Plan an op

Planning an op is announcing, ahead of time, that you intend to go on the air. Your plan is posted on the website and in the project Discord, where chasers can see what is coming up and arrange to be around when you are.

Planning is optional. You can always go straight on the air without sharing your plan beforehand. A planned op is more likely to draw chasers, because chasers will have more notice of when you expect to be on the air.

Announce your plan

Send the OTA bot a PLAN message with the time you intend to start, and anything you want to say about the op:

The time is one word, ISO 8601, and it is UTC unless you say otherwise. 2026-08-12T18:30Z, 20260812T1830Z, and 2026-08-12T12:30-06:00 all name the same minute. Seconds are optional, but will be ignored. If the bot cannot read your time, it replies with an example you can copy. The PLAN reference page has the full grammar.

The description is worth the extra words. “lake op, HT and a signal stick” tells a chaser more about your plans, and is shown on your plan’s card on the website.

Unlike hosting an op, planning does not require RF. You can send a PLAN from your desk over APRS-IS tonight for the park you will visit this weekend.

Where your plan shows

An accepted plan is posted in four places:

• the aprsota.org/plans page
• your callsign page
• the Coming up section of aprsota.org/now once it is within 24 hours
• the #planned-ops channel of the project Discord

The card shows your base callsign regardless of which station you sent the PLAN from: a plan belongs to you, not to a radio.

Time constraints

A plan must name a date and time that is:

• in the future
• at most 7 days out
• at least 2 hours away from your other plans

and you can have at most 3 standing plans at a time. Once a plan’s time passes, it comes off the website on its own and stops counting against your 3; nothing bad happens if life got in the way and you never went on the air.

Go on the air

When the time comes, start your op the normal way. Send HOST and a beacon, via RF, from whichever of your stations you like. If you go on the air within the window, up to 1 hour early or 2 hours late, the op takes the plan’s place on the website. The plan comes off the upcoming lists and your live op takes its place.

There is no code to send and nothing to link by hand. The bot matches your op to your plan by callsign and time. Running late is fine, that’s what the window is for.

Change of plans

Sometimes your plans change. Cancel with UNPLAN and the plan’s time (again, seconds are ignored), in any form the PLAN command accepts. You can cancel from any of your SSIDs:

Canceling frees the time immediately, so moving an op is just an UNPLAN followed by a new PLAN. A canceled plan comes off the website, and the Discord channel gets a follow-up note so nobody shows up for it.

See the PLAN and UNPLAN reference pages for every reply the bot can send and the rate limits.