This site mainly discusses WWFF and POTA, but Summits on the Air (SOTA) operators can take advantage of Dual Parks too. Instead of getting one activation, you can get three. And by adding WWFF and POTA to your SOTA activation, you will most likely double the number of QSOs and often add some extra DX.
But if I’m on a SOTA summit, how can I also be in a POTA and WWFF park? Good question. Many SOTA summits are also in a National Park or in a US Forest Service national forest. For example, I live in Victor, Idaho, on the west side of the Teton Mountain range. Ninety percent of the summits in a 100 mile radius are in Grand Teton Nation Park, Yellowstone National Park, Bridger-Teton National Forest, or Targhee-Caribou national forest. All of these parks or forests are POTA and WWFF parks.
And it’s not just in the western US that these multiple activation zones occur. I have activated SOTA summits in Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and South Carolina, and most of the summits were in a National Forest or National Park: for example, Shenandoah National Park, Appalachian Trail National Scenic Trail, and George Washington & Jefferson National Forest.
You can often tell just by looking at the map on sotl.as/map or on https://www.gaiagps.com/map/ or on https://caltopo.com. Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to tell if you are in a POTA or WWFF park by looking at the map. For me, the most reliable way is to use the gaia app on my phone.
To Use the GAIA app to Determine if You’re in a WWFF or POTA Park
Go to https://sotl.as/map/ and find the summit you are interested in and click on it, and then click the More button.
The Summit Details page is displayed.
From the Summit Details page, click the Open button.
The open selection list is displayed.
Select Gaia from the list.
The Gaia app opens centered on the SOTA summit. If you don’t have the Gaia app, the link will take you to gaiagps.com.
Touch the map near the summit.
More information is displayed at the bottom of the screen. In the image below, it shows that Wasson Peak is located in Saguaro National Park.
Now, go to https://caparks.net/dualparks and in the Search field, type in Saguaro.
In this example, the Dual Parks Lookup table returns Saguaro National Park and shows that the park is a POTA and WWFF park.
Activating SOTA, POTA, and WWFF
Now that you know the SOTA, POTA, and WWFF reference numbers, you should set up an alert on each service. The alert tells your chasers approximately when you’ll be doing your activation. This is very helpful to them so they can plan to chase you. Many chasers like to collect new parks and summits, so your alert gives them a heads up on collecting a new entity. Other chasers want to collect as many parks and summits as they can and they don’t particularly care if it’s one they already have. Whatever the case may be, it’s good practice to take care of your chasers. Please read this excellent article by Daryl Holman, WW7D, titled The Care and Feeding of Chasers. Although this article was written for SOTA, it applies to POTA and WWFF and all activators should read it.
Another note on Alerts. If you are on a CW activation and have alerts posted on SOTA, POTA, and WWFF, you will be automatically spotted on the spot pages for each of these services. As soon as the Reverse Beacon Networks picks up your CQ call, the three services will parse this data and if you’re calling CQ within the alert hours, they will spot you, and keep re-spotting you about every 5 minutes, 10 minutes for WWFF. If you change bands, they will spot you again. If you are on SSB, you will have to spot yourself on each service’s spot page.
Note: You need to create an account on POTA, WWFF, and SOTA before you can create alerts or spots. It is free to create an account on all three organizations.
- To post a SOTA alert: https://sotawatch.sota.org.uk/en/
- To post a POTA alert: https://pota.app/#/ then click Add Activation
- To post a WWFF alert: https://wwff.co/agenda/ then click Add
Once I get to a summit and start calling CQ, I call CQ SOTA DE K7GUD K7GUD. There is no need to call CQ POTA or CQ WWFF. As I said, on CW, all three services will spot you. The chasers from SOTA, POTA, or WWFF will see your spot and call you. Also, you don’t need to tell them the summit you’re on or the park you’re in; they will already know that.
Submitting Your SOTA, POTA, and WWFF Logs
Once you are back from your activation, I recommend that you submit your logs as soon as possible, even if you did not get enough contacts to qualify for the activation. Remember, be kind to your chasers. The chaser gets points for chasing even if you don’t get enough points to count as an activation. This isn’t as important on SOTA where the chasers can easily submit the contact themselves. On POTA and WWFF, the chasers don’t get credit for the contact if you don’t submit your logs. With POTA and WWFF, there is no method for chasers to submit contacts.
- To submit your log to SOTA: https://www.sotadata.org.uk/en/upload
- To submit your log to POTA: https://pota.app/#/user/logs
- To submit your log to WWFF: WWFF does not have a log upload program. You need to email your log to the appropriate Upload Manager:
- For Callsign Area 0, 3, 5, 7: N3KAE – Al Zelna, n3kae@cqparks.net
- For Call sign Area 1: W7AFF – Matt Rau, w7aaf@arrl.net
- For Call Sign Area 2, 4, 6, 8, 9: Bob Gedemer ka9jac@marac.org
How Do I Format the Log for Each Organization?
There a lots of ham radio software logbooks available so it’s difficult to say which ones will create the correct export file for SOTA, POTA, and WWFF. I use RumLog for Mac as my home logging application, and it exports a log for all three organizations.
A good logbook choice for Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, and Android is HAMRS/Ham2K. This free logbook app was developed specifically for SOTA, POTA, WWFF, Field Day, and more., and it’s loaded with great time-saving features. It is probably the best logbook app for logging and exporting SOTA, POTA, WWFF logs. HAMRS is also now available through your web browser. I think you can upload logs right from your phone or computer as soon as you are done activating, as long as you have a cell signal.
I log with a mechanical pencil and index cards. I tried to use the Ham2k app, but on a phone, I can’t type fast enough or accurate enough to keep up with a pileup. As a result, I have to enter my QSOs into RumLog when I get home and then export and upload the logs to each organization. It takes me about 30 minutes to enter 60-80 QSOs and then upload my logs.
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