pota-field-report

name

pota-field-report

description

Draft publishable Astro notes for Parks on the Air (POTA) activations from dictated or rough mobile field notes. Use when the user wants to record, clean up, or publish a POTA operation recap, activation report, QRP field note, radio field log, portable HF outing, CW activation note, rove, or post-operation field report for rwjblue.com. Extends the repository's note-authoring workflow with POTA-specific links, tags, images, contact maps, and tracker updates.

POTA Field Report

Turn rough activation notes into a site-ready field report without inventing contacts, conditions, equipment, or park facts.

Base Workflow

This skill extends note-authoring. Before taking action, read ../note-authoring/SKILL.md completely and follow its requirements. This skill adds the POTA-specific rules below; it does not replace the base editorial, asset, social-image, or validation workflow.

Also read references/report-template.md before drafting the report body.

POTA Frontmatter and Filename

Start with the base note frontmatter and add the applicable POTA fields:

---
title: <Park or trip> POTA field report
date: YYYY-MM-DD
summary: "One concise sentence about the activation, setup, or lesson."
shareImage: /images/pota/<slug>/<hero-photo>.jpg # optional
contactMap: src/data/pota/contact-maps/<slug>.json # optional
tags:
  - radio
  - pota
  - field-notes
  - us-1234
---

Use a filename such as YYYY-MM-DD-park-or-place-pota.md. Add every activated POTA reference as a lowercase tag so field notes attach to activation rows.

For contact-map notes, shareImage is the optional hero photo used inside the generated map card; the generated card remains the published social image. Do not add a separate hero-image field.

Workflow

1. Extract facts from the user's notes and preserve unresolved uncertainty.
2. Ask for missing essentials only when needed for a credible draft: park or location, operation date, and a basic activation result.
3. For each referenced park, run mise run pota:park:ensure -- US-1234 before linking it.
4. Draft the note in src/content/notes/, following the base skill and report template.
5. Sanitize supplied images with mise run pota:images:sanitize -- --slug <slug> <image>... before using the results from public/images/pota/<slug>/.
6. When suitable ADI/ADIF logs are available, use the pota-contact-map-bootstrap skill to create the checked-in contact map.
7. If the note has a contact map, generate its checked-in social card with mise run pota:images:generate-note-share-image -- <slug>.
8. Refresh generated tracker and park-page data with mise run pota:update.
9. Complete the base skill's validation and visual checks.

For a rove or multiple related stops on one day, prefer one combined note unless the user asks for separate posts. Summarize the full route first, then give each park or twofer its own subsection.

Evidence and Dictation Cleanup

• Normalize obvious speech-to-text artifacts without changing meaning.
• Keep POTA, QRP, CW, SSB, HF, EFHW, QSO, RBN, SOTA, callsigns, bands, modes, and rig names intact.
• Link callsigns in prose to QRZ with [CALL](https://www.qrz.com/db/CALL). Do not link callsigns in code, raw logs, file paths, or frontmatter.
• Treat ADI and log data as evidence. Prefer “I made 12 CW QSOs” over “the log shows 12 QSOs.”
• If a callsign, park reference, frequency, band, time, or QSO count remains ambiguous, ask or mark it as uncertain.
• When evidence resolves an uncertainty, update the prose and remove the stale qualification.

Field-Report Content

Connect the operator's intent, site constraints, station choices, on-air result, and repeatable lessons. Include the details that were actually supplied:

• why the park, site, time window, or setup was chosen
• what changed after arrival
• radio, antenna, support, power, logging, operating position, and CW gear
• bands, modes, contact pace, problems, and stopping point
• conditions, ergonomics, or workflow observations
• what to repeat or adjust next time

When cataloged equipment was actually used, link its first meaningful mention to /radio/equipment/<slug>/. The equipment page's build-time backlinks then become its field-use history; do not add separate equipment tags.

Do not imply QRP unless the source notes establish it. State corrected field mistakes plainly rather than turning them into drama or a moral.

Park Links and Roves

Link park names and references to the local canonical page, not directly to POTA.app:

[Park Name, US-1234](/radio/pota/US-1234/)

Do this in headings, first mentions, “At a glance” location bullets, and later mentions where the name/reference helps the reader.

For each rove stop:

• Use a linked park/reference heading.
• Include QSO count, bands, modes, approximate UTC window, and equipment that changed at that stop.
• Mention setup or teardown time when it affected the rove.
• Put twofer references in one heading and explain the shared position once.

POTA Images and Maps

Use the sanitizer's default 1600px maximum edge for ordinary photos and --max-edge 900 for tall route or contact-map screenshots.

Place photos with the relevant stop or observation. For multiple photos, use the site's compact grid:

<div class="photo-grid">
  <img src="/images/pota/<slug>/first-photo.jpg" alt="Descriptive alt text">
  <img src="/images/pota/<slug>/second-photo.jpg" alt="Descriptive alt text">
</div>

For one supporting image, use photo-grid photo-grid--single; add photo-grid--compact for a tall utility image.

When GRIDSQUARE data is available, prefer a checked-in contact-map JSON built from the source log. Repeat --input in operating order for split rove logs so the activation sequence is preserved. The task archives the source ADIF and writes the JSON consumed by the site; do not commit a separate raw ADIF beside the note. Use the bootstrap skill to choose the title and subtitle, then run its generated command in this form:

mise run pota:contact-map:from-adi -- \
  --input "$HOME/Downloads/activation.adi" \
  --output "src/data/pota/contact-maps/<slug>.json" \
  --title "N1RWJ at US-1234" \
  --subtitle "12 QSOs - June 1, 2026"

If a contact map has shareImage, its selected photo is composed with the map. Without shareImage, the generator uses the map-only card. Regenerate the card after changing the title, summary, map, selected photo, or contact data.

POTA Completion Checklist

In addition to the base checklist, confirm:

• Park/reference text links to local canonical pages.
• Every reference has a lowercase frontmatter tag.
• Local park metadata exists.
• Where, when, equipment, activation result, and useful field lessons are present when known.
• Cataloged equipment named in the report links to its equipment page.
• Images have been sanitized and stripped of location metadata.
• Contact-map data and its checked-in share card are current when applicable.
• mise run pota:update has refreshed the tracker and park pages.