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.
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:
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!
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