Managing Your First POTA Pile-Up: Tips for Success

by Jim Garman, KC1QDZ December 2023

You’ve set up your equipment for your first POTA activation – you’ve checked all the connections, you’ve double-checked your SWR, and you’ve looked at the POTA spotting page to make sure you’re not setting up on top of another operator. You’ve asked several times whether the frequency is in use, and you’ve had no response. You take a deep breath, spot yourself, and call “CQ POTA.” You release the mike, and wait. Nothing.

You call a second time, and now someone comes back to you. You make the exchange, note it in your log, and call again. That was easy! Now two operators come back to you. That’s a little trickier, but you manage to get them both in the log. The third time you call, there’s a roaring in your headphones like a crowd at Gillette Stadium, with five, ten, maybe fifteen hunters yelling their calls at you.

Now what?

Many new operators become completely flustered at this point. The other day I heard one give up and put a premature end to his activation because he was completely overwhelmed by the pile-up. This doesn’t have to happen! Here are a few strategies you can use to manage your pile-up and get the most out of your activation.

Develop a cadence to your CQ. Hunters will take every advantage they can get. If you pause too long after a QSO, they will throw their calls into the mix before you can call CQ again. Don’t give into to the temptation to take hunters who jump your CQ. It isn’t fair to those who’ve been playing by the rules, and it will encourage other hunters to do the same thing. Rewarding unsportsmanlike behavior is a quick ticket to activation disaster.

A good cadence is predictable. If you’re saying QRZ? (I don’t, because Q-codes verbalized sound weird to me), make sure it’s the last thing you say. “This IS/KC1QDZ calling from K-0516, QRZ?” over and over and over will get hunters into a rhythm. I tend to say “This IS/KC1QDZ calling CQ POTA from K- 0516, standing by and listening for calls.” It’s clunkier, but gives you an extra couple of seconds to find your focus.

Listen for parts of calls. You don’t have to get a complete call out of the cacophony to initiate a QSO. Asking for the “call ending in Zulu” or the “Kilo Bravo one call” will get you a QSO. It’s entirely possible that there are two stations ending in Zulu, so grab the one that you can and tell the other one to stand by, then work him or her (that’s only fair).

Ask the hunters to spread out their calls. You can ask the hunters to spread out their calls over five or ten seconds. This might allow you to capture all or part of a few calls. “Alpha Lima, stand by, Whiskey Bravo, stand by, can I please have the call ending Tango Sierra?” Again, just make sure to go back and work the operators you asked to stand by!

Stop the mill for a minute. Stopping every or ten five minutes to ask specifically for QRP stations, Park-to-Parks, and DX stations is not just a way to slow things down – it’s considered courteous in POTA world. Sometimes I’ll have a brief QSO with, say, a QRP operator – “Wow, great job, how many watts are you running today? What’s the antenna?” If you’re feeling rattled, this will settle you down.

You’ll find that the pile-up is a little bit like a roller-coaster. Depending on how long you decide to activate, the pile-up will accelerate, then dissipate, then perhaps accelerate again as more and more hunters find your spot. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as getting to a point where you call CQ and there’s no one left – you worked them all, congratulations! But don’t feel obligated to stay until the bitter end, either. If you have to go QRT, you have to go QRT, and hunters will understand and wait for their next chance to get the park.

These techniques won’t guarantee you a successful activation, but they may
help you manage a pile-up that can seem terrifying. If you’re steady and
consistent, you will work through it. Always remember that it’s your activation
– you make the rules. If you push the hunters to accept those rules, you’ll have
a great time and you won’t be able to wait until that next activation.