As an avid SOTA chaser and occasional POTA hunter, I respectfully request that you do not spot on both SOTA and POTA at the same time. It often creates a HUGE pileup that many activators are not well equipped to deal with efficiently, which means everyone has to wait for a very long time for a QSO. Be kind to your chasers / hunters by not making them compete for a QSO. Spot on SOTA (or POTA) and make QSOs until you have no more callers and then spot on the other program.
While I understand your concern and wishes Josh, I’m sure you understand that an activator on a cold (or for that matter really hot) summit that is also in POTA,WWFF,COTA,WCA etc. etc. may chose to multi-spot, to get sufficient contacts to complete the activation before the weather conditions get too bad.
So as always, the activator is king, what he/she decides is gospel.
I myself do split scheme’s and spot/call by scheme, when in this situation, choosing the scheme that I think I will get the most calls from first, so that if I do have to end the activation early, it won’t have been a wasted effort. Contacts for one scheme count for the others.
73 Ed DD5LP.
Absolutely. But if you spot on both and create a HUGE pileup and then struggle mightily to pick out any callsigns, how is that making the activation go faster? It’s not. It just creates frustration for all parties. I’ve missed plenty of chases because of a huge unruly pileup that the activator was failing to manage.
Just some advice for new folks who are considering doing SOTA+POTA. I chase a lot of SOTA+POTAs and all of the experienced ops split the activation so they are not spotted on both at the same time.
My error. Perry, W1GRD, does participate in SOTA. Has activator points in the double-digits.
I started activating in the SOTA program more than 10 years ago, and for many years I posted alerts only on SOTA. While living in Portugal during 2019-2021, because of the limited number of summits in the Algarve where I lived, I became interested in WFF (which is very popular in Europe but not as popular in the U.S.), and POTA (which is very popular in the U.S. but was not as popular in Europe). At the time, I viewed WWFF and POTA as useful adjunct programs to SOTA to help me gain more contacts, and also something to do if I didn’t want to drive a long distance to activate a SOTA summit. Sometimes I enjoyed simply going out to a nearby park and activating both WWFF and POTA. I started to become interested in the award schemes for all 3 programs.
Since returning to the U.S., I’ve continued my involvement in, and enjoyment of, all 3 programs. I sometimes activate a park that is not a SOTA summit, and for those activations I post alerts on both the POTA and WWFF websites. I sometimes activate a SOTA summit that is not in a park so I post an alert solely on the SOTA website. When I activate a SOTA summit located in a POTA and WWFF park, I post alerts on all 3 websites. Why do I post alerts for all 3 programs?
Posting alerts ahead of time for all 3 programs means:
73 de K9PM Paul
After a break of over 20 years – because of SOTA – I only got back into amateur radio a few years ago.
I have to admit that I wasn’t initially that impressed with POTA.
I pictured people driving their big pickup trucks into parks, occupying a barbecue area, and while the fire grew and the steaks sizzled, they hung their hefty 100-watt transceivers on the antenna wire, powered by the generator they’d brought along in the truck bed…
Maybe that actually exists – I don’t know – Cozy – but pretty unsporty.
Then, a few years ago, I heard some US POTA stations calling CQ and answered them. They were thrilled to have a DX QSO… some even told me it was their first.
So I signed up for POTA and was surprised to find I’d already earned awards. I hadn’t realized the activators had already made me a member.
When I had my accident in March 2025 and couldn’t walk for a while, I checked which parks I had already activated through SOTA. And there were quite a few. After uploading these activations, I was briefly number one in Germany, even though I had hardly uploaded more than one activation per park.
POTA is very generous in this regard!
- You can activate from your car.
- You can validate an activation even before the park existed.
- You often get multiple parks with one activation.
Because I couldn’t do any summits due to my knee problems, I then exclusively activated several parks in my neighborhood… and I have to admit, it’s pretty cool!
The appeal of SOTA for me is also that it takes me to areas I didn’t know existed before. POTA does that too!
My knee is slowly getting better… and I’m already planning the first summits… but I can well imagine continuing to activate a park exclusively.
73 Armin
I have to concur. I came to POTA primarily because i dont have a car and live on a boat. To my surprise, there are hundreds of parks in the UK, you can activate and get credit everyday if you want, and in fact its encouraged through different awards. I’m just 100 QSOs short of my first “Kilo” award, 1000 contacts from a single park.
Yes there are many pickup trucks and generator guys, but conversely, there’s plenty of lightweight portable ops.
I operate the same as SOTA, everything gets carried in my backpack.
Yes, it can be easier. I often find a picnic bench to set up and there’s often a coffee shop for lunch!
But it can be tough too. POTA has nowhere the following of SOTA. You also need 10 contacts to activate. You don’t have the advantage that elevation gives, and more than once I’ve failed to get 10 ITL . I’ve never failed on a SOTA activation using the same kit…
It also means I can activate without spending and hours and hours on the road driving. Now I just spend hours walking 
. Some of the Parks I’ve activated have involved a lot more physical exercise than some summits.
