Rules

Toilets on the Air (TOTA) is a radio contest at HOPE 26. Compete to make the most voice, CW, and SSTV contacts with other attendees for points and awards like "Worked All Toilets", "The Plunger", "Straight Flush", and "Inside the Bowl". Use this web site to announce which of the designated restrooms you're outside of and log your contacts.

New this year: support for license-free radio services like FRS, MURS, and CB!

Activity centers

• 2m FM: 146.550 MHz
• 70cm FM: 445.950 MHz
• SSTV: 430.950 MHz
• CW: 432.100 MHz

Ground rules

• Be a responsible and considerate radio operator:
  • Only operate on frequencies you are licensed to operate on and with radios licensed for that use.
  • Please respect the band plans when choosing a frequency. See activity centers for suggestions.
  • Operate your equipment safely: you're in a crowded conference environment.
  • Share the bands: there are many radio users in NYC, please don't be disruptive.
  • Within these rules, all bands and modes are acceptable.
• Be a responsible and considerate conference goer:
  • Don't be rude: never operate in a way that disrupts other peoples' experience at HOPE.
  • Don't unnecessarily block restrooms when others need to use them, and always respect the privacy of other restroom users.
  • Please do not activate from within a restroom. A radius of a few meters from the doors (in either direction) is fine.

Terminology

Activator

Person who is at a toilet making contacts. Only activators needs to log their contacts!

Hunter

Person contacting the activator. Can be located anywhere. No need to log your contacts, unless you're making a T2T contact (see below).

RST

System used by amateur radio operators to exchange information about the quality of their signal. See Wikipedia R-S-T System.

Toilet-to-Toilet (T2T)

When 2 activators contact each other from toilets! Both activators should log their contacts (as normal), but also add the other person's toilet reference the Hunter's toilet field.

Unlicensed operators

• This year, the system also supports license-free radio services like FRS, MURS, and CB.
• Please only use radios and frequencies that are allowed to be used without an individual license.
• If you are interested in pursuing an amateur radio license, please find a amateur radio operator (try the Amateur Radio Station Village) who can give you an on-air training opportunity.

International radio amateurs welcome

Radio amateurs from many countries around the world can operate in the U.S. Please see this this guide for the agreements in effect. Under most of them, you can identify using W, the number of your FCC call district (New York is 2), a stroke (/), and finally your non-US call sign. For example: W2/G1ABC

Please be aware that we are in IARU region 2. Especially the VHF and UHF band plans may be different than in your home country.

Additional asks

• Always be excellent to each other.
• Please don't spam the system, it was thrown together in a very short time.
• If there are any problems, please email tota_hope (at) fea (dot) st

Special thanks

• Georg DH5GH for organizing past TOTAs at the 38C3 and 37C3 conferences and supporting this one
• Tobias DC1TC for help with the TOTA software and technical guidance