Parks on the Air (POTA)

POTA is the easiest way to have a pileup call you. Every registered park has a reference number, activity is spotted automatically, and hunters are always watching.

The basics

• Activator — operating from inside a park's boundary. Hunter (or chaser) — working someone

who is.

• A valid activation is 10 contacts from one park in one UTC day. Fewer still counts for the

hunters; you simply do not get activator credit.

• Every contact counts for both sides, and one contact can count for several awards at once.
• Parks are identified as K-1234 in the US; other countries use their own prefix.
• The UTC day matters — an evening activation can straddle two "days" and, if you get ten either

side of 0000Z, two credits.

Before you go

1. Find a park on pota.app and read its notes; some references cover several access points.
2. Check the access rules. Most state parks are fine; some require a permit, and national parks

vary by unit. Ask a ranger — being open about what you are doing avoids every problem.

3. Post a scheduled activation on pota.app so hunters can plan.
4. Check space weather and pick bands accordingly: 40 m and 20 m

are the workhorses, 17 m and 15 m when the flux is up.

The exchange

Short. Call sign, signal report, state or park:

CQ POTA, CQ POTA, this is NA1RA, kilo-one-two-three-four, over.

— NA1RA, this is W1XYZ, five nine, Connecticut.

— W1XYZ, five nine, thanks, QRZ POTA?

That is the whole contact. Save the conversation for a quiet moment.

Spotting yourself

Self-spotting is expected and encouraged. Use the pota.app spot page over cell data, the POTA Spotter or Ham2K PoLo apps, or an SMS/APRS gateway where there is no signal. If you are on CW, the Reverse Beacon Network will often auto-spot you within a minute.

Logging and submitting

• Log the park reference, your call, the operator, and each contact with UTC time, band, mode and

call sign.

• HAMRS and Ham2K PoLo produce a correctly formatted ADIF for you; a paper log transcribed

later works fine too.

• Upload the ADIF to pota.app under the right park and date. Hunters do not need to submit

anything — their credit comes from your log, which is why accurate logging matters.

Park-to-park

Two activators working each other gives both a park-to-park contact, which counts extra and is its own small addiction. Watch the spot list and hunt other activators between your own runs.

Awards

Activator and hunter awards at 10, 25, 50, 100 parks and upward; Kilo (1,000 contacts from one park), James F. Larue awards, Repeat Offender, late-shift and early-shift awards, and the annual Support Your Parks weekends. None of it costs anything.

Etiquette that matters

• Do not activate somewhere you are not allowed to be, and never leave line, tape or hardware in a

tree.

• Set up out of the way of other visitors. You are an ambassador for the hobby every time somebody

asks what the wire is for — carry a NARA card or a whatishamradio.com pointer.

• If a hunter is weak, work them anyway. Ten contacts is easy; the person struggling with 5 W from

an apartment will remember that you pulled them out.