Parks On The Air

One of the coolest things to happen in amateur radio recently is the Parks On The Air (POTA) program.

A few years back, during the 100th anniversary of the National Park system, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) developed a special program to celebrate the centennial. Hams went into national parks and set up portable stations. They would work stations operating in other parks and from home. Awards were given out for the various accomplishments during the year.

Everyone enjoyed the special program so much that it was quite a letdown when the year ended. Jason Johnston, W3AAX, decided to create a perpetual award program, where stations set up in parks (“activate”) and operate from home (“hunt”) and accumulate various awards.

Due to my broken leg last year and other things, I got a bit of a slow start in POTA. But as of this writing I have done five activations in a total of four different parks. I also have made a lot of “hunter” contacts from home, portable or mobile working activated parks.

You can learn more about POTA at https://parksontheair.com

You can also follow my progress at https://pota.app/#/profile/KU4A

In other ham radio news, I worked all 13 Colonies during the annual special event in early July. Bonnie’s granddaughter was visiting from North Carolina, so I set up a portable station at Bonnie’s house so I could enjoy the visit and still do some operating.

I usually operate Field Day from Bonnie’s using temporary antennas. This year, unfortunately, she had to have roof damage repaired due to a bad hail storm in June. With the work going on around Field Day weekend, I ended up operating from home using battery power. I made 245 Morse Code contacts running 5 watts.

College Football

Anyone who follows college sports knows that massive changes are underway. Some of the changes are good, some are not so good. And they all involve money in some way shape or form.

Amateur athletics has been broken for awhile. Many have made the point that the universities make so much money (especially in football) that it is time that the athletes be able to share the wealth in some respects.

Scholarship athletes are given a lot of perks in addition to a free education and room and board. A lot of them receive extensive tutoring and counseling, and get to enjoy top-notch athletic facilities.

While I’ve been a proponent of the concept of amateur athletics, I frankly don’t object to the new concept of “Name, Image and Likeness” (NIL) rights, where an athlete can be financially compensated for the commercial use of his persona. Naturally, the NCAA has developed a set of specific rules for how the system is to operate.

Unfortunately, either due to a lack of understanding or a willingness to openly break the rules, dozens of schools have begun offering recruits a specific amount of money (from a commercial enterprise) in order to sign with the team. This has led to a giant bidding war for the best athletes.

The way it is supposed to work is that potential sponsors can get together and create a pool of NIL money for a specific incoming class of recruits, and the recruits can be made aware of the pool of money. But it cannot be promised to a specific athlete or athletes ahead of enrollment at a school.

So many colleges and universities are breaking the rules that many speculate that the NCAA will not take any enforcement action. So, we end up with a system that the school that has the wealthiest fans/alumni are virtually guaranteed to obtain the best athletes.

I’ve been a college football fan all my life, but I have to admit that I am rapidly losing interest in the sport due to how it is presently evolving. I will keep tabs on my schools (Ohio State and Kentucky) but will no longer spend all-day Saturdays watching the sport.