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Author Topic: First SOTA (sort of...)  (Read 89 times)

K6BNJ

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First SOTA (sort of...)
« on: February 22, 2021, 07:18:48 PM »

Story time  :)

Last Saturday I decided to go out to a summit to attempt a SOTA activation. It was the scrappiest SOTA activation ever, I just looked up the summit, registered an account and drove there with my wife (I was hoping to bundle geocaching which she loves with SOTA for me!)

Took with me two HTs, and Alinco DJ-MD5 and a TYT TH-UV88 and some water and snacks for the 40min drive to W6/NC-150

The first surprise was finding that I couldn't actually reach the SOTA summit because the paved road ended about 1 mile out and I didn't came prepared for the hike. Honestly it was mostly laziness but it turned out that to park in order to take the hike I needed a permit so... that was that. Still the view was amazing! I could see from there a huge chunk of the bay, the Apple circle thing, and all the way to the mountains at the east of the bay area.

So from the side of the road I decided to call CQ on 2m... and I made a contact! Actually I made a contact to a guy that was actually doing SOTA activation too! He was at W6/NC-338 at about 40 miles away! I was pretty stocked because that was the first simplex communication I've made and also because I didn't know if SOTA was something that was still active, so contacting another ham doing SOTA was pretty awesome!

I then switched to 70cm and called CQ  and made contact with a guy in saratoga, about 12 miles away!

It was simple but a really awesome experience and from the moment I made that first simplex contact I was hooked! Everything else I've done before that was working repeaters and that didn't feel that exciting to me...

So in the end I didn't ended up doing a SOTA activation but ended up being a chaser which I think is still pretty cool! Next time I'm getting ready for the hike to activate that summit!!

Anyways, just wanted to share the short story with y'all.

73!
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K3TN

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Re: First SOTA (sort of...)
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2021, 03:27:49 AM »

I've done a few SotAs and always enjoyed them, but they have a lot of complicated rules.

One to be aware of reads "Operation from vehicles is not permitted and the method of final access to the Summit must be “person powered”, e.g. hiking, mountain biking."

So, you have to do at least some walking/biking carrying your gear and set up an antenna, etc. I don't think there is any required distance - parking and walking 100 yards to a picnic table is acceptable.

You can see the "activation guidelines" here.

73 John K3TN
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John K3TN

K6BNJ

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Re: First SOTA (sort of...)
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2021, 02:17:32 PM »

Oh, thanks you for pointing that out John!

I'd need to read more closely the small print  ;D
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K4EMF

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Re: First SOTA (sort of...)
« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2021, 04:12:17 PM »

I topped 100 POTA parks recently, as a hunter.  I do have my eye on a park to activate less than an hours drive away when the weather warms up a bit.

I've heard of SOTA of course but didn't know until reading this thread that hiking was "required".
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OZ8AGB

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Re: First SOTA (sort of...)
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2021, 01:32:13 AM »

I've done a few SotAs and always enjoyed them, but they have a lot of complicated rules.

One to be aware of reads "Operation from vehicles is not permitted and the method of final access to the Summit must be “person powered”, e.g. hiking, mountain biking."

So, you have to do at least some walking/biking carrying your gear and set up an antenna, etc. I don't think there is any required distance - parking and walking 100 yards to a picnic table is acceptable.

You can see the "activation guidelines" here.

73 John K3TN

Which is why I ended up with WWFF (Flora Fauna) instead.
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K3TN

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Re: First SOTA (sort of...)
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2021, 02:52:28 AM »

I'm on the opposite end - I love to hike, adding a SOTA activation to a hike was the icing, not the cake!

SotA opping is more fun when I get to work lots of stations. Self-spotting is allowed by SotA rules - if you have a browser on your cellphone you can use sites like DXsummit to spot yourself and drive traffic.

There also used to be an SMS text message to SotAWatch.org which "chasers" would watch - I'm not sure that still works, but info here.

73 John K3TN
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John K3TN
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