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[QRPLabs] Lakes On The Air?

Bob Lunsford
 

PAINTSVILLE (KY) HAS A PARK AND PICK-NICK AREA BESIDE IT. (KY has many state parks beside lakes)

 I have forwarded the original message to the (Paintsville) club president as a good idea. To connect it to our hobby, it would be another good idea (I believe) to make it like a contest or, at least, to issue a special QSL card for those who operate QRP/solar/battery power.

Bob KK5R

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 09:44:09 AM EST, Jack, W8TEE via groups.io <jjpurdum@...> wrote:


Hi Jim:

I would love it if you'd start the ball rolling. I would not want to "force" the rule of actually being on the water, as that might force some people who want to participate into buying some (unsafe) inflatable watercraft. Rather, I would like to see some measure "from the water's edge" being used as the criteria. Most of the others rules could be adopted from other OTA's.

When the T41 project ends, I can do some programming although I haven't done much web programming since a lot of it is done in Java, and I'm not a fan. (Java is C with training wheels.)

I think the first order of business is to register a web site and draw up a set of "rules" for an activation. Keep me posted on your plans.

Jack, W8TEE

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 01:15:32 AM EST, Jim Manley <jim.manley.mscs@...> wrote:


Hi Jack, et al,

My resend attempts have all failed and I now realize that it’s the Groups.io e-mail reply formatter that’s screwing me, not (just?) GMail.  However, what do I expect for “free” (not counting the buck-two-eighty value of my personal information!)?

The software developers at those places each get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but given the lack of visible changes, let alone improvements, in their services for upwards of a decade-plus, I have to ask what, exactly, they’re being paid to do?

Anywaaay, Lakes(/Waterways?) On The Air suggests to me being _on_ a lake/waterway, along with the public interface being paramount in POTA and SOTA.  However, most boaters aren’t usually very interested in other boats being in proximity, especially if they’re near their favorite secret fishing spots.  Another problematic situation is when someone is into waterskiing at the time, and maxed-out boat racing would be a real challenge!

I suppose the 19th-hole equivalent in boating is around boat docks/ramps, at least for those who haven’t yet made too big a dent in the contents of their coolers.  A fortunate coincidence is that the largest fishing poles are often used to deploy portable antennas in remote environments, especially for SOTA, where practitioners are often thousands of feet in elevation above treelines.  I can see a L/WOTA participant deployed on a craft that would put a Soviet/Russian signals intercept “trawler” to shame!

Being the salty nautical dude that I am with well over half a century of boating and shipboard deployments all over the planet, long and deep experience developing and operating large data collection and processing systems (you may have heard of someplace nicknamed No Such Agency), and lots of experience in data sources for terrain and waterways mapping, charting, and geodesy (which covers natural and human-made lakes, rivers, canals, etc.), I’ll volunteer to kick off the L/WOTA community infrastructure.  I’ll talk to fellow POTA and SOTA organization folks for shortcuts and other pointers to help achieve rapid success.

Is that enough penance for my cute reply to your original question, Jack?

Jim  KJ7JHE


--
Jack, W8TEE

Jack, W8TEE
 

Hi Jim:

I would love it if you'd start the ball rolling. I would not want to "force" the rule of actually being on the water, as that might force some people who want to participate into buying some (unsafe) inflatable watercraft. Rather, I would like to see some measure "from the water's edge" being used as the criteria. Most of the others rules could be adopted from other OTA's.

When the T41 project ends, I can do some programming although I haven't done much web programming since a lot of it is done in Java, and I'm not a fan. (Java is C with training wheels.)

I think the first order of business is to register a web site and draw up a set of "rules" for an activation. Keep me posted on your plans.

Jack, W8TEE

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 01:15:32 AM EST, Jim Manley <jim.manley.mscs@...> wrote:


Hi Jack, et al,

My resend attempts have all failed and I now realize that it’s the Groups.io e-mail reply formatter that’s screwing me, not (just?) GMail.  However, what do I expect for “free” (not counting the buck-two-eighty value of my personal information!)?

The software developers at those places each get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but given the lack of visible changes, let alone improvements, in their services for upwards of a decade-plus, I have to ask what, exactly, they’re being paid to do?

Anywaaay, Lakes(/Waterways?) On The Air suggests to me being _on_ a lake/waterway, along with the public interface being paramount in POTA and SOTA.  However, most boaters aren’t usually very interested in other boats being in proximity, especially if they’re near their favorite secret fishing spots.  Another problematic situation is when someone is into waterskiing at the time, and maxed-out boat racing would be a real challenge!

I suppose the 19th-hole equivalent in boating is around boat docks/ramps, at least for those who haven’t yet made too big a dent in the contents of their coolers.  A fortunate coincidence is that the largest fishing poles are often used to deploy portable antennas in remote environments, especially for SOTA, where practitioners are often thousands of feet in elevation above treelines.  I can see a L/WOTA participant deployed on a craft that would put a Soviet/Russian signals intercept “trawler” to shame!

Being the salty nautical dude that I am with well over half a century of boating and shipboard deployments all over the planet, long and deep experience developing and operating large data collection and processing systems (you may have heard of someplace nicknamed No Such Agency), and lots of experience in data sources for terrain and waterways mapping, charting, and geodesy (which covers natural and human-made lakes, rivers, canals, etc.), I’ll volunteer to kick off the L/WOTA community infrastructure.  I’ll talk to fellow POTA and SOTA organization folks for shortcuts and other pointers to help achieve rapid success.

Is that enough penance for my cute reply to your original question, Jack?

Jim  KJ7JHE


--
Jack, W8TEE

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