Brew and Activate

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Ask five hams a POTA question and you might get seven answers. Congratulations—you now have homework and three antennas in your shopping cart. This week on Brew & Activate, Eric–N1JUR and Shannon–KC1OHT are talking about how to make sense of amateur radio advice. A recommendation might be e...

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Sometimes you recognize the voice before they finish their callsign. You might be at a different park, using a different antenna, or having a completely different kind of day—but there’s that familiar station calling again. This week on Brew & Activate, Eric–N1JUR and Shannon–KC1OHT talk ab...

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! You’ve got the antenna up, hunters are calling, and somebody walks over to ask, “What are you doing?” Now you’re explaining ham radio while trying to remember the callsign you just heard. Excellent. Another skill they didn’t put on the exam. This week on Brew & Activate, Eric–N1JUR and Shan...

What if the biggest improvement to your POTA setup doesn't involve buying anything? Eric (N1JUR) and Shannon (KC1OHT) examine the operating habits that can cause activators and hunters to miss contacts. From calling CQ and managing pileups to weak-signal listening, incomplete callsigns, and knowing when to change bands, this episode focuses on practical skills you can try immediately. Along the wa...

Why do some POTA parks get activated CONSTANTLY... while another reference 20 miles away barely gets touched? This week on Brew & Activate, we're investigating THE POTA PARK NOBODY WANTS. What makes us choose one park over another? Easy parking? Bathrooms? Cell service? A picnic table? Good antenna space? A short drive? Knowing somebody else has already activated it? And what happens when a pa...

What’s the WEIRDEST piece of ham radio gear hiding at NEAR-Fest? This week Brew & Activate is doing something a little different. Eric – N1JUR is back at Mission Control with the Brew Crew while Shannon – KC1OHT is LIVE on the ground at NEAR-Fest with one mission: FIND THE WEIRDEST HAM RADIO GEAR SHE CAN. We’re not looking for the newest radio. We’re not looking for the most expensive radio. A...

You pull up the POTA map. There's a state park. There's a wildlife refuge. There's a historic site. There's a giant public county park... Wait. Why doesn't THAT one count? This week on Brew & Activate, Eric N1JUR and Shannon KC1OHT are asking a question that sounds ridiculously simple: WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES A PARK A POTA PARK? Parks on the Air needs rules for deciding which locations become refe...

What does it take to activate a POTA park that nobody has ever activated before? This week on Brew & Activate, we're going behind the scenes of the K1C Cross Island Expedition. On September 5, four amateur radio operators headed by boat to Cross Island, Maine, to put Cross Island National Wildlife Refuge — POTA US-0338 — on the air as an ATNO. And we're getting the story directly from the oper...

POTA isn't the only game in town. Parks on the Air has exploded across amateur radio—but POTA is just one way hams are turning portable operating into a challenge. This week on Brew & Activate, Eric N1JUR and Shannon KC1OHT are entering THE OTA WARS. We're putting four different portable-radio programs on the board: POTA — Parks on the Air SOTA — Summits on the Air TILES — Tiles on the Air PAR...

What does your POTA bag say about you? We asked the Brew Crew to open up their POTA bags and show us what they REALLY carry for Parks on the Air activations. Six brave operators answered the call. That may have been a mistake. This week on Brew & Activate, Eric N1JUR and Shannon KC1OHT are putting six real POTA bags under the microscope. Radios, antennas, batteries, coax, adapters, backup gear...

Can you successfully activate a Parks on the Air park with NO Internet? Modern POTA is loaded with incredibly useful tools: park maps, GPS navigation, spotting, propagation data, callsign lookup, logging apps, P2P information and instant log uploads. But what happens when the cell signal disappears? This week on Brew & Activate, Eric N1JUR and Shannon KC1OHT are putting the modern POTA workflo...

Are You Actually Getting Better at POTA? You’ve logged more parks. Made more contacts. Bought better gear. Earned some awards. But are you actually becoming a better POTA operator? This week on Brew & Activate, Eric N1JUR and Shannon KC1OHT are looking beyond activation counts and asking what operator improvement really looks like. We're talking about the POTA skills nobody keeps track of: tro...

