Winters in Southern Ontario can be tough. Canadians are used to dealing with snow and ice, for sure. Some even enjoy the season. I know fellow club members who can hardly wait for the snow so they can get out on their snowmobiles.
Snow Pile-Ups but no QSO Pile-Ups!
The problem is, Ontario Provincial Parks are almost all closed every winter and Parks On The Air rules prohibit activations in parks that aren’t open. I get withdrawal symptons from not being able to go out with my POTA backpack and do battle with the pile-ups that accompany almost every “CQ POTA”.
The New Radio Sled
Winters became a little more tolerable for me recently when I completed my Radio Sled. It was the second one I have built. I foolishly sold the first one in a garage sale when I moved a couple of years ago.
My new sled is built better than the first one. It is basically a pair of skis with cross braces supporting a flat surface on which I secure my POTA kit. It even has a support for my field portable vertical antenna.
I took the Radio Sled out for a field test recently and logged a couple of POTA activators. That gave me an idea. You can be a POTA “hunter” from anywhere, but to be an “activator” you have to be inside the boundary of a POTA “entity” that is OPEN.
Voila Eh?
So here was the “lightbulb moment”. What about a reverse activation? A successful activation of a POTA entity requires a minimum of 10 QSOs. A reverse activation would be 10 hunter QSOs from anywhere that is not a POTA entity.
I have christened this idea a Reverse Activation of a POTA Nonentity – a RAPOTAN. The idea is to get outside (yes – in the middle of winter, hey why not, we’re Canadian eh?) and hunt 10 POTA activators.
I must stress that this is just the personal ravings of one Canadian trying to stay sane through the long, cold, dark winter. It is absolutely not endorsed by the Parks On The Air organization.
Ham Radio Outside the Box 