give him my address, and let him know to just look for the car in the driveway with all the antenna's on it!  The second person will be stopping by later this week, so I'm hoping that by early next week I'll have nailed down who/when, and will be able to start planning the next phases of the project - paint, putting down the floor, and building out the operating position!

     As a final note, don't forget that this weekend is the "Support Your Parks Summer 2018" POTA event, where myself and K0ATZ have sponsored a pair of plaques that are up for grabs - hope to hear you on the air!

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One of the things that I enjoy in life is doing things that make other people happy.  It's not out of some sense of altruism.  It's quite the opposite actually - it's self-serving because it brings me a lot of joy to see someone happy, grateful, or excited about something, and to know that I had a part in the reason for their happiness.

For me, this was the reason I decided to sponsor a plaque for the upcoming POTA "Support Your Parks" event.  In addition, Brian - K0ATZ decided to sponsor one as well, so there are a pair of plaques at stake - one for "Individual Activator" and one for "Individual Hunter" during this Summer's 2 day event!

  "Support Your Parks" is a seasonal event, which happens 4 times a year - Spring, Summer, Fall, & Winter - for 2 days.  The Summer 2018 event is on July 21st and 22nd (UTC).  The main purpose for these 2 day events each season is to encourage portable activity in state / federal / provincial parks.  The only "Rules" at play are the normal rules for the POTA program.  If you'd like to try and earn one of the plaques available for this Summer's event, you'll also need to be certain to be a registered POTA user/member, and activators will need to be certain to submit their logs with enough time for their regional coordinators to upload them before 23:59 UTC on August 5th (regional coordinator contact info is available on www.parksontheair.com.)

Have fun, and I hope to hear you in/from the parks!