@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS JANUARY 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF
Welcome to the January 2017 edition of SOTA News.

My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Allen VK3ARH, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Geert PA7ZEE, Tonnie PA9CW, Peter ON4UP, Marco HB9ZCW.

May I take this opportunity to wish all activators, chasers & SWL’s a Happy & Healthy 2017.

73, Mark G0VOF

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The December 2016 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 920 times.
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SOTA AWARDS December 2016 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

Each year we recognise somebody who has made an outstanding contribution to the SOTA programme with the “Sherpa” award which is sponsored by SOTAbeams www.sotabeams.co.uk This year we had a number of candidates for the award but felt that Andrew VK1AD was the most outstanding; congratulations to him.

Notable award claimants this month include SQ6PLD for 1000 Activator points, NE4TN for 40k Chaser points, LZ3SM & K9OSC with 2500 Chaser points, W0MNA has now chased 4000 summits and DD5LP with the Silver summit to summit award. Congratulations to them and everyone else who achieved milestone awards.

This listing includes all claims made from 19 November when I went on vacation.

Sherpa Award 2016
VK1AD Andrew Moseley

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
NJ7V Charlie D Brown

Certificates Issued

Activator
SQ6PLD Tomasz Dominas 1000 points
G7HEM Mike Hartley 250 points
EA2EHX Joxe Bidal Ibarra Iriarte 100 points
KR7RK Keith Schlottman 100 points
WC9G Ron Burns 100 points

Chaser
NE4TN Walter Beaton 40000 points
LZ3SM Svetozar Gerashev 2500 points
K9OSC Robert Brock 2500 points
M0CQE Paul Hazell 1000 points
DK3DUA Thomas Rudolph 1000 points
K3JZD Jody Nelis 1000 points
WD7Y Ed Dybowski 1000 points
NZ7M Sidney Frissell 1000 points
HB9EIV Michael Rass 500 points
KC2FNE Robert L Krenzer 100 points
W5EEX John Leediker 100 points
KF4BY Stan Nafziger 100 points
N1FTP Harold Woering 100 points

Chaser Unique
W0MNA Gary Auchard 4000 summits
G4CFS Glyn Dodwell 1000 summits
M0CQE Paul Hazell 100 summits

Summit to Summit
DD5LP Ed Durrant Silver
HB9EIV Michael Rass Bronze

SOTA Complete
EA2WX Marcial Vecilla 100 summits

Mountain Explorer
HB9EIV Michael Rass Bronze

Mountain Hunter
AC0A Bill Freeland Platinum
HB9EIV Michael Rass Bronze
PE1PIC KeesJan Colmer Bronze
KC2FNE Robert L Krenzer Bronze
M0CQE Paul Hazell Bronze
EC1DD Bernardo Dominguez Barros Bronze

I have to thank everybody who has made a donation towards the costs of running SOTA during 2016. This is a very generous and much appreciated source of funds and certainly helps to keep the programme active and free of cost to every user. Thank you all.

Elsewhere in the monthly report you will find the annual analysis of activity so I have included a list of award claims during 2016:

Trophies
Mountain Goat 20
Shack Sloth 22
SWL 1

Certificates

Activator points
10k 1
2500 2
1500 1
1000 19
500 12
250 18
100 19

Chaser points
125k 1
100k 1
50k 4
40k 2
30k 3
25k 3
20k 3
15k 3
10000 6
5000 11
2500 5
1500 4
1000 38
500 21
250 17
100 42

Activator Unique (summits)
250 4
100 4

Chaser Unique (summits)
5000 3
4000 4
3000 1
2500 2
1500 1
1000 3
500 3
250 4
100 12

SOTA Complete
500 2
100 6

SWL (points)
1000 1
500 2
250 1
100 1

Summit to Summit
Amethyst 2
Platinum 3
Gold 2
Silver 10
Bronze 6
Red 6

Mountain Hunter
Platinum 8
Gold 11
Silver 1
Bronze 18

Mountain Explorer
Platinum 2
Gold 4
Silver 1
Bronze 10

Microwave Award 3

10m-6m Challenge
Activator 8
Chaser 5

There are a wealth of opportunities to fine tune your activating and/or chasing to gain awards as is demonstrated by the significant claims made for some awards. This does mean that I may have to introduce higher categories for some awards but this will be open for discussion during the coming year.

Finally a quick update on some merchandise items which will cease to be available once stocks are finished. I do have a number of the insulated mugs available but polo shirt stocks are rapidly becoming depleted; there are no Medium size left, I have limited stock of Large (but all colours available), I have two XL Burgundy and two XL Natural and finally two XXL Ash Grey, two XXL Royal Blue and one XXL Natural left. These are all knitted polyester with the SOTA logo embroidered on the left breast.

Finally may I wish the whole SOTA community a happy and prosperous 2017

Stay safe on the hills

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

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SOTA End of Year totals 2016

As is customary at the end of the year the database has been interrogated to produce the following tables. My thanks go to Tom M1EYP for producing these tables & Andy MM0FMF for providing the data. Well done all activators & chasers!

Summits Activated – All Time

Summits Activated – 2016

Activator QSO’s – All Time

Activator QSO’s – 2016

Chaser QSO’s – All Time

Chaser QSO’s 2016

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NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

I received almost no news from the New World Summiteers, the processor on my desktop failed so I'm doing this on my laptop, and we've been, to quote our President-elect, "HUGELY" busy with family and the holidays. I believe [but do not know and can't get to the evidence to check] that the statistics below are correct as of 2000 UTC on 30 Dec. Your mileage may vary, getting the script to run on the laptop was a real drag.

Perhaps a fitting end to 2016 which has been filled with more drama than I'm used to.

STATISTICS [2000 UTC 30 Dec 2016]
NORTH AMERICA TOTALS

Total Activations: 358 [588]
Nr Unique Activators: 130 [167]
Total Chaser QSOs: 3824 [6165]
Nr Unique Chasers: 230 [263]
Unique Summits: 435 [588]

2m: 47 (1%) [127]
6m: 1 (0%) [0]
10m: 1 (0%) [0]
12m: 2 (0%) [1]
15m: 80 (2%) [64]
17m: 224 (5%) [194]
20m: 2106 (55%) [3731]
30m: 285 (7%) [581]
40m: 1075 (28%) [1458]
60m: 2 (0%) [1]
80m: 0 (0%) [0]
160m: 0 (0%) [0]
Unk: 1

CW: 2225 (58%) [4378]
SSB: 1549 (40%) [1653]
FM: 47 (1%) [133]
AM: 0 (0%) [0]
Data: 1 (0%) [1]
Other: 0 (0%) [0]
Unk: 1

It's been bitterly cold over much of Canada and the US which probably accounts for the decrease in activity. It is interesting that 40 meter activity was up a notch, probably given the absence of sunspots for most of the month.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

Charlie, NJ7V, reports that he became Arizona Shack Sloth #19 on 26 Dec. Congratulations Charlie!

Ryan, KK4OSG reported that he made "1/2 Mountain Goat" this last month. Keep at it Ryan, possibly the weather will cooperate.

Incidentally, Elliott, K6EL, mentioned that there are now 40 Mountain Goats in the US and one, VA2VL, in Canada.

NEWS:

Etienne, K7ATN, provided the latest Pacific Northwest Newsletter link:

www.pnwsota.org/sites/pnwsota.org/files/downloads/K7ATN/PNW%20SOTA%20Newsletter%20Jan-Feb%202017_0.pdf

Back issues are at: www.pnwsota.org/content/pacific-northwest-sota-newsletters http://www.pnwsota.org/content/pacific-northwest-sota-newsletters.

Phillip, K5SSR, offered a link to the Yule Goat who goes door-to-door in Norway handing out gifts. This seems appropriate for SOTA, no? The Goat did not arrive here, but then we live in a gated community and he didn't have the gate code.

http://mylittlenorway.com/norwegian-christmas/julebukk/ http://mylittlenorway.com/norwegian-christmas/julebukk/

Now that 2016 is over, the US National Parks On-the Air [NPOTA] has also ended. There has been some discussion on the NA SOTA Yahoo group about recruiting some of the folks who participated in the NPOTA program into SOTA. We'll see how that develops.

REPORT OF THE MONTH:

Also known as the "Only Report of the Month, it appears that Ryan, K7ODX, [the "other" Ryan] is looking for a good head examiner:

"I think I need my head examined. Last weekend, when I left the house to activate W7U/JU-045 with K0ESX, it was -5 F. By the time we arrived at the trail head (what trail?), it had warmed up to about 7 F. So what do we do? We go anyway! There was a few inches of fresh snow on the ground, making the hike a little slippery in places, but the real killer was the wind that hit us once we got on the ridge to the summit. Only .75 miles ±, but 1000 feet of elevation gain. The wind chill on top had to be well below zero. My beard was frozen to my face! Still, we had a great activation."

