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.

Getting Started: Step-by-Step Instructions. Click here for the latest guide on getting started with POTA activations, compiled by By Jim Wasson (KO4MNB), Tom Valencia (W4ID), and John Satterfield (KK4JS). The guide is downloadable once you open the link then save the document to your computer.

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!

  • Tag Along for SC POTA part II
    by Chris Benoit
    As special thanks to Steve Behr, K4OPZ, for allowing me to tag along this past Saturday for SC POTA activations.  It was a blast!  I’ve … Read more
  • Conquering the waves for another exciting MM POTA adventure
    by Jim Wasson
    If you read our previous post from July 2022 “Mobile Marine POTA Assault on Old Island” https://www.tridenthams.org/marine-mobile-pota-assault-on-old-island-k-3906/ then you are aware that I enjoy boating and POTA, and … Read more
  • Tag along for SC POTA
    by Chris Benoit
    Is anyone going to do SC POTA locally on September 16 and 17?   If so, I would like to tag along and help.  Just started … Read more
  • Create a map to track Activated parks
    by Steve Anderjack
    Afternoon All, I was reading my twitter feed and saw a map where someone was showing the parks they had activated in their state. As … Read more
  • BE A POTA ACTIVATOR
    by Jim Wasson
    Getting Started: Step-by-Step Instructions By Jim Wasson (KO4MNB), Tom Valencia (W4ID), and John Satterfield (KK4JS) Parks on the Air® (POTA) started in early 2017 when … Read more