What is Parks on The Air in Amateur Radio?

What is Parks on The Air in Amateur Radio?

Parks on the Air is an amateur radio operating award program run by a nonprofit organization for encouraging international portable amateur radio operations. It is for promoting emergency awareness and communications from national parks and other similar public places. Though it was started as a program in the United States of America, the Parks on the Air website lists 340 Country Administrators of the World Staff. I could find a country administrator for India as well.

You often hear about activators and hunters on Twitter. There are also large number of amateur radio operators who tweet their presence in National Parks and report on the contacts they have made. That is how I came to know about the program. Those who set up stations at a park are known as activators. Amateur radio operators who have contacts with activators are known as hunters. There are a large number of awards based on varying criteria for activators and hunters. The program is quite popular among US Hams who are mostly activators according to the tweets which I have seen.