Do Field Day Contacts Count Towards Your POTA Activation?

Field Day contacts count towards your Parks on the Air (POTA) activation. Any contact you make can contribute to your POTA activation tally, provided it meets the program's specific rules when operating within a designated POTA location.
Understanding POTA Activations
Parks on the Air (POTA) is an amateur radio program that encourages portable operations from national and state parks. To successfully activate a park, you must make a certain number of contacts within a single UTC day. For example, an activation often takes 10 contacts to be considered successful (source).
Field Day and POTA
Field Day is an annual event organized by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). Amateur radio operators set up temporary stations and try to make as many contacts as possible over a 24-hour period. This event is an excellent opportunity for POTA activators to log numerous contacts and potentially complete their park activation requirements.
Contact Rules for POTA
For a contact to count towards your POTA activation, it must be made under certain conditions:
Location: The contact must be made from within the boundaries of the designated POTA park.
Contact Type: Any simplex contact, whether on HF, VHF, or UHF, counts towards your activation. This includes digital, CW (Morse code), and voice modes. However, contacts made through repeaters do not count (docs.pota.app/....
Combining POTA and Field Day
During Field Day, many operators are active and eager to make contacts, which can significantly boost your chances of meeting the POTA activation requirements. Since Field Day encourages widespread participation, it is an ideal time to activate a park due to the high volume of potential contacts.
Conclusion
Any contact you make during Field Day while operating within a POTA location counts towards your POTA activation, as long as it is not made through a repeater. This synergy between Field Day and POTA provides a fantastic opportunity for amateur radio operators to achieve their activation goals while participating in a significant event.
You can refer to the Parks on the Air Documentation for more detailed information on POTA activation rules.
docs.pota.app/...
#POTA, #FieldDay, #AmateurRadio, #HamRadio, #ParksOnTheAir, #RadioActivation, #ARRLFieldDay, #PortableOperations, #HamRadioEvents, #RadioContacts
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[@DarkShadowCustoms]

People tend to forget that you don't have to call CQ POTA or even mention anything about POTA when they are operating in a park. There is no formal exchange for the program. It can be done contest style with callsign and signal report, then moving on to the next contact or it could be done by someone who likes to rag chew. One good thing about being in the Western Hemisphere is that if we are camping at a POTA park we can start our activation some time after dinner before going to bed and then finish the activation after breakfast.

[@outnaboot]

Exactly...people get hung up on calling CQ POTA, and the only thing that matters is making contacts. I join nets, operate a contest from a park, work DX from parks, and sometimes never even mention POTA. There are actually stations out there that won't engage POTA.

[@DarkShadowCustoms]

@@outnaboot not only are there stations that won't engage POTA, but there are stations that will cause intentional interference during activations. Some of the worst offenders when it comes to interference is the SSTV guys. Instead of politely informing an activator that is operating near 14.230 MHz that it is listed as the SSTV frequency on the ARRL band plan they will start transmitting on top of the activator. I had that happen to me on my second activation because I didn't realize that 14.230 was set aside for SSTV and I on 14.229 MHz as that was a clear frequency without anyone adjacent to it. After no one came back when asking if the frequency was in use I started calling "CQ POTA" and shortly before I got enough contacts to activate the park someone started transmitting SSTV on 14.230 MHz.

[@outnaboot]

@@DarkShadowCustoms Thanks for your comment.

[@heathstillman4986]

My first couple of activations were completed by hunting and working some DX. I have avoided contacting contest stations as I wasn't sure of the contest rules and didn't want to provide wrong information or cause problems for the contester. I believe the most recent contest required an ITU Zone but I didn't realize that until it was too late.

[@outnaboot]

Work all the contest stations you can..the only thing that matters to POTA is the callsign and band...nothing else matters.