"Today, once again, it was about -3 F. as I left my house to pick up Damon to go hit SM-051. As we parked to start hiking, the truck thermometer read 11 F. Nice and warm! And once again, the wind was our adversary. Even worse than last weekend. And to make matters worse, the snow was 24" - 28" deep (according to my trekking poles). We d idn't have snowshoes, so we just kept plowing our way up. It was exhausting work, made tougher by the wind and cold temps. Tough hike, but once again, we got to the top and completed the activation. More frozen facial hair............."

"So, this is what we do for fun? Go out in single digit temps, hike steep mountains in winter, and plop down in the snow with several hundred dollars of radio gear? Do these sound like the actions of a sane person? On the way back down, I pondered the sanity of the whole situation, while slogging through thigh-deep snow and trying not to fall. But here's the real crazy part: Am I miserable? Unhappy? No, I couldn't be happier! I'm really enjoying myself. Not only do I do this stuff on purpose, I actually like it! Something is definitely not right here."

"Anyway, I guess I'll continue doing this until I come to my senses. I love the mountains in winter, love ham radio, and SOTA is the best of both! Thanks to all the chasers who are there for us. It's great to work the usual suspects every summit, and also everyone else who stops by for some points or a casual contact."

"The highlight of today's trip was an awesome 7118 mile contact with ZL1BYZ (KX1 at abt 3 watts) on 20 meters!!! FB DX!!! The lowlight was the fact that my truck's heater didn't work on the ride home! That was cold. But, already planning the next one..."

EPILOGUE:

A good friend had an extra Intel i3-2100 processor which I will install in the desktop now that the holiday bruhaha has settled down. We'll do better in 2017. Happy New Year to all,

73,

Skip K6DGW
North American SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks, NV

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ON SOTA Association 10th Anniversary award - Peter ON4UP

On the 1st of July 2007 the ON SOTA association was started by Johan ON5EX. In 2017, 10 years later, the ON association will be celebrating its anniversary with 3 special awards.

10 years ON association celebration chaser award
for those who have chased at least 10 different ON SOTA summits in 2017

10 years ON association celebration activator award
for those who have activated at least 10 different ON SOTA summits in 2017

10 years ON association celebration complete award
for those who have activated AND chased at least 10 different pairs of ON SOTA summits in 2017.

The award will be available in electronic format only (PDF-file) and will be completely free of charge.

To request one of more of these awards, simply send an e-mail to the ON association manager Peter Preud’homme ON4UP via on4up@skynet.be including the list of chased and/or activated dates of your ON summits.

The latest date a reward can be requested is the 31st of March 2018.

Please distribute this information as much as possible to make 2017 a big ON SOTA celebration year!

73, Peter – ON4UP

ON Association manager

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Las Islas Afortunadas - Geert PA7ZEE

Already many years we escape from the cold and dark winter in the Netherlands.
Also this winter we stay for a longer time on the island of Gran Canaria, one of the islands of the Everlasting Spring. Winter temperatures in the day time range between 20 C and 25 C and around 12 C in the night. However there can be a blizzard in the mountains while at the same time it is 23 C on the beach in the south of the island.
On EA8/GC there are not less than 27 summits to activate; a SOTA Paradise.

EA8/GC-008 Roque Ventaiga with on the back ground El Teide on Tenerife

One summit has a restriction; EA8/GC-027 is in a military zone. However I will try to get permission for an activation of a few hours. Another ‘no go’ summit for me is EA8/GC-002 El Nublo. This is a 60 m high monolith only accessible for mountaineers with climbing skills and proper equipment.
My plan is to activate at least ones a week summits where I have been last year but also some virgin summits. I will put Alerts the day before the activation on SOTAwatch.
My rig is the KX1 with 3 W output into a W3EDP antenna. Last year I worked with this equipment the whole of Europe and several US stations. I hope that my SOTA Friends will listen out for me and when worked, that they will put a Spot on SOTAwatch. Thanks in advance!

Besides of activating summits, I will chase from the bungalow park where we stay. Equipment there is a 2 x 20 m inverted vee on a 15 m mast and my FT-857 with 100 W output. All QSO’s will be confirmed with a QSL card.

HNY es 73 de Geert PA7ZEE

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Six Belgian Summits in one day – Tonnie PA9CW

On 4 december, PA9CW Tonnie, activated 6 summits in Belgium in one day. At 07:00z He drove from home to the first summit in the south of Belgium. After about 300 km he arrived at 10:00z and activated, ON/ON-016, Les Aisances. It was very cold, so CW was not at its best. After that he activated ON/ON-010, ON/ON-004, ON/ON-011, ON/ON-013.

At last he activated ON/ON-001, Signal de Botrange. At that moment it was almost dark & with no contacts on 30 meters, he tried 40 meter and made some QSO’s. After these 6 summits he went home and arrived at about 20:00z after a very nice day. It was about 4 degrees and sunny with some wind. All contacts were made with KX3, 5 W and a 30 mtr HyEndFed.

My video report is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V15EXrRk3co

Thanks all chasers, for the contacts.

73, PA9CW Tonnie

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SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

Hi Mark and all

Please find the following SOTA News from Japan.

A Happy new year and wish all of SOTA lover's prosperous new year 2017.

In December, the biggest news in the Japan association is the approval and release of an additional 1200+ summits in all JA regions. Thanks again for all of your work who made a lot of effort and swift approval in SOTA HQ. By this new summits release SOTA activities are very high in December.

SOTA activities in December 2016 in Japan as of 30 Dec 2016.

Activation

Total 159 Activations with 1839 QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 157 expeditions with 1822 QSO from Summits
JA5: 0
JA6: 2 expedition with 17 QSO from Summits
JA8: 0

Chasing

Total 264 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 235 chasing QSO
JA5: 2 chasing QSO
JA6: 27 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

S2S

Total 161 S2S QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 157 S2S QSO
JA5: 0
JA6: 2 S2S QSO
JA8: 0

Just after the release of the new summits in JA region, Yama to Musen (Mountain and Radio) Group had an annual gathering in Chichibu area in Saitama prefecture. Total 15 members have enjoyed the radio expedition and drinking in the night.

Yama to Musen radio group gathering

Also above is my favourite photo this month - the veiw of Mt Fujiyama from Ashigara.

Toru Kawauchi
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp
http://www.kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp/jh0cjh/blog/

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THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 108 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

So here we are, end of the year again and a quiet month for us with poor weather on the hills dominating our activities. On the 11th the cloud was low but we wanted a run out but we are beset with road closures in the south of the county. At times near Ulverston it has been taking an hour and a half to travel three miles and near Lindal the same road has been totally closed for several nights. These are both on the A590, the main road in and out of the south of the county and are continuing into the new year, also the A592 and the A593 have their own problems, see recent Pre Planning post for details. We managed to drive up to the foot of the Slate Road, the track that leads up onto the moor, which is quite steep in parts and more or less surfaced. Many folk drive up to the top of the surfaced track, we usually walk, cars cost more than boots! Today the cloud is right down to our start point and gets thicker as we climb and we cross the moor to the little mound that is the summit via the service track past three of the windmills that infest the area. As is normal nowadays the 2m activation is slow due to the shortage of chasers but we decide on no HF today due to the mist and failing light, We have quite a long chat with M6TUE, a new starter from our recent club exam course. He is interested in SOTA but he is a keen fell runner and wonders what sort of kit could be fitted into a bum bag and used from several summits in quick succession. This is a bit outside of our experience being heavy rucksack plodders so wonder if we have any runners who could come up a few tips for him. A small light h/held looks possible but an antenna that fits in a bum bag with no pole to support it looks quite a problem. We also have a quick QSO with G4TJC/P on Kinder Scout, Simon is very cold but held on to catch us, thanks OM.

Been a lot of chat lately about data modes but just can’t come to like them. We tried PSK from summits on the Isle of Wight about ten years ago, what a disaster, the weather was unseasonably warm and in the sunshine the laptop screen was un-viewable. We managed a few contacts with a fleece over the head as cover which was unbearably hot and not a lot of fun. Things have moved on some and we have the capability in the shack but just can’t come to grips with the impersonal nature of it all. On cw I don’t like auto calling etc Just send it by hand and it goes out warts and all. I make mistakes that I try to correct but it’s me and personal. Same is true of the receive side but it’s live. Enough preaching.

What may turn out to be our last summit of the year was a quick trip up Arnside Knott on the 18th of the month. A nice activation with quite a few interested visitors, mostly older couples out for a walk. Once again the response on 2fm was poor with just six contacts in over half an hour but for once lately 5Mhz and 7Mhz played quite nicely.

Today 28th we had the pleasure of working another of our recent trainees Mark M6VMS out on his first SOTA summit Red Screes. He is very keen on SOTA and was using a home brewed ground plane. We heard him work quite a few of the regulars, sure it will not be long before his next outing, it’s addictive.

So that brings us to the end of this years efforts, a strange year weather and conditions wise. Let’s hope for better in the New Year. Thanks to everyone for their support during 2016 we will try to get more activations done during 2017.

So take care out there and A HAPPY NEW YEAR from us both.

