We plan to activate two parks as a group on Saturday April 6th, beginning at 9am as a part of Parks on the Air (aka POTA, found at: www.parksontheair.com). We will activate the Chestnut Picnic Area at Catoctin Mountain Park located here and Monocacy National Battlefield at the Welcome Center located here.
One very important note regarding access to Chestnut Picnic Area at Catoctin Mountain Park:
MD Rt 77 (aka Foxville Road) is currently closed between the eastern edge of the park and Park Central Road. If traveling north on US 15 from Frederick and points south, the best route is to turn left on Catoctin Hollow Rd, follow that to the end, then turn right onto MD 77 and then left onto Park Central Road. This adds about five minutes to the journey. If coming from the west on MD 77, the construction is a non-issue.
Mike K3MMM will spearhead Catoctin and Justin AB3E will spearhead Monocacy. Feel free to bring a portable radio setup or part of a setup or simply show up and use one of our radios. Since others can act as control operator, no need for any particular license. Each contact you make will count towards the club K3ERM score as well as your own, if you create a free POTA account in advance.
Please check back here for updates. We look forward to seeing you there! If there are questions, my email is valid on qrz.com.
73!
Mike K3MMM
How long will you be at Catoctin Park? I work in the morning and want to come by when done if you’re still there. Will you be on BHF or just HF?
I expect that we’ll be out at the parks from 09:00 until sometime between 11:00 and noon – mostly depending on how the fish are biting. I’ll probably have a radio on 146.52 to try and activate on 2M, although the geography is not fab for 2M operation. I’ll keep the second VFO on W3FDK 146.73 (if I can get there from this site) or 147.09 W3CWC (+600 KHz offset, PL100), which I can see from this site. I’m hoping you can make it! Mike