Ive a park planned for the next week. It will be 12 mile round trip walk, that’s pretty common, however for my quick activation today, I walked 50 yards…
So, I can’t start my car, in order to drive home, from my radio battery? Show me that rule. 
I’ll try again “Wrong. Sort of.” 
The issue is some people will confabulate the rule “No part of the station may be connected in any way to the motor vehicle” by saying they only connected the battery from the radio to the car to start the car for their XYL who was in the car and getting cold and the car wouldn’t start. And they forgot to remove the connections after. You know someone will try that, I know I do!
I don’t see anything wrong with that, it sounds to me like an extension of the idea of “Field Day”. There is nothing in the SOTA rules about power levels, it doesn’t have to be QRP so you can run any power that you can carry batteries for - nowadays batteries for QRO would probably weigh less than the outlawed for SOTA generators! 
I personally find it convenient to be able to find a QSO partner practically around the clock, thanks to the many different portable radio programs (such as IOTA, SOTA, POTA, WWFF, etc.). From this perspective, the different rules of the various programs are more of an advantage than a hindrance.
Yesterday morning, for example, I heard Bob, M5EEE, calling cq POTA in the park GB-4671 Llwybr Arfordirol Ynys Môn (Anglesey Island Coast). The sound of his transmission was absolutely indescribable to my ears, not just because of the very distinctive call sign.I almost missed a QSO because I was listening so intently, because Bob went QRT after 10 QSOs, hi.
Just as an aside, my enjoyment of portable radio in CW began a long time ago in the “program” of the Swiss Army’s signal corps.
Any time I do POTA, I go to the centre or focus point of the place in question, when I could sit in the car park and complete the activity with 100W, but where’s the fun in that?
I could have activated Mull’s Carsaig Arches from the car park, but instead took a rough 4 mile hike to see the spectacular focal point of the nature reserve.
I do recognise that POTA caters for all physical abilities, and for some, just getting to the great outdoors is enough. Like SOTA, POTA takes you to wonderful places you might never go to otherwise.
Back on topic, I’ve had two or three Park to Park calls from EU ops. while I’ve been activating SOTA summits. It’s a shame there isn’t a P2S or S2P badge.
Likewise!
A very late reply, but anyway - there is GMA (www.gma.rocks) where you can submit QSO records for multiple programs at once, at least as an activator. They don’t necessarily share their records with other programs (they do for WWFF, however), but offer to download one’s logs as ADIF which, in turn, can be submitted elsewhere.
Of course it is not SOTA, however I have revised my early opinion about non-SOTA summits and now consider every program that promotes outdoor and portable operation a good idea. I’ve tried SOTA, WWFF, GMA, POTA, and LLOTA by now, and I like them all and hope to add a few more activations soon.
vy 73, Martin
I now participate in both POTA and SOTA equally.
When I’m at a park and call in CW a SOTA activator, I use /P . Then in qso provide either REF POTA or REF DE/xxxx.
The reactions are amusing: some specifically ask for the POTA reference, same TNX FER P2S, others don’t know what to make of it, and—I suspect—some get a little annoyed.
In any case, I think I’ve given them a QSO, haven’t I?
73, Chris
Sure.
By the way, signing /p might not be required any more when operating away from home, but I hold it is a good idea to do it anyway. It seems to help to attract calls, no matter if you are on a summit, in a park, on the beach … If I do not know that a station is in an interesting place, I even tend to skip those not signing /p when scanning the bands. On the other hand, the morse rhythm of the “stroke” is often a sign of something interesting.
CU & 73, Martin
In Europe /p on CW somewhat became synonymous with summit to summit, stations don’t even send their callsigns, they hammer the other operator with /p until they get their points, irrelevant of active QSO, not much different from dQRM in my opinion. Anyway, you might understand the slight annoyance of a SOTA activator expecting a s2s and getting a park instead.
I’ve tried a new setup this Summer and done some chasing from a boat out in the Firth of Forth off Edinburgh.
It has been interesting to see how that worked, because adding /Maritime Mobile takes so long to say (SSB), I seemed to be the last thing heard from the pile up and was different enough to be picked out by the activator.
It lead to an interesting discussion with one SOTA activator who was also a sailor as we discussed boats on the QSO.
We also sailed out and my colleague activated an island POTA park which also seemed to be very popular with chasers.
It’s all varieties of al fresco radio and been lots of fun.
Andy
MM7MOX
The chatter on /P. Personal preference is I never use it.
As for POTA… I dabble…
Shameless plug as I couldn’t post my recent binaural birdsong recording in the birding thread (please don’t kill me!) 
Signing /P is perfectly legal in EI but now voluntary. Just as well as there 3266 EI SOTA activations where the activator signed /P including some logged today 29/9/2026. That’s out of a total of 3968 activations logged.
What many /P refuseniks don’t seem to realise is that in SOTA/POTA/WAB etc. activity signing /P adds many dB to your apparent signal strength.