Rob and Audrey

G4RQJ

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*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

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Participants: 1

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@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the February 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Monday 30th January.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions. If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 2

Participants: 1

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@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS FEBRUARY 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF
Welcome to the February 2017 edition of SOTA News. My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Allen VK3ARH, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Geert PA7ZEE, Heinz HB9BCB, Peter ON4UP, Paulo CT2IWW.

73, Mark G0VOF

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The January 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 1200 times.

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SOTA AWARDS January 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

A Happy New Year to all associated with SOTA; with ever more Associations around the World hopefully this will be a bumper year for the awards programme (despite the parlous state of the Ionosphere!).

2017 started with an enormous number of claims which managed to keep me very busy. Congratulations to Mountain Goats VK1DI, VK1MBE, K2JB and VK2BJP – notice the trend! Recent Shack Sloths include GI0AZA, KR7RK, VK2VW and AE4BL but very notable is ON6ZQ at 30k points and W6JP at 2500 points. VK3ARR has claimed the first ever Mountain Explorer award for solely VHF contacts, that is making life hard for himself! Finally a mention for SV1QED with a Platinum Mountain Hunter award.

Well done to all claimants – and for everybody else who has achieved a personal goal whether marked by an award or not.

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
VK1DI Ian Sinclair
VK1MBE Andrew Belton
K2JB Dean Blair

Shack Sloth
GI0AZA Esther Harper
KR7RK Keith Schlottman
VK2VW Brett Churchyard

Certificates Issued

Activator
VK1DI Ian Sinclair 1000 points
VK1MBE Andrew Belton 1000 points
VK2BJP Russ Jacob 1000 points
AE4BL Buddy Lique 500 points
AE9Q David S. Dostie 500 points
VK3ZPF Peter Fraser 250 points
N4SFR Ron LaGrone 250 points
VK2GEL Grant E. La Delle 100 points

Chaser
ON6ZQ Christophe David 30000 points
W6JP Jeffrey Philpott 2500 points
AE4BL Buddy Lique 1000 points
GI0AZA Esther Harper 1000 points
VK2VW Brett Churchyard 1000 points
KF4BY Stan Nafziger 250 points
KC2FNE Robert L Krenzer 250 points
VK5FMAZ Marija Simmonds 250 points
WC9G Ron Burns 250 points
ZL2ATH Wynne Morgan 250 points
G7HEM Mike Hartley 250 points
VK5FMAZ Marija Simmonds 100 points
WC9G Ron Burns 100 points
M0VCZ Paul Ferris 100 points
M6HMK Helen Melhuish 100 points
WN8Y Kenny R. Johns 100 points
2E0DIJ Duane Yates 100 points

Chaser Unique
W0ERI Martha S Auchard 4000 summits
GI0AZA Esther Harper 250 summits
VK2VW Brett Churchyard 100 summits

Summit to Summit
VK3ZPF Peter Fraser Silver
AE4BL Buddy Lique Silver
G4TJC Simon Melhuish Silver
HB9FPM Eva Thiemann Bronze
HB9JOE Andreas Thiemann Bronze
VK5FMAZ Marija Simmonds Red
G7HEM Mike Hartley Red

Mountain Explorer
HB9FPM Eva Thiemann Gold
HB9JOE Andreas Thiemann Gold
HB9JOE Andreas Thiemann Silver
GI0AZA Esther Harper Bronze
VK3ARR Andrew Ryan Bronze (VHF)

Mountain Hunter
SV1QED Michael Panagiotopoulos Platinum
KC2FNE Robert L Krenzer Silver
KF4BY Stan Nafziger Bronze
DL1TSC Thomas Schardt Bronze
W3AAX Jason Johnston Bronze
VK2VW Brett Churchyard Bronze

10m – 6m Challenge
AE4BL Buddy Lique Activator

Occasionally I am asked if a specific variation on an established award can be produced. There is not a problem with this provided the back-up data is readily available (or you supply me with the back-up information) and that the request fits within the normal scope of the awards programme. Remember, I have not only to be able to verify your claim it must also fit within the normal awards scheme structure. Producing specials will always take longer than normal as I already spend several whole days a month processing SOTA awards and merchandise purchases and would like, just now and then, to get on the air or do something else!

There was a surge in merchandise purchases in January, perhaps helped by the reminder that the stock of polo shirts is becoming rapidly depleted, but I was caught unawares yet again by flag purchases and they are now out of stock. I allow the site to accept back orders for flags but it is unlikely that I will have any new stock until late February. I conducted my regular stock check in mid January and now have a rather lengthy shopping list to bring stocks back to acceptable levels.

Could I remind folks that it is imperative to check out from the shopping site correctly otherwise your order may disappear as the site deletes incomplete orders after 3 days and I will not be notified. Paypal is the preferred checkout mechanism but if you wish to pay by Bank Transfer or more traditional methods please be aware that your order will not be processed until I receive payment. I have had several orders where the purchaser has checked out using the alternative payment method and has failed to send payment; if you are waiting on an order and it has not arrived within a sensible time period please contact me and I will try to find out what has happened.

Finally may I ask everybody claiming certificates to make the award claim via the shopping site. It ensures that I have all the data necessary to process your claim and despatch it in timely fashion. I am happy to receive requests by other means (mail, email etc.) but if I do not have access to all the information, or your wishes are not completely clear (or I cannot read your handwriting – it does happen) then delays are inevitable.

I keep saying it but I will get up a hill or two this year to play SOTA!

Stay safe on the hills

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

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NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

Greetings from North America!

Our nearest and dearest star was very quiet in Jan, as it is prone to do at cycle minima, which has pretty much taken out 10 and 12 meters and made 15 somewhat hit or miss. Canada is cold, the US has a new president and we've already picked a fight with Mexico, and still no word on XE-SOTA. There's about 8 cm [3 in] of snow on our front yard here in NW Nevada. I didn't see any KL activations which doesn't surprise me. Thus encouraged, we go to the

STATISTICS: as of 1900 28 Jan UTC

Total Activations: 338 [358]
Nr Unique Activators: 123 [130]
Total Chaser QSOs: 4560 [3824]
Nr Unique Chasers: 254 [230]
Unique Summits: 233 [435]

2m: 144 (3%) [47]
6m: 4 (0%) [1]
10m: 10 (0%) [1]
12m: 0 (0%) [2]
15m: 57 (1%) [80]
17m: 123 (2%) [224]
20m: 2322 (50%) [2106]
30m: 621 (13%) [285]
40m: 1264 (27%) [1075]
60m: 9 (0%) [2]
80m: 0 (0%) [0]
160m: 0 (0%) [0]
Unk: 6

CW: 3058 (67%) [2225]
SSB: 1351 (29%) [1549]
FM: 144 (3%) [47]
AM: 2 (0%) [0]
Data: 0 (0%) [1]
Other: 2 (0%) [0]
Unk: 6

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: Dean, K2JB, activated W4C/CM-011 in the middle of Jan to become North America's latest Mountain Goat. Congratulations Dean!

Given the temperatures across North America in Jan, I'm going to put declare this an "Achievement." From Bob, K0NR:

"Although Steve, WG0AT, just lives a few miles from my house and I've
worked him 40 times on various summits, I never have done a SOTA
activation with him. Until Saturday...actually four of us [Bob, Steve/WG0AT, Caleb/W4XEN, and Joyce/K0JJW] activated Mt Herman (W0C/FR-063)
coincident with the ARRL January VHF contest. Kind of cold up there but
a good time was had by all."

The complete story can be found at:

Bob mentioned that Mt. Herman is the "Most Radio Active" mountain in Colorado at 136 activations. I think the NA record in Radio Activity is Mt. Davidson, W6/NC-423 at 269 activations. It, of course, is the mandatory activation for all visitors to the San Francisco Bay area, and, at 286 meters and no snow, is a somewhat easier climb than Mt. Herman.

Paul, W6PNG [W6 Association Manager], noted that he gave presentations to the Yucaipa ARC and the South Orange County ARA in Jan and has been invited to give two more in Santa Ana and Hemet. This is the way to grow SOTA, and from my own experience, every presentation I've given or attended has resulted in new activators/chasers.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Should you find yourself in the Palm Springs area of Southern California on 4 Feb ... Don, NK6A reports:

"You might mention in the Feb news that I will be speaking on SOTA and Wayne will talk about the KX2 for portable ops in my program at the Palm Springs Hamfest, Feb 4, noon."

http://palmspringshamfest.com/speakers/

The "Wayne" above is Wayne Burdick, N6NR, one of the Elecraft owners and designer of a few well-known ham radios.

NEWS: I had the need to replace a couple of incidental parts in my computer in Jan [processor and one disk drive], and in transferring email from the laptop back to this one, I have lost track of who sent these statistics to me. But, they are impressive...

