[PPRAANet] Have you heard about VOTA?

[John Bloodgood]

The ARRL has declared 2023 as the ARRL Year of the Volunteers.

In order to promote volunteerism, the ARRL has established a year long event kind of like the National Parks on the Air (NPOTA) of 2016, called Volunteers On The Air.  They have an article about VOTA in the January 2023 QST.

There are a couple ways to gain points.  One is to work W1AW as it rotates through each section (it should be in each section twice).  Another great way to rack up points is to work various ARRL volunteers, in other words people with various field appointments or positions within the ARRL.  For example, if you log a contact with the ARRL President, K5UR, that is worth 300 points.  If you contact our Section Manager, K1DDN, that is worth 175 points.  I am worth 35 points as part of the ARRL Public Relations Committee.

You can count working the same person in different bands and for different modes in the same band.  For example if you log a contact with K0JSC on 20 meters voice, you can also log if you contact him on 20 meters digital or 20 meters CW, and then if you also log if you contact him on any of those modes on another band like 10 or 40 meters.

What do you have to do to participate?  Basically just submit your logs, preferably via Logbook of The World.  You don’t even need to know if the person you worked holds a particular volunteer appointment or what their point value is.  No need to call CQ VOTA or exchange volunteer appointment or point info.  You can build points without really even trying and you can do it while also working POTA, SOTA, WAS, etc.

Note that for the appointment points, if a person holds multiple appointments, only the highest value is counted, they are not cumulative.  So if a person is an ARRL Member (MEM, 1 point), Public Information Officer (PIO, 12 points), Emergency Coordinator (EC, 12 points), and Assistant Section Manager (ASM, 35 points) that person would only be worth 35 points, not 60 points.

You can read more about VOTA, the rules, and the point values, at https://www.arrl.org/volunteers-on-the-air .

Have fun!




John Bloodgood, KD0SFY
PIC, Colorado Section - ARRL