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Parks on the Air (POTA) is one of the fastest-growing amateur radio programs in the world. It combines portable radio operations with the enjoyment of public parks, wildlife refuges, forests, and other protected natural areas. Operators earn credit by either activating a park (setting up and operating from within a qualifying park) or by hunting (contacting activators from home or elsewhere).
POTA has no entry fee, no membership requirement, and no minimum licence class. Its accessibility, active online community, and integration with outdoor recreation have made it enormously popular since its founding in 2017 as a successor to the ARRL's earlier National Parks on the Air event.
The program is built around two roles:
Activators travel to a qualifying park, set up a portable station, and make contacts. To count as a valid activation, the activator must log at least 10 contacts from the park during a single visit. Once the log is uploaded to the POTA website, the activation is credited and all contacts are matched against hunters' logs.
Hunters contact activators from wherever they are — at home, mobile, or even from another park. Hunters accumulate credit for each unique park they contact. No minimum contact count is required for hunters.
Both roles earn awards and milestones within the POTA system.
POTA maintains a database of qualifying parks organised by country and region. Qualifying areas typically include:
The POTA database at pota.app lists all qualifying parks with their POTA reference numbers (e.g., K-0001 for Acadia National Park in the US, VE-0001 for Banff in Canada). The database is searchable by name, reference number, location, and country.
POTA has expanded internationally and now includes parks in dozens of countries across North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and beyond.
Upload your log (in ADIF format) to the POTA website. The system automatically matches your contacts with hunter logs and credits both sides. Confirmations happen within the system — no LoTW or QSL cards are needed for POTA credit.
One of the appeals of POTA is that you can participate with very modest equipment. A typical POTA activator kit includes:
Radio — QRP rigs (5–10 watts) like the Elecraft KX2/KX3, Icom IC-705, or Xiegu G90 are extremely popular for POTA. Any HF transceiver works, but portable, battery-powered rigs make the logistics much easier. See Portable Operating for more on portable rigs.
Antenna — Wire antennas are the most common choice. An end-fed half-wave thrown over a tree branch, a linked dipole, or a portable vertical are all effective. Many activators carry a throw line or telescoping mast to get the antenna up. See Portable Antennas.
Power — A lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery in the 6–20 Ah range can power a QRP rig for several hours. Some operators use small solar panels for extended activations.
Logging — A paper log and pencil is the simplest approach. Apps like HAMRS, POTAlog, and others are designed specifically for portable logging and can export ADIF files for upload.
Comfort items — A folding chair, a small table or clipboard, sun protection, water, and insect repellent can make the difference between an enjoyable activation and a miserable one.
Hunting POTA activators is even simpler than activating. From your home station (or anywhere), tune to the frequencies shown on the POTA spotting page and work the activators. Each unique park you contact adds to your hunter totals.
The POTA spotting system shows real-time spots of active activators, including their frequency, mode, and park reference. Many hunters monitor the spots throughout the day and work activators as they appear.
POTA tracks cumulative statistics for both activators and hunters. Key milestones include:
For activators:
For hunters:
Special events — POTA periodically organizes support events and themed operating days that attract extra activity.
All awards are tracked electronically on the POTA website. There are no physical certificates to apply for or fees to pay — your statistics and achievements are always visible on your POTA profile.
Some parks overlap geographically — a national historic site within a national forest, for example. When you activate from a location that falls within the boundaries of multiple qualifying parks, you can log the activation for all of them simultaneously. This is called a two-fer (two parks) or multi-fer (three or more). Each park requires 10 contacts independently, so a two-fer needs 10 contacts logged for each park reference (the same contacts can count for both if the rules are met).
Seeking out two-fer locations is a popular strategy for building activation counts efficiently.