POTA Event - Saturday, November 5th!
On Saturday November 5, 2022, ARTS will have its first club POTA event. If you have an interest in Parks On The Air (POTA), portable operations or just being outside playing radio, we would love for you to attend.
The first event will be up on Firetower Hill (pavilion) in the Clark State Forest in Henryville, IN. To get to the site, simply follow I-65 N into Indiana and go to exit 19 which is the Henryville exit. Take a right off the exit and go down to the 4-way stop and take a left. Go down .8 miles and take a left into the park. They have been building better signage for the entrance but it's decently marked as it. Once in the park...follow the signs to the Firetower. You will know your close when you start climbing in elevation. The pavilion parking lot is on the left off the side of the road. Once in the parking lot there is a short walk up a hill to the pavilion.
We plan on being there at 9am to start setting up. We plan on running 2 stations and we will primarily operate on 20m and 40m. I will need to wrap up around 1pm at the latest. That should be more than enough time to make a bunch of contacts and give everyone the opportunity to operate a station.
If you have never done POTA, think of it as a mini pop-up field day. If you have never been to a Field Day, then you should come on out and have some fun.
If you are not familiar with the program, you can visit https://parksontheair.com/ to read about it. Please go ahead and sign up for your own personal account also. Click on the login link at the top and it will take you to pota.app where you can sign up. I recommend doing this a few days ahead of time as they will need to approve your account.
We will be activating under the club call sign, W4CN. The logging software I use for POTA is HamRS. When you make a contact, the club gets credit and you as the operator will get credit...so it is a win win. You will need to make 10 contacts to get an activation. The club will be activated after the first 10 on any band. After we are finished, I will upload the logs to their site and the stats will show up under the club and under your own account.
One thing I will want is to get a head count of those who would like to attend. We will pick up some snacks...maybe donuts or some other snacks. If for some reason the weather is not cooperating, we will reschedule. The long term goal is to get a group that goes out at least once a month as a club. This may even include overnight camping as there is a whole "late shift" component.
Please let me know if you are interested and can attend. If you have any questions, please reach out. It will be a fun time regardless.
Thanks
Paul
N9PMI
President-Elect - ARTS