Parks on the Air, commonly referred to as POTA, is an amateur radio award scheme that encourages amateur radio operators to get outdoors, develop their portable / mobile operating skills, and demonstrate the hobby to the public.
The scheme is up and running in many countries around the world, including the UK. There are thousands of of recognised parks and trails available to be operated. The scheme is inclusive and whilst many parks can only be reached and activated on foot, there are plenty that can be activated sitting in a car, or campervan.
There is plenty of documentation on how to activate a POTA site, but it is relatively simple.
What’s what in POTA?
If you are activating a POTA site you are known as an Activator. If you are working an Activator, you are know as a Hunter. An Activity is an Activator operating from a POTA site.
Activating a POTA site
A successful activation requires a minimum of ten contacts from a POTA site within a single day (00:00 – 23:59 UTC). If an Activator fails to make the required contacts, they will still upload their log to the website so that Hunters can claim their points for working the park.
Contacts can be made on any amateur radio band, using any band and any level of power – providing it’s within the terms and conditions of your licence. Operation through land repeaters and relays is not permitted, but contacts through satellites are.
There is a facility for Activators to spot themselves on the website so that Hunters can see who is on the air and Hunters can spot Activators too. Spots stay live for thirty minutes, after which re-spotting is required if the activity continues.
Activations can only take place when a park is open to the public – so no hopping over the fence after hours. This includes daily and seasonal opening times. Activations cannot be made from private properties within a park, so if you live in a national park you must be outside your property’s boundary for your activity to count.
Interestingly, trails and rivers can count as a ‘park’. To activate one of these you need to be within 30.5M (100′) from the edge of the entity.
Another interesting idea is that some sites exist as parks within parks. For example, you might be on a trail, running alongside a river in a national park. These are referred as two-fers, three-fers, etc. Personally, I only claim one site per activation and use it as an excuse to revisit the site.
Operating FT8 digital modes
I operate mainly FT8 from POTA sites. You might think that the limited availability for data exchanges would make this difficult; how do you exchange POTA references and how do you time sync, for example?
Before you call CQ, you can create a macro that contains ‘CQ POTA G7LFC IO72’. This will be available in WSJT-X’s Tx 5 field. Transmit this, and when somebody responds to your call, double-click on the reply and continue your contact from there. Whilst it doesn’t contain the POTA reference, it will raise interest in your activation and this is acceptable.
You can use a GPS dongle with Pulse Per Second (PPS). Alternatively, you can use BktTimeSync. This allows you monitor how much your computer’s clock is out compared to other stations and adjust the clock manually. This is my preferred method of time sync’ing.
Awards
Both Activators and Hunters can claim awards for their POTA contacts. These are freely available to download from the POTA website. I wish all award schemes would adopt this policy, especially for their standard awards.
| Award | Awarded for activating |
|---|---|
| Bronze | 10 |
| Silver | 20 |
| Gold | 30 |
| Platinum | 40 |
| Diamond | 50 |
| Sapphire | 75 |
In addition to the standard awards, there are a lot more awards that are presented when you have activated/hunted given numbers of sites, right up to 20,000. I don’t think I’ll ever achieve that – at the time of writing I’ve got 10 activations under my belt so far.
There are lots more awards for activating so many sites in a day, activating DX entities, operating during unsociable hours in the morning or evening, activating the same site multiple times, POTA to POTA contacts, and much, much more.
POTA – Highly recommended amateur radio activity
There is a lot of support available for this award scheme. There is static information on the website, there is a discussion forum and there’s even a book available.
I really enjoy activating parks and mainly operate from inside the van. I thoroughly recommend it now that my SOTA days are over.
View my POTA activation reports
I do like to write a report about each POTA activation I make. I hope that they might be of interest to you, but they serve as a reminder to me of what I have achieved.