Parks on the Air

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Parks On The Air (POTA) is an amateur radio operating award program designed to encourage licensed amateur radio operators to operate temporarily from, and bring more visibility, awareness, and appreciation to national and state/province level parks.... and other locations as well.

Brian Frank POTA Setup at Mounds State Park, Anderson, Indiana K-2261

Those who set up a station at a park (usually for a few minutes to a few hours) are known as activators, and those who contact ("work") activators on parks are known as hunters.

Points are awarded to the activator for operating from ("activating") a park, and to each of the hunters contacting ("working") the activator. This activity encourages ham operators to get out of the house and operate. POTA is a hobby, that at the same time, maintains our disaster preparedness by practicing, while having fun. POTA also increases exposure to the public, to further interest in amateur radio.

Many of the activities around POTA overlaps with other awards programs because of the particular event or its geographical location such as Jamboree on the air or Lighthouses on the air. Some of these are referenced in the Activities/Events section below.

Josh Webb POTA Setup at Theodore Roosevelt State Natural Area, Pine Knoll Shores K-3868

History

January 1st, 2016 began a program by ARRL for National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) which ran for a year. After that time people became more interested in the same type of activity. POTA was inspired by the work of Sean Kutzko and Norm Fusaro from the ARRL in 2016. After the program was started others outside of the United States wanted to participate in the activity. Later on parks from England were added to the list.

Activation Locations

The following are locations where amateur operators may travel to and activate a park for the program:

• Antarctic Stations
• Conservation Parks such as Cape Pallarenda Conservation Park
• Country Park such as Hainault Forest
• Historical Trails
• National Military Parks
• National Monuments
• National Nature Reserve such as Barnack Hills & Holes National Nature Reserve
• National Park such as Clump Mountain National Park or Braulio Carrillo National Park
• National Preserves
• National Wildlife Area such as Alaksen National Wildlife Area
• National Wild and Scenic Rivers Systems
• Nature Reserve such as Clackline Nature Reserve
• Provincial Parks
• Regional park such as Duder Regional Park
• Wetland Management Districts
• Wildlife Management Areas
• Wildlife Refuges

All the specific examples listed above are areas designated in the POTA database where Amateur Operators can travel to and activate. The countries currently setup in the program so far are Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, England, France, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the United States.

Activities/Events

The following are activities and events where amateur operators have traveled to activation locations and operated ('On the Air') to make contact with other operators.

• On April 17, 2019, the Patoka Valley Amateur Radio Club setup and operated ham radios at Patoka Lake near Wickliffe
• On July 12, 2019, with the support of the Radio Amateurs of Canada and Surrey Amateur Radio Communications a tower and ham radios were setup and operated at the Fort Langley National Historic Site to commemorate Canadian National Parks On the Air
• On August 18, 2019, a Hamfest was held at Mosquito Lake State Park near Warren, Ohio where Jim Popovich of Newton Falls was there familiarizing and others with, and promoting the Parks on the Air program

Supplementary information

The programme is very popular, with many activations of parks/areas per year.

POTA Setup at Great Salt Lake State Park, near Salt Lake City, Utah K-3075

Notable activators and hunters

One of the most notable activators is Robert Voss, who as of May, 2019 has over 900 activations and over 70,000 contacts. One of the most notable hunters is William Lewis, who as of May, 2019 has contacted over 2000 unique parks and over 4,700 contacts.

Other amateur radio park activities

Other related activities which occur in parks is Field Day where amateur radio operators usually go out (in the field) of operations and practice operating their ham equipment from other locations. Many operators and local clubs gather to participate in this event.

Park areas are also a good location for amateur radio clubs to organize emergency preparedness activities. Clubs which participate in ARES groups put together scenarios where an emergency situation is simulated and they will go through the steps to setup and activate a remote control operations location from a park.

Modes of operating

An amateur radio operator is able to use any/all methods of communication between other amateur radio operators that they are currently licensed for. This includes phone (voice - most commonly used is SSB), CW (morse code), and the vast array of digital modes (such as RTTY, PSK31, FT8, etc.).

See also

• DX Century Club
• VHF/UHF Century Club
• Worked All Continents
• Worked All States
• Worked All Zones
• Summits on the Air
• Islands on the Air
• Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society

External links

• Official site
• Links to pota related software
• pota Flickr Photo Pool
• Introductory info
• North America pota Discussion Group

This article "Parks on the Air" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Parks on the Air. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• CHIRP (app)
• Picket-fencing
• Utah Valley Amateur Radio Club
• Red River Radio Amateurs
• Wireless Society of Southern Maine
• Parks On The Air (POTA)
• Egyptian Radio Club (W9AIU)

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