Several NA folks have made the "Top 20 for 2016" in several categories:

SUMMITS ACTIVATED 2016:
KX0R-#7 [191]
KE5AKL-#15 [129]
NM5S-#16 [128]
NA6MG-#18 [127]

ACTIVATOR QSOs-ALL TIME:
NA5MG-#20 [18,255]

ACTIVATOR QSO's 2016:
KX0R-#2 [6614]
KE6AKL-#11 [3,372]
NA6MG-#14 [3,007]

CHASER QSO's-ALL TIME:
N4EX-#10 [17,751]
W7RV-#18 [14,152]
W0MNA-#20 [13,195]

CHASER QSO's-2016:
W7RV-#6 [4,079]
W0MNA-#8 [3,540]
NS7P-#9 [3,470]
W0ERI-#10 [3,285]
N4EX-#17 [2,658]

And finally, Guy, N7UN provided the following plan for SOTA activities for 2017:

"I updated the proposed major SOTA dates for 2017. This also sets a stake in the ground for the NA SOTA Spring Activity Weekend. Also note a unique, once in a SOTA-lifetime, SOTA operating event for the Aug 21st Great American Total Solar Eclipse (“SOTA GATSE?”)."

• Apr 22-23: North America SOTA Spring Activity Weekend + QRPTTF
  Spring Event (Apr 22)

• Jun 10-11: NA SOTA Summer Activity Weekend + ARRL June VHF Contest

• Jul 16-17: SOTA optional date + CQ WW VHF Contest

• Aug 5-6: NA SOTA Rocky Mtn Rendezvous + Colorado 14er Event + W7
  SOTA Activity Weekend + ARRL UHF (222MHz+) Contest

• Aug 21: SOTA and the Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2017. See http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/path_through_the_US.htm for details.

• Sept 9-10: NA SOTA Fall Activity Weekend + ARRL Sept VHF Contest

"These SOTA events were the same for 2016 and seemed to work for folks and does NOT preclude other Association events that can be planned. If there are questions, let's discuss."

REPORT OF THE MONTH: QRU ... however point your browser at aprs.fi and search on WB8ELK-2. It appears to be a balloon, it was just south of Cape Verde as I wrote this, and is on it's eighth circumnavigation of the planet. Bill, WB8ELK, told me that it is solar powered [no battery], and transmits on 20 meter WSPR when it has sunlight. He transfers the reported positions to APRS. It seems to float between FL390 and FL420 and has been over P5 twice. They didn't shoot it down. If this keeps up, at some point it should make the news.

That's it for January 2017. Thanks to all my contributors. I note that the sun is higher in the sky at my noon position observation, warmer weather can't be too far off.

73,

Skip K6DGW
NA SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV DM09dn

============================================================

ON SOTA Association 10th Anniversary award - Peter ON4UP

On the 1st of July 2007 the ON SOTA association was started by Johan ON5EX. In 2017, 10 years later, the ON association will be celebrating its anniversary with 3 special awards.

10 years ON association celebration chaser award
for those who have chased at least 10 different ON SOTA summits in 2017

10 years ON association celebration activator award
for those who have activated at least 10 different ON SOTA summits in 2017

10 years ON association celebration complete award
for those who have activated AND chased at least 10 different pairs of ON SOTA summits in 2017.

The award will be available in electronic format only (PDF-file) and will be completely free of charge.

To request one of more of these awards, simply send an e-mail to the ON association manager Peter Preud’homme ON4UP via on4up@skynet.be including the list of chased and/or activated dates of your ON summits.

The latest date a reward can be requested is the 31st of March 2018.

Please distribute this information as much as possible to make 2017 a big ON SOTA celebration year!

73, Peter – ON4UP

ON Association manager

============================================================

Island in the Sun - Geert EA8/PA7ZEE

Now by the end of January I have activated three summits on the island of Gran Canaria. All three successful activations thanks to the members of the SOTA family who have put Spots for me on SOTAwatch. Many thanks to: Lars SA4BLM, Frans PA0INA and Roy G4SSH.

The weather in the mountains is different from that on the beaches in the south of the island. Precipitation and strong winds in the mountains while on the beaches it is well over 20 C with calm winds. So you have to watch the mountain weather forecast in combination with the local weather forecast.

I really enjoy our stay here and we feel very lucky that we still have some weeks in front of us. In that weeks I hope to activate more summits. My friend Frank PC7C will be here next week and he will work in SSB as EA8/PC7C/P.
We hope to make many QSO’s from this island in the sun.

73 de Geert EA8/PA7ZEE

Not always an easy footpath

============================================================

Retreat as a SOTA activator at the end of 2016 – Heinz HB9BCB

My renunciation of further activations is not entirely voluntary. The decision was due to problems I had with my knees in recent years (Gonarthrosis, worsened by 2 accidents in rocky terrain). I hope to prevent/postpone this way a medical intervention.
Nevertheless, I hope to be able to participate in the joint annual SOTA events with Kurt HB9AFI and Daniel HB9IIO.

Back to the roots, I will be QRV again as low-power station HB9BCB/P on the nearby lovely grassy hills, as I did before SOTA.

73 gl, Heinz HB9BCB

============================================================

SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

Hi Mark and all

Please find the following SOTA News from Japan.

In January, JARL, Japan Amateur Radio League carries out New Year QSO party
on 2 and 3 Jan every year. There are a lot of stations which are only QRV on
this new year QSO party. To be QRV on these two days would work very
efficiently for all JA stations. Especially being QRV from summits on these two
days makes it a lot of fun for activators. I was QRV from JA/KN-006 Mt
Ooyama in Kanagawa, and only activated on 50MHz. I started at 8:30 AM
from the summit and closed at 14:40 with 30 minutes of lunch time. The
callers never ended during this 5 and half hours only on 50MHz. You can
imagine how much fun it was for a Radio Ham.

SOTA activities in January 2017 in Japan as of 30 Jan 2017.

Activation

Total 148 Activations with 1772 QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 140 expeditions with 1649 QSO from Summits
JA5: 6 expedition with 98 QSO from Summits
JA6: 2 expedition with 25 QSO from Summits
JA8: 0

Chasing

Total 149 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 129 chasing QSO
JA5: 1 chasing QSO
JA6: 19 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

S2S

Total 145 S2S QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 134 S2S QSO
JA5: 6 S2S QSO
JA6: 5 S2S QSO
JA8: 0

Toru Kawauchi
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp
http://www.kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp/jh0cjh/blog/

============================================================

THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 109 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

Sota wise this month has been a none event due to a combination of weather, road closures and the odd heavy cold so it was Sunday 22nd before we made our first excursion of the year and that to a little local one pointer, Hutton Roof Crag. This is a hill we really like, ideal as a leg stretcher with easy parking, a nice woodland walk and an open country stroll to an almost moorland trig close to limestone pavement with deep fissures. It can be difficult to find space to operate without having wires across numerous paths or becoming involved with spiky bushes and or limestone pavement. We use a spot alongside a rock about 15yds to the north of the trig. This allows one leg of the 5MHz dipole to cross a path above head height and to be tied to a branch of one of the higher bushes, the other end goes off into the wilderness. The snag is that the ground here is very broken with hidden ankle traps not helped by the hoof prints of a herd of cows. Today we did 2m FM first, fm was not over productive but we did pick up a spot for ssb which produced some welcome activity for a change. A few long chatty qso’s resulted in us being rather late on to hf but once again a spot brought in a good number of 5MHz ssb contacts, 7MHz cw was plagued with QSB and became difficult when a higher power station arrived without a QRL? called CQ and went into QSO on the frequency. Dusk was coming, we apologised to any chasers still there and departed.

And that was it for activations for the month, next weekend will be too close to the news deadline so will have to open next month. In the mean time some interesting topics have turned up on the reflector. Regarding SOTA contests reminded us of the early days of the program. We became disillusioned with constantly loosing frequencies on 40m to higher powered SSB stations intent on a long chat with their mate on their regular frequency so we switched to cw where the problems are less. During contests we hid on 10MHz and when we called CQ SOTA refugees from contests would send NO CONTESTS THIS BAND at which others would send NOT CONTEST SOTA which eventually stuck, it might be an idea to keep it that way.

Brian G8ADD raised an interesting point about the use of the old FE channel very much as a sota and qrp preserve and its recent adoption by high power rag chewers. More bad news Brian. We were informed firmly on air that nothing less than the RSGB NEWS had been moved to this channel and would be in forty minutes at 1500 hours on Sundays.

Been some discussion on seats for activators. We use inflatable camping pillows, not the curved neck cushion type though. Ours are rather larger than the usual sit mat but fold down as small and weigh no more. When inflated they provide a excellent layer of insulation from the ground but you need to control how much you inflate yours depending on your weight or you will sit somewhat unstably! Ours came from Poundstretcher.

That brings us to the end for this month, we will be out on Sunday the 29th but that will have to wait for the next edition. Just hope that conditions are better on 40m than today when we were on with our club station for our stint on the Lifeboats Charity event and managed to raise just four stations in an hour of calling! Hope to catch lots of you.

Take care out there.

73
Rob and Audrey
G4RQJ

========================================================

*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the March 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Monday 27th February.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions.If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS MARCH 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF
Welcome to the March 2017 edition of SOTA News. My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Geert PA7ZEE, Bob F5HTR, Peter ON4UP, Luc ON7DQ.

