My gut tells me that it is going to be the Calendar that pulls together a community.
LOL maybe it all boils down to a PN&R certificate for doing 100 POTA hikes. We’ll call it The Pack Mule or something.
F me, I think that’s the solution. I’m going to sit and think about it for the next few days. It certainly checks all the boxes I’m looking for.
We’re going with the Pack Mule for 2026. I like the idea of a difficult goal, and it mirrors the SOTA Mountain Goat achievement. It also avoids duplicating current OG POTA awards.
When PN&R gets bigger we can revisit an awards program.
This has been a really good conversation, thanks everyone.
@w7pfb is 100 the right number? It ‘feels’ right but you are more in tune with the data. I would expect the first certificate to be awarded in mid-2027 if it’s 100 (based entirely on how long I think it’d take me).
I’m a little unclear on the rules. Is the rule that your station setup must be more than 1km from your vehicle, or is it that you must carry your gear more than 1km, or just that you must walk at least 1km in the park before you do the activation?
Example: I drive to a small park that has trails. I get out of my car, put on my pack, walk on the trails for an hour (approx distance 5km), sit down at a picnic table, make a mug of tea, set up radio and antenna, and activate the park. Does that count, even though it’s only, say, 100m from the picnic table to my car?
If the rule is you must set up at least 1km from your vehicle, there are going to be a bunch of activations that amount to “drive to the town, park in the church lot, walk along the highway to the park, set up and activate” which somehow doesn’t feel quite in the spirit of what you want. But there are a lot of smaller parks where there won’t be a spot more than 1000m from the vehicle.
That issue aside, I think 100 seems like a significant achievement but not impossible. On the other hand, I’ve run 212 miles in a six day footrace, so my idea of ‘not impossible’ might quite a bit different from what other folks think. Much will depend on what other people think is too hard and I might not be a very good judge.
Paul I’m sure I had you in class one semester… 
I probably should simplify the rules somewhat. It might be enough to state that the award recognizes operators who hike into a park with their station on their back, and then require participants to agree to upload terms like…
This program honors operators who carry their station into a park on their back and activate as part of a hike. By submitting your log you are telling the POTA community that you did by god hump that gear in, and you have pictures of the mosquito bites to back that up. If we ever find out that you were sitting in a parking lot or at a picnic table, people – maybe people you know and trust – will sneak into your shack and drive a pin into your coax, flush so it is really hard to see. The pin won’t be in a random spot, it will essentially short your coax in such a way that your antenna matcher will see a nice 50 Ohm match, and you’ll be using just that short segment of coax as your antenna for as long as it takes for you to realize why you are only making FT8 contacts.
I think that will be sufficient.
No, I’ve never been in one of your classes…
It’s just that I grew up in a family supped full with lawyers and had a very nice career writing operating systems. My entire life I’ve been dealing with starting conditions, ending conditions, invariants, edge cases, race conditions, OBOEs, and finding squirrelly ways to interpret text.
There’s a spot on Squak Mountain, known as the Bullitt Fireplace - there used to be a hunting cabin there. It’s a significant hike to reach it - a few miles and considerable vert - a challenge for me with my current back issues. There’s a decrepit picnic table there. I plan to hike to that picnic table, set up, and activate there.
And if that does not count for your award, well. I can’t think of what I’ll do, but I’ll set aside some time to contemplate the problem.
Sounds like the decrepit picnic table I operate on that’s sitting on top of Mt. Wilson. The last time I was up there it took four hours to get to the picnic table. I could’ve walked the road to the top in significantly less time, but that’s not the spirit of the Pack Mule. I do think it needs to be a decrepit table, though.
I’m in the pacific northwest. Every picnic table that isn’t in a picnic shelter is wet continuously for 8 months out of every year. Even the picnic tables that are made from Trex are covered in moss, fir/hemlock needles, algae, and bird poo.
We do not have non-decrepit picnic tables here. 
1 Like