Hi!

I am going to be operating from one, and maybe two, sites in the ARRL's National Parks on the Air program during Thursday. I plan on starting the day from the western part of Saguaro National Park, west of Tucson AZ. I hope to be in Tucson for the western SO-50 pass around 1550 UTC, and plan on staying in the park for other passes until I at least make contacts with at least 10 different stations. I see AO-85 passes in the midday timeframe, so I should be around through at least those passes. Depending on how the mountains are in relation to the roads through that part of the national park, I may not operate from just one spot. Saguaro National Park is NPOTA site NP49, and in grid DM42.

If I make the requisite number of contacts with unique call signs from Saguaro National Park for an official NPOTA activation (10), I am thinking about making another stop on the way back to Phoenix late in the afternoon. The Picacho Peak State Park is a state park along the I-10 freeway about 50 miles/80km northwest of Tucson. This state park is not part of the NPOTA program, but it is along the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail that is part of NPOTA. The state park is one of the many sites along this trail with a National Park Service passport stamp for the trail. I may be able to work the SO-50 pass around 2245 UTC, which covers much of the continental USA and Canada, from here. There is a slight possibility of also working the 2125 UTC AO-85 pass, but I'm not 100% sure I'll be up to Picacho Peak in time for that one. Just like Saguaro National Park and the Tucson area, this location is also in grid DM42, and the trail's NPOTA code is TR13.

For US history buffs, Picacho Peak is the site of the westernmost battle during the US Civil War in the 1860s, the Battle of Picacho Pass. There are re-enactments of that battle every year at the park, and lately there have been more people at the re-enactments than were involved in the actual battle in 1862!

One really good way to track my travels on Thursday is via APRS. I will use my TH-D72A on the terrestrial APRS network as I drive around southern Arizona, and I'll squawk my location as WD9EWK-9. Among other sites, you can see my location show up at:

http://aprs.fi/WD9EWK-9

I will try to update the AMSAT-BB with what I am doing during the day, but the best place for last-minute updates - and maybe some photos of where I am operating from - will be my @WD9EWK Twitter feed. If you aren't on Twitter yourself, not to worry. You can view my Twitter feed at:

http://twitter.com/WD9EWK

QSOs will be uploaded to Logbook of the World sometime after I return from southern Arizona. Temperatures will be at or over 104F/40C in the afternoon down there, so I am not worrying about trying to upload QSOs to LOTW while I am at either of these sites.

73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK