POTA and SOTA: getting started with portable ham radio.

Something changed in ham radio about five years ago. A program called Parks on the Air (POTA) exploded in popularity and suddenly thousands of operators were taking radios outside, throwing wires into trees, and making contacts from picnic tables and hiking trails. POTA activations now happen every day in nearly every US county. It's the most accessible and rapidly growing corner of the hobby.

This guide explains what POTA and SOTA actually are, how an activation works, and what gear makes sense at different levels of investment and ambition.

POTA — Parks on the Air

POTA is simple: operate your radio from a qualifying park or public land, make at least 10 contacts, upload your log, and the activation counts toward awards. The park database includes national parks, national forests, state parks, Army Corps of Engineers sites, and hundreds of other categories. There are likely qualifying POTA parks within an hour of wherever you live.

You can operate from a car. You can operate on any legal frequency and mode. You can use any power level. Hunters (the people chasing activators from home or their own station) wait on the POTA spotting network to work you, so you don't have to find contacts from scratch — announce your activation on the POTA website and people will call you within minutes.

SOTA — Summits on the Air

SOTA is POTA's more strenuous cousin: operate from a qualifying summit (defined by prominence over surrounding terrain), make at least 4 contacts, upload your log. The summit must be activated from the top, not from the parking lot. SOTA draws a more outdoors-focused crowd and the combination of hiking and radio is genuinely addictive. Points are weighted by summit difficulty.

Because you're actually hiking to a summit, weight and packability matter enormously. SOTA operators use the lightest gear possible — often QRP radios under a pound — and string thin wire antennas between trekking poles or summit rocks. The QRP community and the SOTA community overlap heavily.

What a POTA activation actually looks like

1. Pick a park. Find a qualifying location on pota.app. Many hams start with a state park they already visit.
2. Register your activation. Log it on pota.app before you go. Hunters will see you're planning to operate and may look for you.
3. Set up. Throw a wire antenna into a tree. Connect your radio. Deploy your power source (battery pack or car connection).
4. Spot yourself. Post your frequency on the POTA spotting network. Hunters will start calling within seconds.
5. Work the pile. Answer calls, log the contacts (paper log or an app like Hamrs or Fast Log Entry), and work toward your 10-contact minimum.
6. Upload your log. ADIF format, either from an app directly or uploaded to pota.app.

Minimal kit — get started for under $200

You do not need expensive gear for your first activation. The following covers a Technician doing a VHF/UHF activation, or a General doing a basic HF activation:

• Radio: For VHF/UHF, your existing HT works. For HF, the (tr)uSDX (~$140 assembled) is 5 watts and fits in a shirt pocket.
• Antenna: A 49:1 EFHW end-fed wire (~$60) thrown over a tree branch. Or a simple linked dipole made from wire and a few insulators.
• Power: A TalentCell 12V lithium battery (~$35–50) runs a QRP radio for a full day.
• Logging: Paper and pencil, or the free Hamrs app on your phone.

Comfortable kit — upgrade when you're hooked

Once you've done a few activations and know you want to do more, these upgrades make a real difference:

• Radio: The Xiegu G90 (~$430) — 20 watts, a real waterfall display, and a built-in tuner that makes multi-band operating easy without cutting separate antenna lengths.
• Power: The Jackery Explorer 300 Plus (~$260) — LiFePO4, runs the G90 for hours, charges via solar for multi-day activations.
• Antenna: A commercial EFHW kit with a quality 49:1 transformer — the transformer quality determines how well the antenna performs across multiple bands.
• Logging: Fast Log Entry (free, Windows) or Hamrs with direct pota.app upload.

The serious portable rig

If SOTA is your destination — actual hiking — weight becomes the design constraint. The Elecraft KX2 (~$1,320) is 13 ounces with an optional internal battery and ATU. Many serious SOTA operators also run CW (Morse code) because the efficiency at QRP power levels is significantly better than SSB — 5 watts CW reaches further than 5 watts phone in most conditions.