Is POTA an expensive hobby... or do we accidentally make it one? This week on Brew & Activate, we're talking about the hidden economics of Parks on the Air. Not budgets. Not financial advice. Just the buying decisions almost every activator makes along the way. We've all been there... Buying another antenna because it might perform better. Adding another battery "just in case." Convincing ours...

Has POTA outgrown the platform it was built on? Parks on the Air has become one of the most successful operating programs in amateur radio—but with that success comes a bigger question: can a volunteer-driven organization keep up with the demands of a rapidly growing global community? This week on Brew & Activate, Eric N1JUR and Shannon KC1OHT take a constructive look at POTA’s growth, the web...

How much gear is really necessary for a successful POTA activation? If you've been activating for any length of time, chances are your "portable" radio bag has slowly become... less portable. Every new antenna solved a problem. Every adapter seemed like a good idea. Every backup battery was "just in case." Before long, you're hauling equipment that's been riding along for months—or even years—with...

It starts innocently enough... "I'm just going to try this Parks on the Air thing once." Then suddenly you're researching antennas at midnight, convincing yourself you need one more battery, planning vacations around park numbers, and explaining to your family why the truck is permanently stocked with radios, coax, and enough gear for a weekend expedition. Sound familiar? This week on Brew & A...

One of the biggest myths in amateur radio has nothing to do with antennas... it's the coax connecting your radio to them. Does coax really have to be 18 feet long? Can changing the length of your feedline lower your SWR? What exactly is velocity factor, and why does everyone seem to have a different answer? This week on Brew & Activate , we're diving into another ham radio rabbit hole to separ...

Who needs another pair of socks when you can bring another antenna? This week, Brew & Activate is coming to you from my Airbnb for a special Vacation Edition! There won't be the usual 90-minute show or deep technical dive. Instead, we're slowing things down, grabbing a cup of coffee, and seeing what happens when portable ham radio becomes part of the adventure. We'll be setting up a travel-fri...

We spent the last two episodes learning what SWR and resonance actually mean. Now it's time to answer the biggest question of all: How do you know if an antenna is actually performing? In this final installment of our three-part antenna deep dive, we're moving beyond analyzer readings and getting into what really matters on the air. We'll explore why two antennas with identical SWR readings can pe...

Most amateur radio operators learn that a low SWR means a good antenna and a high SWR means a bad one. But what if that isn't the whole story? In this episode of Brew & Activate, we're tackling one of the biggest myths in amateur radio: the idea that resonance and SWR are the same thing. We'll break down what resonance actually means, why reactance (X) is often more important than SWR when tun...

This Friday on Brew & Activate, Mike N2MAK joins me to talk about the upcoming ARRL June VHF Contest — what it is, how he is preparing for it, what operators should expect, and why VHF contesting might be way more connected to portable operating than people realize. We’re going to dig into the crossover between portable radio, VHF/UHF operating, contest strategy, field setups, antennas, locati...

Most ham radio operators know they should pay attention to SWR. Far fewer understand what SWR is actually trying to tell them. In Part 1 of our new 3-part antenna series, we're getting nerdy and diving deep into one of the most misunderstood topics in amateur radio. We'll break down Standing Wave Ratio (SWR), what causes it to change, what the numbers really mean, and why low SWR doesn't automatic...

Antennas might be the most important part of your portable ham radio setup — and also the thing most of us overthink, misunderstand, rebuild, argue about, and occasionally blame when the bands are just being rude. This week on Brew & Activate, I’m joined by Matt from Reliance Antennas to talk about everything antennas. We’ll dig into portable antenna setups, POTA operating, end fed antennas, r...

This week on Brew & Activate, we’re keeping it loose and opening things up for a live POTA, portable radio, and Tiles on the Air Q&A. Bring your questions about activations, hunters, gear, antennas, go-kits, logging, pileups, quick lunch-break activations, or whatever RF weirdness is currently living rent-free in your brain. We’ll also take a few minutes to talk about Honor & Activate,...

What’s actually in your POTA bag… and is it really ready? This week on Brew & Activate, we’re talking about one of the most common portable ham radio problems: keeping your POTA go-kit organized, charged, packed, and actually ready for the next activation. Because let’s be honest — most activations do not fall apart because of the radio. They fall apart because the coax is missing, the battery...