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All,
Many members of our Club have become quite enthralled with Parks On The Air (POTA) activities. I have participated a couple of times and found it a really engaging and fun endeavor. This morning I got an email from Q5 Worldwide Ham Radio <q5hamradio@substack.com> with the subject line How Parks on the Air Changed Ham Radio. How did I get on this substack email list? I have no idea. I went and looked and thought: 1) This is an interesting write up, and; 2) Some members of RRVARC would no doubt also find it interesting. I will discuss a few things from it.
First, the bad – The email had a banner that said if it wasn’t displaying correctly to click there and read it in a browser. I tried that a couple times and it loaded up a bunch of HTML code without displaying the page. If I couldn’t find it from their email link how could I post about it here? I did some searching around and I found a lot, a lot, of POTA write ups. Funny to me was one Reddit thread where someone was complaining about all these newfangled ham radio operators that don’t know CW or do any “REAL” ham radio activities doing all of this POTA stuff. I know that group will eventually age out, but I have to tell you I am amused that we annoy them so much. And I say let’s annoy them even more by continuing the fun we have with POTA. LOL Oh, and the substack piece? It will nag you to sign in to keep reading it. If you click the X and close the window it will pop back up after a moment. Disable JavaScript and the nag goes away and it makes for a much more pleasant reading experience.
Second, the good – So, I finally tracked down a link – How Parks on the Air Changed Ham Radio – and got this post ready to go. The article is good, if hard to find. It is by Kevin Thomas (W1DED) who is a VERY active ham. He’s what I think of as someone who is a ham, can’t earn a living directly from being a licensed amateur radio operator (Extra), but he has successfully figured out how to develop a commercial interest, monetize his interests, etc. Good for him. His QRZ profile (link here) is interesting and his substack (link here) has a lot of content. Again, more power to him. There is a growing number of people who have figured out how to make a living, not technically because of their ham radio license, but because they have a YouTube channel with subscribers and/or sponsors, public speaking engagements, teaching courses, popularizing trips to far-flung locales, etc. Back to the gist of the article.
Thomas’ piece How Parks on the Air Changed Ham Radio informs us:
1) “Ten years ago, Parks on the Air was little more than an idea shared among a handful of operators disappointed to see the ARRL’s wildly successful National Parks on the Air (NPOTA) event come to an end. Today, it has become one of the largest grassroots movements in amateur radio, with nearly 50 million QSOs logged, more than 85,000 registered parks, and operators active across 236 entities.”
2) When POTA ended in 2016 a number of hams wanted to continue it because it was so much fun.
3) Nobody expected POTA to develop such a large following and there is a huge group of people that are thankful for its role in reinvigorating the hobby (Notwithstanding the whiners that complain it isn’t “real” ham radio).
4) “One statistic still surprises even longtime operators: Parks on the Air regularly processes more than a million QSOs in a single month. Torigian compares that to Field Day. ‘Field Day in the United States gets 1.5 million QSOs in a three-day event,’ he said. ‘POTA does it in one month. Every month.'” – Wow!
The article goes on to describe a group of enthusiasts trying to upgrade the tools used to log and report the contacts, establish easily understood rules for what has turned into a global exercise the likes of which nobody ever expected, and lots, lots, more. I found the article educational, upbeat, and just fascinating in its level of background and detail. I encourage everyone to click the link, read the piece and then hopefully better appreciate why so many people are getting such joy out of this relatively new participation feature of ham radio.
73
Phillip Beall (W5EBC)
Thanks for sharing this . I have come up against some of the cranky hams while doing POTA. Times change and they can get on board or quit ham radio.
All,
When the latest ARRL On The Air (July/August 2026) showed up at our house Kathy pointed to the article Rediscovering Ham Radio Through POTA. She rightly recognized that many of our Club members have become invigorated, or newly reinvigorated, by participating in POTA activities. Mark Johnson (W5PTX), Charles (WA5VHU) and Cindy (KD5CCB) Penry even combined Field Day 2026 with POTA activities. It is a short two pages and knowing how much enjoyment so many of our members get from the activity, I wanted to provide the article for your reading pleasure (link here). Enjoy!
73
Phillip Beall (W5EBC)
I thought the article was just great. 👍 I haven’t gone and done any POTA when Phillip and the others have gone, but when things cool off this fall I think this would be fun. The author of the article writes about rediscovering the joy of ham radio (my words) and he operated POTA from Mother Neff State Park. 🤣😂 Mother Neff State Park (link)? I had never even heard of it, but it is neat. From the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department site “Along a scenic stretch of the Leon River southwest of Waco lies Mother Neff State Park, one of Texas’ earliest state parks. Isabella Neff donated the original six acres for the park in 1921. Since then, many folks have discovered what Mother Neff knew: This is a very special place.” (link)
I love nature, being in the great outdoors (except for July-August) 😒 and this part of our great hobby looks to combine a lot of things I enjoy. I hope you enjoy the article and that you too might start joining in on the fun! 😁
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