Support Your Parks — October 17–18, 2026

Support Your Parks (SYP) is a Parks on the Air activity weekend. It runs on the third full weekend of the month, four times a year. Autumn 2026 is Saturday–Sunday, October 17–18 (UTC). It is not a contest. There is no special exchange and no score. The point is to get out to the parks.

Ops card v1.1 · updated 2026-10-12 · independent guide, not affiliated with Parks on the Air®

Official: POTA Events · Rules · Clubs & Multiple Operators · Club Activation Guide. If anything here disagrees with those pages, POTA's pages win.

When, in your time zone

The 10-QSO activation count resets at 0000Z, which is Saturday evening in North America. An afternoon that crosses it is two UTC days in one log. That is fine, but each day needs its own 10. Set every clock to UTC: UTC Field Clock.

A busy weekend

SYP shares the weekend with other on-air events. Expect crowded bands and many portable stations calling CQ.

• Listen before you call CQ. A QSO party run station may already own that frequency.
• An activation can count as a QSO party contact if you send that party's exchange. To log both in one file, see Contesting — park activation + QSO party in one log.
• Working a JOTA station: keep it friendly and plain. Skip the contest-speed exchange.

Club / group activation: who goes where in the log

Under a club call, everyone uses the club callsign on the air, like Field Day. The log keeps track of who actually made each contact.

• Change OPERATOR when the seat changes. In Polo, type OP/KB3CMT in the callsign box and Send. In a desktop logger, change the operator field before the next QSO.
• Upload from the club's POTA account, not from anyone's personal account. A club needs its own account, set up under a different email than the manager's personal account. Each valid club QSO also credits the operator in OPERATOR automatically. Do not upload a second copy to your own account.
• Multiple radios at once: spot each extra station as CALL/R01, CALL/R02 and so on, but give only the plain club call on the air. Agree beforehand who uses which suffix. Network the loggers if you can, because duplicate checks run across the whole club call.
• Club stations cannot work each other for QSO or park-to-park credit. A member can work the club with their own personal call, but that makes a separate mini-activation with its own personal log and upload.
• Club logs must have both STATION_CALLSIGN and OPERATOR on every line. A solo log can use just one of them, or the same call in both.

Not a club? Passing the mic

When a few people activate together without a club call, each person uses their own callsign and:

• makes their own contacts. Each activator has to talk to each hunter they claim.
• keeps a separate log and uploads it from their own account.

There is no mic-passing under a club call. Pick one model before the first CQ and stick to it all day. Sitting in as a guest operator on someone else's personal call does not give the guest activator credit.

Polo OPERATOR export bug (October 2026)

Ham2K forum users reported on October 3–4, 2026 that some current Polo builds export STATION_CALLSIGN but leave out OPERATOR, even when the operation shows both. A Ham2K volunteer said the change will be reverted in the next update. Thread: Station & Operator Info — forums.ham2k.com.

For a club log, a missing OPERATOR means the operators may not get their personal credit. Some WWFF national checkers also reject logs without it. Until you have the fixed build:

1. Check the export. Open the ADIF in a text editor and search for <OPERATOR:. Or drop it into ADIF Doctor, which warns when a club or WWFF log has no OPERATOR.
2. One operator in the file: in Doctor, put the club call in Station call and the operator in Operator (club / SES), press Stamp, then download the POTA pack.
3. Several operators in one Polo operation: do not stamp one operator onto every line. Either update Polo and export again, or split the log by operator before stamping. POTA has no upload deadline, so waiting a few days for the fixed build is fine. Courtesy says don't wait too long, since hunters are waiting for credit.
4. Keep the original export. Doctor works on a copy in your browser and never changes your file.

Roving several parks? Check each export (October 2026)

Ham2K forum users reported on October 8–9, 2026 that after a multi-park rove logged with BREAK in Ham2K Power Logger, every park's export file held the QSOs from all the parks. Power Logger is Ham2K's new alpha app for Windows, Mac, Linux and mobile, called “Alpha Next” in the forum. The POTA uploader accepted those files as they were. A Ham2K volunteer said the alpha still needs more work here. Threads: Exporting three parks when you use the Break method · Break function doesn't reset the contacted spots.

Until Ham2K confirms a fix:

1. Use the classic export if you can. The volunteer's first suggestion: open the same operation in classic Ham2K Portable Logger (PoLo, the phone app) once it has synced, and export from there.
2. Or split the log by hand, one file per park. Save a copy of the export for each park (ADIF Master works) and delete the rows that weren't made at that park. ADIF Doctor's Explode also writes one POTA file per park.
3. Check every file before you upload. Each park's file should hold only that park's QSOs, and its count should match what you logged there. Doctor now warns when one file mixes QSOs from different parks. A two-fer, with both parks on the same QSOs, is fine.
4. At each BREAK, change the grid square as well as the park. In an earlier forum thread, a volunteer explained that a new location (grid) is what starts a new break. Swapping only the park reference is treated as fixing a mistake. See Ham2K's rove operations page.

Checklist

Before the weekend

• Club POTA account exists and someone knows the login. Separate email from the manager's personal account.
• Club or individual model chosen. Everyone knows which.
• Logger set to: club call as station, your call as operator. Test-export one dummy QSO and look for <OPERATOR:.
• Park grid checked with the Grid helper. Six characters, not five or seven.
• Clocks on UTC. Note the 0000Z rollover on Saturday evening (US time).

During

• Listen first. QSO parties and JOTA are on too.
• Spot with the club call (add /R01-style suffixes only on spots for extra stations).
• Change OPERATOR every time the seat changes.

After

• Run each export through ADIF Doctor. Fix any missing OPERATOR warnings.
• Roved? Each park's file holds only that park's QSOs. See the rove export check.
• Upload the POTA pack from the club account. See POTA upload & batch windows.
• QSO party entry? Send the Cabrillo to the party's robot, not to POTA.

Related

• Activate · Contesting · Leave-the-park closeout
• Polo · ADIF fields & grids · POTA upload
• Tools: ADIF Doctor · Grid helper · Field sheet · UTC Field Clock

Independent guide. Not affiliated with Parks on the Air®, World Scouting / JOTA, Ham2K, or any QSO party sponsor. Dates rechecked 2026-10-12 against POTA Events, ARRL / WOSM JOTA pages, and the WA7BNM calendar.