On New Year’s Day my father (KK6PTR) and I got up early to make the trip to NP46, Pinnacles National Park, to kick off the new year by jumping headfirst into National Parks on the Air. This year long event will provide the unique opportunity for “activators” to travel to different areas administered by the National Park Service in honor of the 100th anniversary of the park service, and allow “chasers” to work and log these stations with the hope of logging a contact with every NPS unit before the end of the year.

Pinnacles National Park is just one of 483 NPS units spread across the country, and like so many of them, boasts scenic trails and pushy tourists, as well as the pinnacle rock formations that give the park its name. We started off the day preparing for the cold that lingered in the high 40’s most of the day, while also setting up our equipment that consisted of two 100W HF transceivers. Specifically, I ran a Yaesu FT-857D using a vertical antenna made by Alpha Antennas, as well as a MFJ-939Y antenna tuner. KK6PTR used a Icom IC-7200 with a Yaesu ATAS-25 antenna, and a MFJ-939I antenna tuner. Also, to reduce our impact on visitors and staff of the pack, batteries were used in lieu of a generator.

My morning got to a bit of a rough start as the first half hour of calling CQ on 40m yielded no results. I was able to work a couple of other NPOTA activations at this time, but hadn’t had any success on my own. Switching to 20m was just what I needed. People started to slowly trickle in, responding to my CQ, but before I knew it a respectable pileup had formed. I owe a big thank you to whoever was the first to spot me on the cluster! With no computer or internet, I resorted to logging by hand in a notepad, and I could barely log the QSO’s as fast as they were coming in. Very exhilarating running my first pileup, and certainly not what I expected from operating portable out of a valley on New Year’s Day. With the weather and drive time, I was only able to operate for about an hour, but that still netted me 66 QSO’s for the day, making my activation “official” for all the chasers trying to log Pinnacles National Park.

Some comedic relief to follow the grueling pileups took place as I was getting ready to call it a day. Following my last CQ call, I heard what sounded like my call sign answering back to me saying, “Pinnacles National Park.” I thought it was another station trying to call me from within the park, and to my amazement as I looked around I realized the trick when I noticed KK6PTR looking up from his IC-7200 laughing at me. What I had heard was his call sign, not mine (consecutive call signs), so we technically made a valid 20m QSO while only a few picnic tables away from each other. That goes to show just how strong many of the other stations I worked were, and how fatiguing even an hour of fast paced operating can be.

I’ll be chasing all year and hope to activate again later in the year. If you haven’t worked any NPOTA stations yet, check the clusters, find the activations here: https://npota.arrl.org/nps-events.php, and get on the air and start making QSO’s!

73,

Dean KK6PTS