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This was ETHER's first activation as a club. With the permission of Prof. Weizsäcker, we activated the DL0TUM/P callsign. Parks on the Air (POTA) itself runs every day, but this was the official POTA contest, which only happens four times a year, once per season — making it more of an occasion than a routine activation. We set up in the middle of the Englischer Garten for park reference DE-0157, on 20m, working both SSB and CW.
Operating portable and battery-powered has its own challenges — no mains power, no fixed antenna, just what you can carry and set up on-site. But that's also what makes it rewarding: running on battery power makes you appreciate every single contact. Using DX spotting software to get the word out, we managed to work stations across the Atlantic with only 5–6 watts, which for a first outing felt like a pretty solid result.
Beyond the DX, we also used the Zugspitze relay for some local contacts and traded a few chats with other hams around the region, plus tested 2m propagation across Munich from our spot in the park. Because we'd set up right in the center of the Englischer Garten, plenty of people walking by stopped to ask what we were doing, and we explained amateur radio to complete strangers a few times over.
Propagation and weather weren't exactly on our side that day, so we only ended up operating for a few hours in the afternoon. Still, the setup came down having wrapped up a solid first activation for the club — DL0TUM back on the air, decades after it last was.