Parks on the Air (POTA): Complete Guide to Activating and Hunting

POTA is the reason I bought a portable radio. Sitting in my shack working FT8 contacts was fine, but hauling a radio to a state park on a Tuesday morning, throwing a wire over a tree branch, and working 30 stations in two hours while drinking coffee by a creek? That's why I got into this hobby.

What POTA Is

Parks on the Air — you operate portable from a designated park/public land (activator) or you work those activators from home (hunter). Make 10 contacts from a park and you've successfully activated it. Free program, no membership fee, no gear requirements.

Website: pota.app

Over 30,000 designated parks in the US alone. National parks, state parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, BLM land, historic sites. That trailhead you hike every weekend? Probably has a POTA reference number.

Getting Started as an Activator

Find Your Park

pota.app → Parks → search by location. Everything within 30 miles of you probably shows up. I have 14 POTA-eligible parks within a 20-minute drive of my house.

The Gear

Minimal activation kit:

• Radio (anything that works portable)
• Antenna (wire in a tree is free and effective)
• Battery or power source
• Something to log with

My personal POTA kit that fits in a single backpack:

• Xiegu G90 (20W, built-in tuner) — $450
• End-fed half-wave antenna (53 feet of wire + 49:1 unun) — $40 DIY
• Arborist throw line (gets wire over branches) — $25
• Bioenno 4.5Ah LiFePO4 battery — $80
• HAMRS logging app on my phone — free
• Short coax jumper, ground stake, notebook

Total weight under 8 pounds. Sets up in 10 minutes.

Fancier option: Icom IC-705 ($1,300) — beautiful radio, 10W, does HF/VHF/UHF, waterfall display. The POTA dream machine if budget allows.

Budget option: any 100W mobile radio (Yaesu FT-891, ~$600) + car battery + wire antenna. Operate from your vehicle at a park pullout. Totally valid.

The Process

1. Drive to park. Set up antenna. Turn on radio.
2. Spot yourself on pota.app (use the app or website — enter park number, frequency, mode)
3. Call CQ: "CQ POTA, CQ POTA, [your call] activating US-[number]" (US parks have used the US- prefix, e.g. US-0005, since March 2024)
4. Work contacts. POTA rules do not require a set exchange; a signal report and state or province is the custom.
5. Reach 10 contacts = successful activation.
6. Pack up. Log your contacts. Upload ADIF to pota.app.

Spotting yourself is the single most important step. Within 2-3 minutes of posting a spot, hunters find you. Without spotting, you might call CQ for 20 minutes before anyone stumbles across you.

Best Bands and Modes

20m SSB — my go-to. Open to nationwide and DX during daytime. Most hunters monitor 20m. I typically get 10 contacts in 15-20 minutes on a weekend.

40m SSB — good when 20m isn't cooperating. More regional (500-1500 miles). Evening activations do well here.

FT8 on any band — works in poor conditions. Requires a laptop though, which adds weight and setup time.

CW — fastest QSO rate if you know Morse. Reverse Beacon Network skimmers can re-spot you on pota.app, but only once your activation is already spotted or scheduled there, so spot yourself first. Many seasoned POTA activators do CW exclusively.

Hunting from Home

The other half of POTA — equally valid, zero portability required.

1. Watch pota.app spots page (auto-refreshes)
2. See an activator? Tune to their frequency.
3. Call them. Give signal report + your state.
4. Log it in your own log. Hunters do not upload logs to POTA; you get credit when the activator uploads theirs.

Hunters earn awards too (number of parks worked, all-states, etc.).

Tip: be brief. Activators have a queue. Give your call, your report, maybe your state. Don't ragchew. "59 Ohio, thanks!" Move on.

Park-to-Park (P2P)

If two activators contact each other — both in separate parks — both get P2P credit. This is a minor obsession in the POTA community. On weekends, listening for other activators on the same band adds a bonus challenge.

I've had days where I accidentally worked 3-4 other activators without trying. Just calling CQ and they found me.

Tips From 60+ Activations

Spot yourself immediately. The difference between spotted and unspotted is night and day. Without a spot, I average maybe 4 contacts per hour. With a spot, I average 15-20.

Start on 20m. Switch to 40m after the first rush dies. Then try 15m if it's open. Three bands covers all conditions.

Weekends are busier. More hunters at home = faster activations. Weekday mornings are quieter but still workable.

Bring more battery than you think. Cold weather kills LiFePO4 capacity. My 4.5Ah battery lasts 2+ hours at 20W in summer. In January it's more like 75 minutes.

Log with HAMRS. Free app, specifically designed for POTA. Generates ADIF files ready to upload. One less thing to worry about in the field.

Check park hours. Some state parks close at sunset. Some require a day-use fee. Some have specific areas where you can set up. Know before you go.

POTA vs SOTA

SOTA (Summits on the Air) is the mountain version. Requires hiking to a summit. Only 4 contacts needed. More physical, more adventurous. Equipment weight matters enormously.

POTA is more accessible. Drive-up activations are perfectly fine. You can activate from a picnic table 50 feet from your car. The bar is the 10 contacts, not the physical challenge.

Many hams do both.

Why POTA Hooks People

It gives every radio outing a purpose. Instead of "I'll operate portable sometime," you have a specific park, a reference number, a goal of 10 contacts, hunters actively looking for you, and awards tracking your progress.

I've activated parks in 8 states. Each one is a memory attached to a place — the creek in Virginia where I worked 47 stations, the overlook in West Virginia with a perfect tree for my antenna, the lakeside picnic table where I got rained on and still got my 10.

That's the hobby at its best.