POTA and SOTA awards

Parks on the Air and Summits on the Air are award programs first and foremost — the outdoor operating is how you earn them. The operating side is covered in parks, summits and portable operating; this page is about what counts and what you get.

Two roles, two ladders

Both programs recognize you from either end of the contact:

• Activator — you are the one at the park or on the summit, calling CQ and giving out the

reference.

• Hunter (POTA) or Chaser (SOTA) — you are at home working them. This is the part people

overlook: you can chase every award in both programs without ever leaving the shack, and it is one of the best ways to fill a new band or a new state.

POTA

• Every registered park has a reference number (for example K-1234), and your logs are matched

against the activator's automatically once both are uploaded — there are no QSL cards to chase.

• Ten valid contacts in a UTC day makes an activation of that park.
• Awards accumulate by contacts, by unique parks, and by repeat activations, with plaques and

certificates at each threshold, plus endorsements by band and mode.

• Special activities — Support Your Parks weekends, late-shift and early-shift activations,

and park-to-park contacts, which count for both operators at once.

• Because activations are announced and spotted in advance, POTA is the easiest way to arrange a

contact deliberately rather than hoping — useful when you are chasing a specific state or a new band. See Worked All States.

SOTA

• Summits carry a reference and a point value scaled by height, and points count toward

Mountain Goat (activator) and Shack Sloth (chaser) at 1,000 points.

• Activations must be self-powered on the final ascent — carried gear, no vehicle power — and

contacts must be made from within the activation zone below the summit.

• Summit-to-summit contacts are their own award category and are prized.
• Because summits are often worked on VHF, on CW and at low power, SOTA overlaps heavily with

QRP and CW and QRP awards.

Related programs

The same activator/chaser model now covers other things worth activating — islands, lighthouses, castles, beaches, mills, world flora and fauna sites. See other on-the-air programs.

Why these programs took over

They removed everything slow about awards chasing: no QSL cards, no fees, automatic log matching, instant online spotting, and a reason to be outside. They also produce enormous on-air activity on weekday afternoons, which is exactly the demonstrated band use that keeps allocations defensible — see organizations.

Logging for both is covered in logging and QSLs.