73, Mark G0VOF

========================================================
The February 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 883 times.
========================================================

SOTA AWARDS February 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

February has been quite a busy month for awards with two new Mountain Goats, W0CP and OE1WED and VK2IO claiming his award for “All CW” although he actually qualified as Mountain Goat last year for “All Modes”. Shack Sloth awards have gone to KA9BBQ, WC9G and G0FVH while VK3PF continues to surge forward and is now on 25k Chaser points. I am still getting certificate claims for last year's 10m – 6m Challenge but I will shortly retire these certificates from the shop (although they will still be available should you wish to contact me direct).

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
W0CP Walton L. Stinson
OE1WED Gerhard Weissenbock

Shack Sloth
KA9BBQ Matthew Steffen

Certificates Issued

Activator
VK2IO Gerard Hill 1000 points
OT6V Rene Van de Wiele 500 points
VE6IXD Ian Drummond 500 points
YO8AZQ Adrian Done 100 points
NE4TN Walter Beaton 100 points
KG7FOP Roland Simmons 100 points

Chaser
VK3PF Peter Freeman 25000 points
SQ9KFW Miroslaw Kulawik 2500 points
WC9G Ron Burns 1000 points
G0FVH David Dolling 1000 points
KA9BBQ Matthew Steffen 1000 points
WC9G Ron Burns 500 points
G0FVH David Dolling 500 points
YO8AZQ Adrian Done 250 points
G4IPB Paul Hodgkinson 100 points

Activator Unique
VK3ANL Nicholas Lock 100 summits

Chaser Unique
W6JMP Gene Trasti 1000 summits
DG4KAI Kai Wendt 100 summits

Summit to Summit
YO8AZQ Adrian Done Red

Mountain Explorer
VE6IXD Ian Drummond Bronze

Mountain Hunter
WC9G Ron Burns Gold
WC9G Ron Burns Silver
YO8AZQ Adrian Done Bronze
EA7JPD Jose Villoslada Bronze
VE6IXD Ian Drummond Bronze
WC9G Ron Burns Bronze

10m – 6m Challenge
VE6IXD Ian Drummond Activator

Postal rates are set to rise yet again, Royal Mail claim they are still the cheapest in Europe but they fail to appreciate that annual increases are not justified just because others are “cheaper”. Unfortunately I have to pass on these increased costs and the shopping site rates will be modified shortly to reflect these inflated charges. All orders placed before mid-March will attract the existing postal rates so shop early for a bargain!

Another organisation that seems to need to earn more money is Paypal. This highly successful business model is now showing signs of the greed that pervades the conventional banking industry (yes, I am having a rant!). The upshot of this is that we will now receive only a small proportion of the price charged for email certificates and, as these now outsell printed certificates at a rate of about 8 to 1, we are faced with increasing the price of an emailed certificate to protect our limited income. This is not going to happen straight away but will be discussed at a future Management Team meeting and announced here once a final decision is made.

I would like to introduce some new (and different) SOTA branded merchandise during 2017 and would appreciate suggestions for what that might be. Any design that is used must be either copyright free or utilise our existing copyright logo or trademarked name – apply your thoughts to what we might be able to do.

Summer is coming in the Northern hemisphere so get out on the hills and enjoy SOTA (those of you who stand on their heads – wrap up warm and get out there anyway!)

Stay safe on the hills

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

========================================================

NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

Hello to all from a white NW Nevada. February SOTA activity in North America is up in all of the statistic categories, although the weather in Feb pretty much mirrored the weather in January -- cold, windy, lots of precipitation. But then, SOTA-folk are a pretty hardy bunch. It appears that 30 and 40 meter usage is slowly creeping upward but still too soon to declare a trend.

NORTH AMERICA TOTALS as of 1930 UTC 27 Feb
Total Activations: 462 [338]
Nr Unique Activators: 144 [123]
Total Chaser QSOs: 6595 [4560]
Nr Unique Chasers: 276 [254]
Unique Summits: 313 [233]

2m: 144 (2%) [144]
6m: 0 (0%) [4]
10m: 10 (0%) [10]
12m: 1 (0%) [0]
15m: 85 (1%) [57]
17m: 388 (5%) [123]
20m: 2997 (45%) [2322]
30m: 916 (13%) [621]
40m: 2003 (30%) [1264]
60m: 39 (0%) [9]
80m: 0 (0%) [0]
160m: 5 (0%) [0]
Unk: 7

CW: 4646 (70%) [3058]
SSB: 1807 (27%) [1351]
FM: 140 (2%) [144]
AM: 1 (0%) [2]
Data: 0 (0%) [0]
Other: 0 (0%) [2]
Unk: 7

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

Don, NK6A, has reached stratospheric level of Slothdom with 10,000 chaser points. Last four points came from George, KX0R. Congratulations Don!

Lynn, KC0YQF, is closing in to become the first North American female Mountain Goat, which heretofore has been a totally male club. In celebration of this event, husband Frank, K0JQZ, filed the following report and offer:

"As Lynn, KC0YQF, nears in on becoming the FIRST North American female to achieve the Summits On The Air (S.O.T.A.) Mountain Goat status, Lynn and I want to extend our celebration to our chaser friends.

One person, who talks to Lynn during her next two activations (most likely the last weekend in Feb and the first weekend in Ma r) and sends her a QSL, will have the chance to win a new, un-built Mountain Topper Version 2.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Work Lynn SSB on any band and during her next two activations; and
2. Send her a QSL card to confirm the QSO"

NEWS:

Etienne, K7ATN, reported: "Oregon SOTA had a no-host gathering of twelve activators and SOTA wanna-bees the third week of February. We met for several hours on a Tuesday evening and enjoyed general conversations about hiking, activating, radio gear and all the things we enjoy about Summits on the Air. This was followed the following weekend with introductory activations. We had great weather on five summits for this event (in Oregon "great" means "dry.") Activated peaks were Bells Mountain (WA with Scott-K3BYU and Guy-N7UN, Cooper Mountain (OR with Benton-KF7QLP), Mount Sylvania (OR by Mark-KE7MSU), Mount Scott (OR by Roland-KG7FOP) and Bald Peak (OR with Rachel-K7NIT, Dan-KG7VAK, Kevin-K7KAD and Etienne-K7ATN with guest op James, son of VAK)."

"Other SOTA-connected parties also heard chasing included: Brian-AC7MD, Rusty-K7RMO and Dave-N7DB. Everyone got their four contacts, a lot of Summit-to-Summit contacts were made, and several folks had their first 2.3GHz QSO."

(Ed note: I believe that marks the first 2.3 GHz SOTA QSO's in North America. If this keeps up, I'll have to adjust the script that builds the statistics)

For those involved in Scouting, Wunder, K6WRU, has created a custom map with SOTA summits that are within the bounds of the Philmont Scout Ranch. He's posted it on his blog at:

HAMFESTS: From Rob, AE7AP ..."

I am putting in my annual plug for the SOTA-friendly Glacier-Waterton Hamfest (July 14-16) up here in Montana. I registered today & will plan on arriving mid-day on the 12th with hopes of doing activations on the 13th & 14th. There are lots of SOTA summits in the area, including two in Glacier Park that are directly across from the camping/hamfest area. It is great fun to work those below when you can actually see them & also a lot of fun to watch the activators ascend. I haven’t yet decided which summits to activate, but would very much enjoy doing Elk Mountain (W7M/FN-110) again if someone was game for joining Barb-AE7AQ & myself. Elk Mountain is a nice 3,400 foot on-trail hike."

"The hamfest itself http://www.gwhamfest.org/ is a fun low-key family style campout. Most people RV-camp, but we tent-camp in the grassy “overflow” field with our friends from Helena & hopefully a few other SOTA people. Last year we had a fun crew that included Bruce-N7RR, Todd-KH2TJ, Bill-N7MSI, Bob-K7HLN, as well as Barb & myself."

VJ/ZL-NA ACTIVITY DAY: Pete, WA7JTM, is hoping to stir up some cross-equator, cross-dateline activity:

"The March-April DX window, which is historically good for this path is fast approaching. Even in a down cycle the path should be good in this time frame, especially late March or early April. Even early May can be good."

"So is there any interest in an activity day for this path in this time frame? I would love to make another s2s contact with a VK...or two."

INFORMATION: Fred, KT5X/WS0TA, often found on a mountain top, offers this to help those chasing him:

"It may be helpful to Chasers (of WS0TA) to understand this ... my trapped EFHW is resonant on several bands. I can switch bands essentially instantly. I can work a station 40M and another 20M within the same minute. I try to take advantage of this."

"I generally begin an activation on 20M, and I will stay there until there is no one left calling me. (If K1JD is with me, he will likely be on 30/17/15 and then may make an appearance on 20 also). With no one answering me on 20M any more, I will then go to 40M for short skip QSO's in adjacent states, mostly."

"Here is where it may be helful to you if you are a little late to the Chase... if there is no reason for me to make a hasty escape from the mountain peak, I will then bounce back and forth between the two bands to pick up late comers. So if you see a spot for me on, say, 20M, and get there a little late, keep listening for a little while. Good chance I will return. Same thing about 40M."

