Parks on the Air January Update: 7,702 parks activated! 49,653 QSO's

In Parks on the Air News:

• Parks on the air recently launched a new park management platform, giving park managers a quick and easy way to manage their parks. As a result, we have recently brought 10 new programs into the parks on the air family. Keep your radios ready and listening for activations from Jamaica, Finland, Azores, Estonia, Guatemala, Bulgaria, St. Kitts and Nevis, South Africa, Ecuador, and the Russian Federation.
  

• With the growth of POTA DX, we are always looking for DX volunteers to help bring new entities online. If your country, or one you’d like to represent, is not yet part of POTA please reach out via the ‘contact us’ link from Parks on the Air dot com, and we’ll help you get started as a volunteer country administrator.
  

• January also marked the completion of the Winter Support Your Parks event. In spite of the cold, 582 Activators put 747 Parks on the air from 23 different DX entities with WA7PBE making the most Activator QSOs, KE0MME activating the most parks. On the hunting side, N3XLS made the most hunter QSOs and also hunted the most parks. In DX during the event, VE3XNS made the most DX QSOs as an activator, and JF7RJM activated the most parks. In the club category, K4YTZ took home the prize as the club that made the most QSOs during the 2 day weekend.
  

• In our final news item, the team at parks on the air would like to thank all of you who participate in the program. We recently passed the 5 million QSO threshold, and are continuing to grow. We’re glad that the ham radio community is enjoying POTA as much as we do!
  

And now for the monthly stats update:

• Beginning in 2022, we’ll be shifting our focus during the monthly updates to focus more attention on the number of activations – after all, that’s what POTA is all about!
  
  
• Winter is certainly not slowing down the amount of activity in POTA. During the month of January there were 7,702 Activations out of 8,016 attempts, made by 1,472 activators from 3,105 different parks located in 32 different DX entities.
  
  
  • The top activator for the month was K4NYM who did 142 activations from 62 different parks.
    
    
  • The top hunters for the month were CU3HY who hunted 909 parks, and N3XLS who made 1,662 QSOs as a hunter. We’d like to call special attention to the fact that this was the first time a DX station topped the over-all charts during our monthly updates. Congratulations Mike!
    

• In our POTA DX corner, just like last month, England was our Region 1 leader with 42 activations, Canada was our Region 2 leader with approximately 315 activations, and Japan was our Region 3 leader with 299 Activations.
  
  
  • The top DX activator for the month was JF7RJM with 59 activations, from 45 different parks
    
    
  • Congratulations to JF7RJM and Japan for the first month where the DX category charts were topped by stations outside of region 2!
    

• And last but not least, let’s check in on the progress of the Bailey-Sprott Challenge. In 2021 N5HA and W9AV each managed to hunt a park every day, so in 2022 we’re following along to see if anyone else can match their feat.
  
  
  • At 30 Days into the month, we have 5 activators who have activated every day of the year, and 91 hunters who have contacted an activator every day. To all of the Bailey-Sprott chasers, congrats on your success so far, and we look forward to seeing how you do throughout the year!
    

 

Only 1 R in January..... Just saying....

 

Good catch, thank you.

 

And QSOs is plural and does not require an apostrophe.

 

Need to teach my phone that. Dumb autocorrect, and QRZ won't let you edit it after it is posted.

 

Is this an official challenge of some sort? It would have been nice to have known about it before the new year started. I have made hunter contacts every day this year except for January 1st ironically....

 

I'd like to participate but with all this instruction I feel it would require me to get another PhD just to understand where to jump in. I have worked so far two parks on the air. But, I need a step by step instruction to understand how to put a Park On the Air and why I'm doing this, please.

 

Jump on the Facebook page! There's a bunch of us there ready to help.

 

POTA=PITA. Popup pileups that create walls of QRM. It would be really nice if the folks doing the activations took the time to get to know the band plans and what groups hang out on certain frequencies. I have heard activations on or too close to Ecars, Midcars, The Maritime Service Net, the various ARES nets, AM and special interest calling frequencies etc. Many times I've been enjoying a QSO only to have a pileup start up right on frequency or way too close. Why do all the ops have to turn the processor on and slam the ALC in full contest mode? And how much money is this clown making off his "contest"? I'd love to see a list of his corporate donors!

 

what about these contesters on the warc bands they need to read up No contetsing on the warc 17\12 meter
bands per the arrl...... PS it is a contest anytime you turn your contacts in for counts or
points .....

 

I am fairly new to all of this, and I have wondered about that and have made it a point to not activate on a WARC band for lack of certainty on the correct etiquette there. ARRL did had this in the rules for National Parks On The Air in 2016:

"QSOs made on all Amateur Radio bands are permitted, except for 60 Meters." http://www.arrl.org/npota-rules

The goals of POTA also don't really meat the definition of a traditional contest, and for an activation to count it requires only 10 contacts. There is no timeframe and the goal is not to wrack up as many contacts as possible for an activation. It is mostly about people getting outside and making contacts from parks, and those that can't do that enjoy hunting those activators. However, from a practical standpoint, a busy activation does not sound much different than a busy contest station. I get your point and I plan to continue using non-WARC bands for my occasional activations to be as respectful as possible to others.

 

If head over to parksontheair.com there are several how to videos as well we PDF documents on how the program works.

 

Thank you for the reply. It is nearly impossible to keep up with every group and where they "like" to hang out. I always ask if the freq is in use before I start my activations. I avoid the big nets as best as I can, and if a net control station comes on a lets me know hey we have a net starting in a few minutes I will gladly move to a different freq. The bands change all the time so if propagation shifts and now you can hear the pota station it's not the operators fault. There is no way to please everyone unfortunately.

 

I've worked POTA pile-ups with QRP and have never slammed my ALC, even when running 100w
POTA isn't a contest. You can call it that if you don't understand how it works, but that doesn't automatically make it a contest.
The guys who are on the air saying, "WE HAVE A NET ON THIS FREQ THAT STARTS IN AN HOUR, MOVE!!!!" are much more annoying than POTA folks. I missed the part in the ARRL regulations and FCC rules where daily Nets had more rights to the frequencies than the rest of us do.

 

Plenty of folks willing to help - we've invited folks out to an activation and gotten several noobs on the air, a few times. It is a fun thing to do. One guy only had a Tech license, and after activating with us, he started studying for General. It is a very fun way to enjoy the hobby.