This is a yearlong event where you can earn points towards a certificate/award. Some club members have a point value assigned to them by simply contacting them!

2023 is the ARRL Year of the Volunteers. With that, ARRL will be holding Volunteers On the Air (VOTA), a year-long on-air celebration that recognizes the organization’s abundant volunteer support and contributions. By using ARRL’s Logbook of The World (LoTW, www.arrl.org/ logbook-of-the-world), participants making contacts in 2023 will accumulate points by simply contacting another ARRL member or affiliated club. There will also be week-long special activations of W1AW/P in various states around the country. Making a contact with a W1AW portable station will earn you 5-points.

Participant scores are the values of all the completed eligible contacts, as uploaded to LoTW. Eligible contacts may be made with the same station on each of the three mode (CW/SSB/Digital) categories. Points are assigned based on the level of volunteer, or ARRL representative or member contacted. It gets even better as if you contact a volunteer such as Bill KF4TY as a DEC he is worth 30 points. Contacting Kelly KI4JAV as an EC will earn you 12-points. Points of ARRL volunteers do not stack so their highest volunteer position equates to the number of points assigned to their call sign. So, from January 1 (0000 UTC) to December 31, 2023 (2359 UTC) hams can participate in the VOTA event and earn points. See the Volunteer QSO Points Table at https://vota.arrl.org for the list of contact values.

The VOTA database will assign point values to all contacts within logs submitted electronically via LoTW. The VOTA system will automatically look for point-qualifying contacts from those submitted to LoTW, and apply them to each participant’s points table. Contacts don’t have to be matched in LoTW for points to be achieved — this is an honor-based event. This means that either you or your contact must upload their log to LoTW for you to receive credit. Scores will be calculated daily (between 3:00 and 6:00 AM the following morning). Real-time score leaders by band and mode will be viewable on the VOTA dashboard, and certificates will be available to print or download.