REPORT OF THE MONTH: Richard, N2GBR, filed a great report of his visit to Pennsylvania and Virginia with a number of activations and photos. Unfortunately, it is too long to post directly but you can find it in his Dropbox account at:

That's going to be it from the New World for February. Everyone activate safely,

73,

Skip, K6DGW
NA SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV DM09dn

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ON SOTA Association 10th Anniversary award - Peter ON4UP

Danny ON4VT has created some very nice certificates you can achieve only this year:

10 years ON association celebration chaser award
for those who have chased at least 10 different ON SOTA summits in 2017

10 years ON association celebration activator award
for those who have activated at least 10 different ON SOTA summits in 2017

10 years ON association celebration complete award
for those who have activated AND chased at least 10 different pairs of ON SOTA summits in 2017.

SOTA_2017_CHASERS - SPECIMEN.PNG800x571 691 KB

The award will be available in electronic format only (PDF-file) and will be completely free of charge.

To request one of more of these awards, simply send an e-mail to the ON association manager Peter Preud’homme ON4UP via on4up@skynet.be including the list of chased and/or activated dates of your ON summits.

The latest date a reward can be requested is the 31st of March 2018.

Please distribute this information as much as possible to make 2017 a big ON SOTA celebration year!

73, Peter – ON4UP

ON Association manager

============================================================

Some experiences activating summits on Gran Canaria - Geert EA8/PA7ZEE

After a stay of about 7 weeks on the Gran Canaria Island, I like to share my experiences here with my SOTA friends. The reason for this is that visiting SOTA activators are informed about the differences with other countries like for instance PA, DL, ON, F and G.

The weather
First and most important in terms of risk, is the weather. There is a big difference in weather conditions over the island. Although the diameter of the island is roughly 50 km, on a distance of 20 km or less there can be heavy rain and wind on one side and calm winds and full sun shine on the other side. For the mountains the differences can be even bigger. Some days before an activation, I consult several sources on the Internet to select the best day. But even with a weather forecast with calm winds, I had strong winds that came up during the activation.

The trails
When I compare an average activation in PA and surrounding countries, with an activation in EA8, there is a big difference in the walk ability of the footpaths. Jagged lava, loose stones, big steps, climbing on hands and feet, slippery pine needles etc., make hiking more tire full.
By activating EA8/GC-005 Morro de la Cruz Granda, I touched my limits. I know as a 77 year young activator that my limits differ from youngsters, but I am fit and a well trained runner and much younger hikers around me had similar problems.

Antenna
My antenna is the W3EDP since this is a light and very simple antenna. Most of the times there is a suitable tree to throw my wire in and I am QRV within 10 minutes after arrival on the summit. On EA8/GC-012 Amurga, where I was with Frank EA8/PC7C, Frank needed the antenna mast and there were no trees for my antenna wire. I laid my antenna wire on 1 m high shrubbery and it worked.

Propagation
Since Gran Canaria is surrounded by the ocean, propagation is remarkable better than at home where I live below sea level. Despite the very simple W3EDP antenna and the humble 3 W of the KX1, I had several QSO’s with North American stations and received very reasonable reports. Conditions were not always good in the February of this year.

Nature and views
There is a reward for all the hard work during activations. Great views, many flowers in the winter months and wild life is what you get back, apart from the SOTA Fun off course J

73 de Geert EA8/PA7ZEE

============================================================

ON SOTA Tour

Luc, ON7DQ, is planning another tour of the ON summits between 9th and 12th of March, just in time to get some winter bonus points.

This includes the planned VK/ZL < > EU S2S party on Saturday 11th, and on Sunday the 12th also the UBA Spring Contest on 2m SSB (7-11 UTC). This may be a good opportunity for ON stations to work towards the ON SOTA Association 10th Anniversary award .

If weather and time permits, he will also try some digimodes (PSK and/or RTTY) with a Linx 7" tablet and the KX3, as described elsewhere in this Newsletter, so get your computers ready ...

All details will be posted on the alerts page.

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SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

Hi Mark and all

Please find the following SOTA News from Japan.

In February, no big events were reported from Japan that were SOTA related. However, recently there has not been a weekend without spots on SOTAwatch2 or the Japan radio cluster. SOTA is gradually spreading in Japan but still only JA association is the main stronghold with not many activations carried
out in JA5, JA6 and especially in JA8 associations. This is due to severe climatatic conditions in JA8 in winter time.

I've hiked Isezawanoatama JA/KN-025 on 12 Feb and got a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji from the way to Isezawanoatama.

Mt Fuji

Also met with wild "Nihon Kamoshika" Capricornis crispus during my trail.

Nihon Kamoshika

Also I had a chance to visit Sendai city in Miyagi prefecture, MG region, on 17, 18 and 19 Feb and activated 3 summits near Sendai city. I heard this winter has a lot of snow fall but contrarily there was no snow
at all in the downtown area and little snow cover, even on top of these summits.

SOTA activities in February 2017 in Japan as of 28 Feb 2017.

Activation

Total 117 Activations with 1286 QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 115 activations with 1239 QSO from Summits
JA5: 0
JA6: 2 activations with 47 QSO from Summits
JA8: 0

Chasing

Total 185 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 166 chasing QSO
JA5: 0
JA6: 19 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

S2S

Total 118 S2S QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 115 S2S QSO
JA5: 0
JA6: 3 S2S QSO
JA8: 0

Toru Kawauchi
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp

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THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 110 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

This month has been a disaster SOTA-wise with the only activation actually being on the 29th of January! when we climbed our small local hill, Gummers How. This is a nice walk with a steep craggy bit at the summit which can be avoided by following the path that contours round to the right at the top of the stone stepped section. The steps can be slippery in rain and icy conditions and many folk take to the grassy mud with hidden roots that runs alongside them. The hill is much favoured on Sundays by folks in unsuitable foot ware heading home after holidays who tend to struggle descending what looked like a good bet on the way up. Being of advancing years and an unstable walker at the best of times I (Rob) tend to use a set of ice grips as advertised in the press for negotiating icy pavement. These may look a bit naf but do a great job and I can get down this type of path quite quickly. Today we made the summit quite quickly and started out on 2m fm where in spite of a spot chasers were few and far between. Those we did work were chatty which is nice as we like a chat but together with long spells of calling in between contacts ate up quite a bit of time. Just one caller on 2m SSB, and that a follower from FM in spite of a lot of calling. The same was true of 5Mhz, just one and 7Mhz so full of contest stuff it was on to 10Mhz and here we were spotted by the robots which produced us some much needed contacts.

As February opened things went down hill, the car, a 2 year old with a 7 year warranty stopped functioning as Audrey was on the way home. I walked round to the site not too far from home and it really was "dead as a nit". As it is a diesel, not electrics and plenty of fuel, rescue services were called. They got it started but it sounded like a bag of spanners and fuel had to be hand pumped to sustain it. "Back to the agents" they cried and carted it off to Morecambe some 45 miles away by road while we walked home, on the way Audrey caught her foot on a raised paving stone but no great problem. The following day her knee is up like a balloon and the physio says it will take time to heal and no uphill walking and only short distances then. The car proves to be much worse than first thought and the Great Computer in The Sky that all the downloaded gen is sent to, predicts fuel pump (no) injectors (no) feed bar (no) but all fitted and now ECU which we are waiting for with bated breath. All this has put extra work on to our bus passes and we have spent some time contouring round Walney Island to the chemists. In desperation a friend gave us a lift round to Morecambe to pick up a courtesy car but Audrey's knee is still light exercise swimming, short walks and no climbing. So if anyone knows of a summit with a flat approach where you can swim to the top please let us know (Dodd Fell Hill has water round the trig but not deep enough! Gun almost qualifies on both counts)

Nice to catch John YSS on top band cw the other early evening from Burnhope Seat, Strange how signals appear from out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly on this band. I have just 84 ft of wire end fed with three short counterpoises and I tune the whole lot with an ancient home brew ATU and the FT101ZD, seems to like it. Like John we find that without spots 2m FM has become rather more difficult in many areas due to lack of activity. The era of the 5w unspotted FM activator seems to be drawing to a close.
We are not keen on self spotting from the summit, a chaser spot or even a robot spot always seems better somehow. A beam helps. Just set in old ways I guess.

Well that is about all from us for the time being as we wait for both car and knee problems to be resolved, just 2 points during winter bonus, Audrey has cabin fever and is cleaning everything in sight.

Take care out there

Rob and Audrey

G4RQJ

PS I just noticed that I had typed cat instead of car at the beginning of the second paragraph, probably a bit more amusing!

========================================================

*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

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Participants: 2

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@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the April 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Thursday 30th March.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions.If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS APRIL 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF

Welcome to the April 2017 edition of SOTA News. My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Luc ON7DQ, Andre F5UKL, Juerg HB9BIN, Peter ON4UP.

