Earlier this year, the Parks on the Air (POTA) program announced a new contest called the POTA Plaque Event. The Plaque Event is the program’s answer to those hams who have been asking for a contest-like event. In the past, the Plaque Event was part of POTA’s summer “Support Your Parks Weekend” but is now its own event and held the first weekend in June.
This year’s event was held from 0000 UTC June 3rd to 2359 UTC June 4th with park hunters (amateurs who contact stations operating from POTA-designated parks) and activators (amateurs who operate portable from designated parks) contacting as many stations as possible. All amateur radio bands except the WARC bands (12, 17 & 30 meters) and 60 meters are fair game. The contest recognizes the winning activator and hunter in each of several categories (i.e., SSB, CW, digital, etc.) with a plaque, hence the name of the contest the “POTA Plaque Event.”
A unique category in this contest is Rover, in which a plaque is awarded to the operator activating the most POTAdesignated parks during the contest. I may receive a lot of flak from fellow contesters, but in my opinion POTA’s Rover category is the crème de la crème of contesting as it requires participants to travel to a designated
