Summit Co. Metro Parks OTA

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Enjoy Autumn in Ohio! CFARC is sponsoring a “Summit Count Metro Parks on the Air”-type event called CFARC To The Field or CTTF. The event will be Wednesday, September 14th from 4:30 to 7:30 PM EDT (20:30 UTC) and is open to all area amateurs. Participants will be in a local Summit Metro Park or at their home stations contacting those parks. For detailed information on this activity view, CFARC has a slideshow available at tiny.cc/cttf.   

The event will take place rain or shine, so have contingency plans for shelter or mobile operations in case of rain. If you have physical limitations, no problem, you can operate your mobile radio from your vehicle in the entity’s parking area. Don’t want to operate alone? Take a friend or two to share operating duties. Add additional radios for multiple bands/modes for even more fun. The bands chosen for operation are open to all license classes so participation can be as simple as an HT or mobile radio. CFARC suggests you participate in another Field activity as a warm-up – Ohio State Parks On The Air (OSPOTA) on Sept.10th.

CTTF Operating Options

  • In Park Stations
    • Mobile (in your vehicle with attached antennas)
    • Portable (temporary antennas & portable powered rigs)
    • Pedestrian (self-contained station with HT or other radio and antennas capable of operating in motion)
  • Home Stations (Non-Park)

Allowed Contacts

  • Park ↔ Home
  • Park ↔ Park

Modes & Frequencies

  • 10M, 6M, 2M & 440 / FM
  • 6M & 10M / SSB

See chart below for suggested frequencies

* Note 10 Meter FM is not available for Technician licensees, all other freq are available to all licensees

Stations can make contacts with other stations once per band per location. If a station changes parks, they can be contacted again on each band. Park stations should give their location when calling CQ so the station will know if they can make additional contacts. Home to Home Station contacts do not count.

Park Stations

Exchange

  • Park Stations- Callsign + Give park name or abbreviation (see list)
  • Non-Park Stations- Callsign + Give six-digit Grid Square (i.e., EN91he) see next slide for info on finding your grid

Sample QSO

Station K8AA (in a park)Station W8BB (at home)
1CQ K8AA Furnace Run Metro ParkW8BB (whiskey eight bravo bravo)
2W8BB, Furnace Run, FM (Fox Mike)K8AA, Non-park, EN91fd (echo November 9 1 fox delta)
373, CQ K8AA Fox Mike

Logging & Submissions

Please record time, band or freq, callsign & exchange for each contact (printable logging sheets will be available on the web page later this week).

Be sure to log all your contacts as you will need the particulars later when you apply for some of the awards available under the CFARC “Summit Metro Parks on the Air”.  In addition, we ask that you send your logs to [email protected] or [email protected] after the event.  All submitted logs with a minimum of five (5) contacts will be entered into a drawing for $50.00 gift certificate to DX Engineering.  You may work solo or in groups of 2-3 operators.

Scoring is based on the following:

  1. The total number of stations you work
  2. The multiplier is the total number of unique park entities you work, each park is only counted once per contest (not once per band)

The gift certificate is not based on your scoring in the contest. To be eligible for the random drawing for the gift certificate, you must complete at least 5 valid contacts.

In the Park

Like Field Day, you may be well-advised to plan your operation ahead of time.  Keep in mind that our radio operations from the Summit Metro Parks are to celebrate their 101 Years in operation and no damage to any of the parks is permitted.  That includes not using any trees to secure antennas.  Your operation may be along a trail or may be set up in the parking lot but do not obstruct other persons who may be using the parks since this operation is during the Fall Hiking Spree, which is a peak time of park use.  Remember that your portable or mobile operation from one of the parks may introduce someone to ham radio who did not even know of its existence beforehand.  It is an excellent opportunity to create goodwill for our hobby and might even encourage someone new to join this great hobby. Anthony plans to have a handout you can give to interested parties in the parks (which he is still working on and will post on the website later).

Resource Links

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