Table of contents

1. POTA Volunteer Guide
   1. Introduction
2. POTA Mission statement:
3. Focus
4. Politics
5. Secondary goals of POTA
6. Public-Facing
7. History of POTA
8. POTA as a follow-on to ARRL NPOTA
   1. Notable changes to ARRL NPOTA rules:
9. Vocabulary:

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❗Important: The volunteer guide is DRAFT and is actively being changed. Please do not distribute links to, or copies of content outside of POTA volunteer channels at this time.

POTA Volunteer Guide

Introduction

This document is intended to provide guidance to volunteers in order to maintain program consistency and continuity.

POTA Mission statement:

POTA is an amateur radio activity, designed to provide incentive and community to individuals for the improvement of their portable operating, technical and social skills.

Primary points for mission statement:

• Improves the skills of the participants
• Builds a community of like-minded amateurs
• Establishes relationships with park staff
• Fosters public outreach
• Serves a global audience

Focus

POTA’s focus is parks– not programs, countries, locations, or DX entities. “Parks” is in our name, “DX” is not. DX is already well served by other organizations and contests within amateur radio. Parks are not. POTA strives to build a system to support and encourage amateurs world-wide to participate.

Politics

POTA is a-political. POTA aspires to appeal to a global audience. POTA defers to outside organizations to define boundaries and ownership of locations, specifically ISO 3166-2.

Secondary goals of POTA

By fostering the betterment of each amateur’s skills the hobby will be improved. Community: participants will come together and organize in person and virtually. Improves clubs.

Public-Facing

Amateur radio operators in parks will draw the attention of the public, and of park staff. This is an opportunity for community building, out-reach, and possible recruitment of interested individuals and relationship building with park staff. Individuals will interact with non-hams.

History of POTA

Portable operating experienced a renaissance in the mid 2010’s with the advancement of technology in solid state radios and light weight lithium batteries, along with a very popular operating event in 2016– ARRL’s National Parks on the Air (NPOTA). Many hams were able to field very respectable stations even in the low portion of the solar cycle and be the focus of a pile-up. Portable ops hit critical mass– a new aspect of ham radio became a self-sustaining year-long activity. Field day every day!

POTA as a follow-on to ARRL NPOTA

POTA was formed as a response to the ending of ARRL NPOTA.

POTA rules were adapted from existing NPOTA rules with some changes.

Notable changes to ARRL NPOTA rules:

• All US Federal parks were included in POTA, not just NPS units.
• US State parks and recreation areas were included in POTA.
• Restrictions on National Scenic Trails were removed. Previously NPOTA required man-portable activations to hike 100 feet before activiting. This was deemed a barrier to hams with accessibilities.
• POTA established the activation zone for NST (and linear trails) as +/- 100 feet of the trail centerline to give safety clearance to the activator and other trail users.
• Restrictions on repeatability of same parks was removed. Previously NPOTA required an activator to exit a park for minimum of 24 hours before starting another activation. This was deemed an unnecessary burden to activators camping for multiple days or longer.

Vocabulary:

Please see the data structure for specific definitions.

It is expected all POTA volunteers will use POTA’s established vocabulary in order to be consistent.

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