What is VOTA in Amateur Radio?

What is VOTA in Amateur Radio?

Many of you would have heard of Parks on the Air and Summits on the Air in Amateur Radio. Volunteers On the Air, known in short as VOTA is a year long program of the American Radio Relay League announced in January 2023. It is an operating event honouring the volunteers of ARRL. There will be activations of portable station W1AW/# in all the member states of the United States of America as well as other regions of the US.

Each state will be activated twice over the year 2023, the schedule of which will be available on the VOTA website. Week long activations will begin on Wednesday and end on Tuesday. Points can be earned for contacting ARRL Officers, Directors, Section Managers and their appointees, Staff, and even Members domestically and DX. The leaderboard for participants from all countries is displayed online at: https://vota.arrl.org/leaderboard.php.

No QSL cards will be available for these contacts as it is exclusively driven by QSOs uploaded to the Logbook of The World (LoTW). Participants need not be members of the ARRL. They need not upload or participate in LoTW. Points will be derived from the uploads to LoTW by W1AW portable stations and ARRL volunteers. Certificates will be available during and after the events as per the ARRL VOTA webpage. The certificates page is under construction as on 13 June 2023.