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  1. Parks/

US-0334

2024


Operating Notes - POTA at Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge (US-0334)

·372 words·2 mins
The drive to the visitors centre was great, really nice to know that this is here so close to DC, and central Maryland. As per the POTA directions I checked in with the staff, who directed me towards the far end of the carpark and suggested that would be the best place to activate from. Very freindly staff! I didnt realise until later, that there were some park benches near where I parked, and because of this I ended up operating from the trunk of my car, which was not the most comfy! This time I atempted to use HAMRS again for logging, but it appears to like to go to the end of the input box if you replace a character or two, which is a bit unintuitive. This ended up with me making a fair few mistakes on the logging side. Setting up, took about 10 minutes this time. As the weather was quite warm and I was in the boot^WTrunk I enabled my car’s “camp mode”. Whilst the blast of AC’ed air was a welcome relief, it unfortuantly caused a large amount of QRM. I’m not sure if it’s the car’s inverter or the AC, I suspect the former. What went well #The staff at the wildlife refuge were extremley freindly and very welcoming of POTA activators. When went badly #Logging using HAMRS was, for me, a excersise in frustration. I see why people like the application, as there are some really nice features, however some of the “helping” features end up with some odd things happening.