73, Mark G0VOF

========================================================
The March 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 1100 times.
========================================================

SOTA AWARDS March 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

Congratulations this month to new Shack Sloths YO6PIB (all S2S), G4AZS, SQ9RZA, NO6E and G4YSS (all S2S). Mountain Goats this month KC0YQF (first NA YL Goat), G4AZS, and G4YSS (of whom more later). Another notable achievement (all are notable, some just higher!) to be mentioned is G0FEX as Supersloth (10k Chaser points).

I had an interesting claim from G4YSS where he requested variations on the standard certificates (always happy to oblige if you do the work to prove the validity of the claim!). He has had endorsements for 80m CW, 80m All Modes and asked if he could obtain a certificate indicating that he had achieved 1000 Winter Bonus points – job done and that option will be added to the website when I do some essential changes.

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
G4AZS Adrian Bayling
KC0YQF Lynn Skinner
G4YSS John Earnshaw (Winter Bonus)

Shack Sloth
YO6PIB Kertesz Csaba-Zoltan (All S2S)
G4AZS Adrian Bayling
SQ9RZA Grzegorz Bakalarczyk
NO6E Andrew Ellis

Certificates Issued

Activator
G4YSS John Earnshaw 1000 points (80m CW)
G4YSS John Earnshaw 1000 points (80m All Modes)
G4AZS Adrian Bayling 1000 points
G4YSS John Earnshaw 1000 points (Winter Bonus)
G7HEM Michael Hartley 500 points
NS7P Phil Shepard 500 points
M0PLA Paul Athersmith 100 points
HB9GHJ Urs Gredig 100 points

Chaser
G0FEX Ken Porter 10000 points
WC9G Ron Burns 1500 points
G4YSS John Earnshaw 1000 points (All S2S)
G4AZS Adrian Bayling 1000 points
SQ9RZA Grzegorz Bakalarczyk 1000 points
M6HMK Helen Melhuish 250 points
K7FWH Robert H Lytle 100 points
K4VOZ Tomas Ferrer 100 points
VK3GRK Graeme Knight 100 points
NM5PS Peter Spotts 100 points

Activator Unique
VK3PF Peter Freeman 250 summits
G4TJC Simon Melhuish 100 summits

Chaser Unique
NS7P Phil Shepard 4000 summits

Summit to Summit
NS7P Phil Shepard Gold
JP3DGT Katsushige Oiji Bronze

Mountain Hunter
G4TJC Simon Melhuish Platinum
KC7ND Warren Zimmer Bronze
JP3DGT Katsushige Oiji Bronze

SOTA Complete
HB9JOE Andreas Thiemann 100 summits

Postal rates have now been increased in line with the changes introduced by Royal Mail. These changes principally affect the lighter items and rates for the larger parcels have not changed.

Last month I highlighted the fact that issuing certificates by email in pdf form was essentially a Paypal benefit and resulted in only a fraction of the certificate cost being available to SOTA. This was discussed at the recent Management Team meeting where we considered a change in the pricing to overcome this. Well changing the price of emailed certificates is something we will introduce from 1 April 2017 – all emailed certificates will now be Free of Charge. We felt that the income from other awards, merchandise and donations produced a sensible income stream that supported the costs of running SOTA and that running an aspect of the awards programme that only benefited a third party was nonsensical. Printed certificates will still be charged for and we will review the impact on revenues after running this for a trial period.

You will notice that I am able to generate special endorsements to our standard certificates, this is only because your log data is available from the database in a downloadable form. If you require a particular variant I will produce it provided you submit the supporting information. I am not going to hunt the database for the information, life is too short, but if you supply the back-up data then I will produce the variant. The first new certificate that will need verification is the Winter (and/or Summer) Bonus Activator certificate. Starting like all our certificates at 100 points and available for 250, 500, 1000, 2500 etc levels. We do not encourage taking risks in adverse conditions and expect all Activators to apply common sense when activating.

Finally, we have decided to support “Youngsters on the Air 2017” to help promote SOTA and encourage younger people into the hobby. This year the event is being held in the UK but it is our intention to provide assistance to this (or similar) events worldwide whenever we can. There is active participation by SOTA in this event with many participants taking to the hills to enjoy a SOTA activation with the assistance of experienced SOTA Activators. When their activations are announced it is up to us to give this the maximum support possible – can they handle an (orderly) pileup?

Stay safe on the hills

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

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NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

Hi All,

Spring for W7N happening in NW Nevada, finally, we won't get our final freeze until sometime late in April, and Peavine Peak [W7N/WC011] which is very prominent here in the Reno Sparks area is still snow-covered. That will be my first activation when the snow is gone this year. It's been a hugely wet year and we're expecting a massive wild flower bloom in the desert soon. On to the statistics:

NORTH AMERICA TOTALS
Total Activations: 464 [462]
Nr Unique Activators: 145 [144]
Total Chaser QSOs: 1749 [6595]
Nr Unique Chasers: 178 [276]
Unique Summits: 581 [313]

2m: 50 (2%) [144]
6m: 0 (0%) [0]
10m: 2 (0%) [10]
12m: 0 (0%) [1]
15m: 9 (0%) [85]
17m: 64 (3%) [388]
20m: 977 (55%) [2997]
30m: 203 (11%) [916]
40m: 433 (24%) [2003]
60m: 11 (0%) [39]
80m: 0 (0%) [0]
160m: 0 (0%) [5]
Unk: 0

CW: 1309 (74%) [4646]
SSB: 389 (22%) [1807]
FM: 50 (2%) [140]
AM: 0 (0%) [1]
Data: 0 (0%) [0]
Other: 0 (0%) [0]
Unk: 0

I'm becoming less and less certain that these numbers, although very precise integers, are actually truthful. I will undertake to re-write my program, I haven't touched it in 4 or 5 years.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

Bob, AC1Z, up in New Hampshire reports that he began chasing at the beginning of 2014, and as of February 2017, he has exceeded 20,000 chaser points. Congratulations Bob!

Pete, WA7JTM, who is the W7A Association Manager reports:

"W7RV (Tommy) went over 75K chaser points in March. WA7JTM (Pete) went over 5000 s2s points on March 4^th (scored “43” s2s points that day). Pete also completed his 300^th SOTA activation on March 19^th. K7JFD, (Jim) completed his 100^th SOTA activation in March, and K6HPX (Ken) will complete his 200^th SOTA activation any day now.

"Future GOATS in the Hunt…these guys are moving up fast towards their GOAT award: W7USA, Ray, 946 points (should finish up next month), and N7CW, Bud, 860 points (he has only activated 87 summits to score 860 points!). Spring has sprung and u can expect lots of action from the W7A SOTA ops this summer."

And, thanks to reporter Peter, KD0YOB, "There are two new shack sloths on the W0C roll of honor. Last week, K7PX and KD0YOB (me) passed the 1000 chaser point milestone."

From the farther north W7M Association, Ron, AE7AP, reports: "The Montana SOTA crew is getting psyched for our short summer. We have 5 activators that have been active in 2017. While some had to go out of state to satiate their SOTA addition, we are beginning to see a few in-state activations. Summer is coming! The 2017 activators include: Vick-K7VK, Bill-N7MSI, Rob-AE7AP, Barb-AE7AQ, and John-KI7FUT"
"The W7M chasers have also been active. Wendell-N7WM passed through the 10,000 point barrier in February!!!!!, and Bob-K7HLN is approaching Slothdom with 953 points."

And, breaking NEWS:

Elliot, K6EL, provided some background on perhaps the last US Association: "

Hal, N6JZT mentioned that there are two P100 summits in Iowa, the last state in the US with qualifying peaks and no association. One peak is a very mild slope, possibly leading to the first activation zone lower than 25 vertical meters in the 15 year history of SOTA. The MT can easily do the prep for a new association in that state, but first is the search for an AM there.

I could plod for hours through the list of chasers and climbers active in nearby states to see if one of them lives in Iowa, but first I'll ask: Does anyone know an Iowa resident who either chases or activates from there? I could offer a reward, but all they get is notoriety and a hearty handclasp. Here are the summits, which will be referenced as WØI/IM-ØØ1 & 2

https://listsofjohn.com/peak/139528
https://listsofjohn.com/peak/55905

Also from Elliott, "The March edition of QST magazine, at page 78, lists SOTA first among programs to consider for NPOTA who wish to stay active (inset on that page). I plan to email several dozen of the top NPOTA activators with an invitation to advise us if they want to tag along with a SOTA activation in their area, or to receive advice on equipment and easy summits. Can anyone think of a downside to mentioning this Yahoo group in the process"

"Have you noticed how much free SOTA publicity QST has given us in the last year or so, including a QST cover picture.... to say nothing of the cover of the ARRL handbook?"

Bob, K0NR, mentioned the "Second Randomly Scheduled W0C SOTA Dinner: "We had a great turn out last night for the W0C SOTA dinner.

