POTA Antenna Build – What a Great Time!

Parks On The Air (POTA) is an activity that began in 2017 and has since ignited significant interest across the amateur radio community. If you ever wanted to be on the other end of a small pileup, like portable operating (field day) or if you like collecting, POTA is probably for you. There are two ways to participate: as a hunter and as an activator. Hunters are basically radio amateurs who collect parks (much like collecting islands for IOTA, summits for SOTA, DX for DXCC, etc.). All you need for that activity is an HF station and an internet connection to look up POTA stations that are currently on the air. To be an activator, you find park destinations that are registered, travel there, set up your gear, find a clear frequency and call CQ. You can spot yourself at https://pota.app and then prepare for the pileup! Several SECARS members are active POTA enthusiasts, including Bob W1RPQ, Jim WB4JIM, Adam KB1YUT and Pete K1PTO. You can find out more about the program at https://docs.pota.app/

Given that you need portable equipment to set up a POTA station, SECARS sponsored a POTA antenna build earlier this month. The objective was to create an inexpensive, light, easily deployable, high performing antenna for POTA use. Bob W1RPQ, Adam KB1YUT and Pete K1PTO were instructors at the event. I extend my thanks to all three for an excellent job planning and leading this activity. We all had a great time building our antennas, learned a lot and are ready to join the POTA activator crowd! Based on the success of this event, I predict we will have several more antenna builds of various flavors in the future. Bob is already talking about an end-fed dipole antenna build for home or portable use.

The following description was written by Bob W1RPQ and contains details regarding the antenna – should you want to build one on your own.

POTA Antenna Kit: The kit consisted of an antenna base with 3 legs, an antenna mount, an 18.4’ telescopic Antenna with a 3/8” to M10 thread adapter, a ground lead and a Faraday cloth ground sheet. The class assembled the antenna base, crimped the ground lead and installed gromets on the ground cloth. Once the kits were complete, we moved outside and tested each antenna kit with an antenna analyzer. Everyone was able to get a 1.5:1 or better SWR reading on 20meters, 17meters and 10meters. A few also tuned their antennas to 60 meters.

A big thanks to Adam, KB1YUT for sourcing all of the material, 3D printing the antenna bases, cutting the steel legs and for cutting and sewing all of the Faraday ground sheets. We had 10 students sign up for the class and everyone either attended or picked up their kit for the build. The cost of the kit was $75.00.

Materials list for the kit:

Source: The base unit for this build was a modified version of the PolyPuck v3 by W0AEZ, thanks to him for a great design. You can order a kit and get more information from his website https://w0aez.com/products/polypuck-kit, build instructions at https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0827/9139/9711/files/PolyPuck_Assembly_Guide_PDF.pdf?v=1695411976 and 3d printer files at https://www.printables.com/model/292691-vertical-antenna-tripod-polypuck-v3

Note- the following quantities were chosen to make large quantities economical, if you’re trying to shop for a single kit results may vary.

Antenna https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D8Y67Z47

Antenna Adapter 3/8-24 to M10 x 1.5 https://www.mcmaster.com/92499A793/

Antenna mount https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001JT7AJA

PETG for PolyPuck https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C8NMYKFM

M4 Heat set inserts https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7M3CN9W

M4 Thumbscrews https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HGP7CTH

copper wire https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y71BZ5Z

ground ring terminals https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1DCPH6G

leg O-rings https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MN8G92