getontheairActivator code of ethics, safety & etiquette
On-air manners that also apply on a repeater live in one place: listen first, leave a gap, ID at least every 10 minutes. New-ham walkthrough: Get on the air.
Do
- Leave No Trace. Pack out wire scraps, ties, batteries, orange peel. Walk the site after teardown — radials and feedline hide in grass.
- Yield the trail. No guy lines across a path, no battery box in an emergency lane, no mast in a playground.
- Flag what you plant. Mark guy lines, stakes, and feedline with high-vis tape or cones. Night packing is when people trip.
- Watch voltage. 4S LiFePO4: plan to stop around 12.0 V. Do not park on the BMS knife-edge. Equipment that says 10.0 V is a last-ditch cutoff, not a target.
- Be the ambassador. Answer the “what is that wire?” question like a human. You are the hobby’s booth at the park. Handouts (ARRL “what is ham radio,” QSL cards) are useful — some parks treat distributing literature as a permitted activity, so be discreet.
- Check in with staff when the footprint is large or the park is sensitive. Take no for an answer. Food goes away from the operating position; campground animals chew coax and steal sandwiches.
Do not
- Do not tie to monuments, historic structures, or protected trees when it is prohibited — which is most of the time. A mast exists for this reason.
- Do not operate outside the boundary or the SOTA 25 m AZ. “Almost in the park” is not in the park. It also makes the next ham unwelcome. Trails and linear refs: confirm the current activation zone on docs.pota.app — do not guess from a yellow pin.
- Do not depend only on a phone. Paper log + pen in the kit, every time. Photograph each page before you leave the table.
- Do not run a generator on a SOTA summit. Do not use a repeater for the activation QSOs. Simplex VHF/UHF is fine.
Safety is not a vibe: weather, ticks, heat, lightning, and a hike back in the dark. If the forecast is ugly, the park will still be there next weekend.
Power, LiFePO4, and Anderson Powerpoles
Field 100 W is a current problem, not a “12 volt” slogan. An IC-7100 / IC-7300 / FT-891 class radio can pull on the order of 20 A on a SSB peak. Skinny cigarette-lighter leads drop voltage, the radio folds back, and CAT falls over. Do this instead:
- 4S LiFePO4 (nominal ~12.8 V) is the usual field chemistry. Plan to stop around 12.0 V under load. The BMS knife-edge (often ~10 V) is a last-ditch cutoff, not a target — cycling there shortens pack life and surprises you mid-pileup.
- Size the pack to the sitting: QRP 5–10 W is often happy on 6–12 Ah. 100 W SSB for an afternoon wants something in the 30 Ah neighborhood; FT8 at 50–100 W is high duty cycle — go bigger or turn the power down.
- Anderson Powerpole (the ham 12 V standard): heavy pigtail from the pack to a fused distribution block, then branches to radio / tuner / laptop. Match contact size to wire (30 A contacts on ~12 AWG is a common 100 W run; 45 A on ~10 AWG if the run is long). Fuse each branch. Tug-test the housings before you leave the driveway.
- QRP internal packs (KX2, 705 BP-272, KH1) are a different chemistry and a different floor — see the hardware brand page. Do not copy the 12.0 V LiFePO4 stop onto a 3S lithium pack.
Deep wiring: Hardware hub. RV house banks: RV & camping.
RF in the “shack,” common-mode, and your face
If the microphone bites, the laptop reboots when you key, or the USB codec vanishes, the feedline shield is radiating. That is an antenna problem, not a radio menu.
- Give the antenna a return (EFHW counterpoise, 9:1 counterpoise, vertical radials). Then choke the shield so RF does not ride the braid to the picnic table.
- A 1:1 current choke (toroid on coax, or a clamp kit) belongs at the feed or a short jumper away from it, and another at the radio if the jumper is long. Do not choke the only return path on an EFHW that is using the shield as counterpoise — lay a real counterpoise wire, then choke. Detail: EFHW · Random wire.
- Snap-on ferrites on USB, Powerpole pigtails, and laptop chargers kill the leftover. Inverter hash in an RV is a different animal — kill the inverter while you operate (RV).
- RF safety: start at low power, sweep SWR, then go up. Do not sit with your head in an EFHW high-voltage feedpoint. Do not hold a 5 W HT on high power against your skull for a net. Boat and wet-ground sittings: Boating.
Lightning: disconnect feedlines outside the operating position when storms walk in. A park activation is not worth a strike on a mast. Home shack bonding: Permanent shack.
Body, weather, and the walk back
- Ticks, heat, hypothermia, and a dark trail are more likely to end the outing than a 1.5:1 SWR. Water, a layer, a light, and a way to tell someone where you parked.
- Lightning nearby: QRT, antenna down, get off the ridgeline. SOTA AZ is a terrible place to argue with weather.
- Food away from the operating position. Raccoons eat coax.
Hitch masts and radial fields: the 4WAVE does not get a pass on trail courtesy. No radial across a travel lane, no extended hitch in a stall where a minivan door becomes a weapon, no guy line at neck height.
On-air: this site is not advertised over amateur radio. Part 97 stays Part 97.
Listen, gap, ID
- Listen first — one full QSO on a repeater, and one full QSO on a spotted frequency, before you call. Same habit, two places.
- Leave a gap after the courtesy tone (repeaters) and after the activator says “QRZ” (parks) so emergency or P2P traffic can in.
- ID at least every 10 minutes and at the end. Field CQs that never say the callsign waste the pile.
Footprints (backpack / picnic / mobile / camp / field-day) live on Setups.
Hunter etiquette (activators are running a frequency)
Hunters have as much impact on pileup quality as activators.
- Listen first — one full QSO minimum before you call.
- One call, one identity — do not double or send three copies of your call.
- Never tune up on the activator’s frequency (phone, CW, or FT8 slot).
- P2P/S2S — when the activator asks for field-to-field, non-portable hunters yield.
- Ragchews — save long stories for activators who invite it; many need QSO rate for a valid activation.
Details: Hunt · CW · POTA hunter guide · first net: Get on the air
Habits / gotchas / checklist
Notes & edits
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