What is POTA?

POTA stands for Parks On The Air and refers to Amateur Radio operators deploying portable radio equipment and operations that promote emergency awareness and communications from national/federal and state/provincial level parks. There are two primary methods to get involved in POTA. One is activating a park and the other is hunting a park.

Activating a park involves identifying a national/federal or state/provincial level park and deploying portable radio equipment (a transceiver, power source and antenna) within the boundaries of the park and making at least 10 contacts (contacts should be logged).

Hunting a park involves contacting those stations that activate parks. You can do this from your home or other locations. You can also do this from another qualifying park. When this type of contact is made it is designated as a park-to-park contact. All contacts should be of a simplex nature, that is not using a land based repeater for the contact.

Watch a video that describes what POTA is.

First activations.

Resources.

Use the POTA website as a starting point. Sign up and create an account on the POTA website. You will track your activations, parks and logging here. There is a wealth of information to help get you started like additional videos on activating and hunting.

Follow this link for the official POTA website. https://parksontheair.com/

To contact the Trident Amateur Radio Club POTA team email us here -> pota@tridenthams.org

Below are the latest posts and news items related to POTA. Click here if you’d like to post your own story!

  • POTA Cheetah attempt.
    by Steve Anderjack
    With Monday July 5th being a holiday I decided I would try to get an early “late shift” activation at K-0518 Cape Romain National Wildlife…
  • Reaching Out on 2m @ 5w
    by Tom Valenzia
    Reaching Out on 2m @ 5w Activated Palomar Mountain State Park today with the HT on 5w.  We (XYL & me) operated next to the…
  • The Activation that Wasn’t
    by David Merritts
    Wednesday, July 23rd turned out to be a great day. So after a morning of cutting grass the XYL says “Let’s go to the park.” Those of you who really know me wouldn’t be surprised that I had four different antenna systems in the back of the vehicle just ready to go.
  • RADAR…a Fun Subset of POTA
    by Tom Valenzia
    RADAR is Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio
  • My first HF rig.
    by Peggy Reese
    Have been looking for an HF Transceiver that would give me a couple possibilities. I wanted a rig that would work at home, but without…