Parks on the Air (POTA)

Parks on the Air is an international amateur radio program whereby amateur radio operators practice using temporary, portable operating situations that promote emergency awareness and communications from national/federal and state/provincial level parks.  It is kinda like a mini Field Day.   Every quarter there is a special “Support Your Parks” weekend, where it is very likely more hams will be afield in more parks than normal. This makes it even more like Field Day!  If you participate, you’ll likely make many more contacts than another weekend.

You can go to the POTA website to check it out – https://parksontheair.com   If you have never operated POTA before, it would be good to get your account set up via the website, and start doing some hunting prior to the weekend.  Hunting requires no logging, if you don’t want to.  This would give you some experience in how normal exchanges work.  But that certainly isn’t a prerequisite.

SVARC has participated in the last several quarters and we want to continue practicing and growing as a club.  Individual members will have a chance to practice some emergency preparedness in more challenging conditions.

We generally set up and experiment with different antennas, radios, computers and/or CW keys to operate different modes, along with different emergency (off-grid) power configurations.

If anyone is interested, we will demonstrate and give hands-on practice with other aspects of POTA activations like setting up accounts, logging, submitting logs, checking awards, etc.

Depending upon participation, we might grill some foods, or we might do a pick up or delivery from one of a handful of restaurants within a few minute drive.

Depending upon participation, we might be allowed to camp and continue operating through the night.