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Official Events Curious about our “Official” Parks on the Air events? Currently POTA has 5 official events throughout the year, as detailed below. Events start at 00:00:00 UTC and end 23:59:59 UTC on the days listed: New Year’s Week First full week of the new year. January 1-7, 2027 Casual contacts to help ring in the new year! Support Your Parks This event happens seasonally, on the 3rd full weekend of the month (Saturday & Sunday UTC). These are ‘activity weekends’ where the main purpose is to get out in the parks, and have as much fun as possible. WinterRead More →

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The Department of Defense will host this year’s Armed Forces Day (AFD) Crossband Test on May 9, 2026. This annual event is open to all licensed amateur radio operators and will not impact any public or private communications. For more than 50 years, military and amateur stations have taken part in this event, which is an interoperability exercise between amateur and government radio stations. The AFD Crossband Test is a unique opportunity to test two-way communication between military communicators and radio amateurs as authorized in 47 CFR 97.111. These tests provide opportunities and challenges for radio operators to demonstrate individualRead More →

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has responded to a complaint involving a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, amateur for operating outside the privileges of his Technician Class license and causing interference to local emergency service communications by transmitting on a public service frequency, 470.4375 MHz. According to a letter released by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, agents investigating an interference complaint from Allegheny County Emergency Services determined that the interfering signal originated from the residence of David Knudtson, KD3ASC, who also holds a General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) license, WSDQ885. The letter states that Knudtson gave the agents a BTech UV-Pro handheld which hadRead More →

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You might have done this yourself. After you speak on the radio, you released your PTT, then remembered that you needed to add one more thought, and pressed your PTT again to say what you just remembered. Well, that’s not so bad, right? I mean, we do it all the time on the phone. And I suppose that’s where the habit comes from, because we’re so used to speaking in full-duplex, which is that you and I can talk and hear each other at the same time. This is a small annoyance known as double-keying. It can be irritating toRead More →