Thanks to everyone that attended. It was wonderful to meet folks in person and have some lively discussion about SOTA, hiking, summits and radio. The 15 attendees were:
Steve WG0AT, Wayne AD0KE, Brad WA6MM, Caleb W4XEN, Carey KX0R, John N0TA, Curtis KC5CW, Mark N0MTN, Bob K0NR, Joyce K0JJW, Steve K7PX, Al KH7AL, James KI0KN, Walt W0CP, John N1OIE

I have a few photos of the group at dinner, shared here:"

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Ken, AB4WL, mentioned the Ft. Walton Beach FL Hamfest, which unfortunately is now over. However, he also reported from Bill W4HBK: "We would like to invite you to a forum on "Portable Operations: Activating and Chasing" at the Ft. Walton Beach, FL Hamfest http://w4zbb.%0Aorg/w4zbborg/index.php?page=Hamfest on Saturday March 18th at 11:30 A.M. CDT. The presentation will include chasing and activating in the various on-the-air programs including SOTA, WWFF, IOTA, U.S. Islands Award Program, WCA, VHF/UHF and OSCAR Grid Squares, County Hunting, and a review of our NPOTA experiences. We will also discuss the equipment needed to operate portable from QRP to 100 watts.

We would like to meet other activators and chasers. We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming Hamfest. If you are unable to attend Ft. Walton Beach we will also be presenting a forum on the following dates:

April 8, 201 7 noon CDT Mobile, AL Hamfest http://www.w4iax.net/hamfest.htm

August 18, 2017 11:00 A.M. CDT Huntsville, AL Hamfest http://www.hamfest.org/

November 11, 2017 Time TBA Montgomery, AL Hamfest http://w4ap.org/news/Hamfest.htm

Presenters: Ken, AB4WL and Jennifer, KF4INA

The section on SOTA was well done and informative. Ken and xyl Jennifer seem to spend every weekend activating something somewhere."

Finally, from Bruce, N7RR: "On Monday, August 21 of this year a total solar eclipse path starts in the central Pacific Ocean, then traverses portions of eleven US states: Oregon, Idaho, a sliver of Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennesee, North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina, and continues to the eastern Atlantic Ocean short of the coast of West Africa. During totality, the sun's sphere is blocked from view, allowing us to see the spectacular solar corona https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona."

"During the lengthy partial phases and during the couple minutes of totality, skywave radio propagation changes, mimicking what we would expect in late afternoons, early evenings and early mornings. The 30 m, 40 m, 60 m, 80 m and possibly the 160 m bands are probably the best bets. Totality doesn't last long. If we are in its path, unless we cannot see the sun, we'll want to be watching the stupendous totally-eclipsed sun rather than operating our radios!"

"Remember that, except during totality, you MUST protect your eyes. You can watch the partial phases by constructing a simple cardboard pinhole projector https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/box-pinhole-projector.html or using an ISO-standard solar viewing device http://www.eclipse2017.org/glasses_order.htm http://www.eclipse2017.org/glasses_order.htm."

Ed. Note: All sorts of interesting things happen on the radio when the ionosphere experiences a short period of darkness during a normally illuminated time. D-Layer absorption decreases rapidly since the ion density and thus recombination is much higher than for the F-layers. You may find lower bands and even 80 opening briefly, much like gray line effects. It should be interesting, lots of summits on the path. Thanks Bruce, looking for updates as the year progresses.

That's it from the New World for this time,

73,

Fred ("Skip") K6DGW
Sparks NV USA
Washoe County DM09dn
NA SOTA Reporter Dude

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TM10SOTA Special call for 10th Anniversay of SOTA France

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of SOTA France, the call TM10SOTA will be activated by the team SOTA-FRANCE (15 operators).

The periods of activity are planned Weekend of April and July. Stations will not be inevitably in mobile on a summit and activate at the same time in different modes or on several bands.
There will be no qsl paper, the confirmation of the contact will be made via eQsl and LOTW. information: www.sota-france.fr

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SOTA at DIRAGE Ham fair, Belgium 2017

The ON association will promote Summits On The Air at the DIRAGE ham fair on 17 April. DIRAGE is one of the biggest radio amateur fairs in Belgium.

All SOTA participants are invited to the ‘meet & greet’ at 12h at the SOTA booth.

Dirage.jpg570x800 107 KB

See you there!

73, Peter ON4UP

ON Association manager

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March SOTA tours & a New Invention! – Luc ON7DQ

Luc ON7DQ has been busy this month, with several SOTA tours & even had the time to come up with a brilliant new invention for activators who may not like to get their equipment wet!

He reports his exploits can be read about, with photos at the links below:

Winter tour 9th – 12th March:

On that tour Luc achieved the 10th anniversary of ON SOTA award:

5 Summits in the North:

And finally, following on from his KX3 Digimode interface featured last month:

..we have an idea that may well appeal to many activators who prefer to keep their gear dry & operate in comfort.

This idea will not suit all summits, but variations of this could suit many:

73, Luc ON7DQ

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SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

In March, SOTA activators were very active. The total number of QSO’s
reported in the SOTA database is +65% compared with last month. Activations
also increased by 14.5 % compare with last months. This means the number
of chasers have drastically increased compare with last month. This could be
a good sign because in winter, normally and naturally the number of
activations is decreased because of harsh weather, then a 14.5% increase in
Spring could happen. But the large number increases of QSO’s comes from awareness of SOTA in Japan.

Off-line, there were two SOTA lovers gathering parties carried out in
March.

1st one was carried out in Osaka JA3 area on 5 March. Total 8 SOTA freaks
gathered in Umeda, lovely down town in Osaka. In the photo from left side,
JP3DGT, JJ3AMO, JH0CJH, JM3HRC, JP3PPL, JM3GVH, JF3KLH and JM3URG. Most of
each others were first time to meet with but was really like long time
friends from beginning. This is the one, perhaps you know, that we all
felt each others amongst the members of the same hobby.

Next, we got a visit of Andrew E JI1ASG and Gina on 23 March, on their way
back to New Zealand from Korea. Andrew is one of key member to start up
SOTA Japan association and he was the big wheel to promote it into Japan.
We also got attended Arnaud JG1XMV, Hiro JG0AWE, Kaz JK1NRL and really
enjoyed the night with endless Shabu shabu and beer.

SOTA activities in March 2017 in Japan as of 30 Mar 2017.

Activation

Total 134 Activations with 1730 QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 133 activations with 1683 QSO from Summits
JA5: 0
JA6: 1 activations with 47 QSO from Summits
JA8: 0

Chasing

Total 251 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 237 chasing QSO
JA5: 2 chasing QSO
JA6: 12 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

S2S

Total 136 S2S QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 134 S2S QSO
JA5: 0
JA6: 2 S2S QSO
JA8: 0

And finally this month from Japan, we all will welcome the visit of Eva
HB9FPM and Andy HB9JOE in Mid April and are planning another SOTA JA
gatherings and activations from JA summits. I will report this in next
month news. The SOTA gatherings will be carried out in JA1 Tokyo and JA3 Kyoto.
If you have a chance to join whichever parties, please contact me JH0CJH
Toru.

Also on 22 and 23 April we are going to have JA - NA S2S party to promote
SOTA activity to match with the NA SOTA events day and QRPTTF Spring
Event. We NA, JA SOTA lovers welcome you to join it.

North America SOTA Events

QRPTTF (QRP To The Field) Spring Event
http://www.zianet.com/qrp/qrpttf/2016/ttf.htm

Let's do it, Just do it, and make it into success.

---

Toru Kawauchi
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp

---

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THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 111 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

This month has been another non starter mainly due to Audrey's continuing knee problem, things are slowly improving but is a slow process She is managing a good deal of swimming (her first love) and walking in (not on) water and steadily longer little walks on the flat. Having said that the weather in the Lake District has been hardly conducive to hill walking with very low cloud most of the time although one day the rain did stop briefly Having said that as we write (Sat 25th) the wx is gorgeous and painting garden fences is no substitute for SOTA!

All this brings us to thinking about SOTA's 15th birthday and how things have changed in that time. Our first involvement came on May 5th 2002 as we were testing a new portable antenna on Hamps Fell above Grange. We had done a fair bit of operating from hills over the years and were setting up the beam for our upcoming trip to the Isle of Man. We heard a yl calling cq on 2m FM, MW3GTE which was the early call sign of Shirley MW0YLS sadly now SK. She was on Moel Famau and needed one more QSO to qualify the summit. She passed us all the info on sota and we were hooked, next day we were on Gummers How calling CQ SOTA and its been all uphill since! Shirley went on to become first YL Mountain Goat but became ill which reduced her hill walking. On 7th Nov 2005 we were on Moel Famau and reached our 1000 points Shirley popped up on frequency to congratulate us. This was the last time we spoke to her, soon after she went SK

Another inspiration for us is Allen M1EYO who shot up the leader board in the early years and soon made Mountain Goat. We had lots of contacts in this period as many of his points came from the LD area. Allen is not in the best of health nowadays but if you read this OM best wishes and hope to see you at Norbreck.

Barbies were also popular in the early days, we missed the first because we were, guess where, the Isle of Man but the following year saw us at the Lleyn Peninsula and the next year at Bala. The lady running the campsite at Bala gave every tent a label , then came round, examined them and issued an extra label requiring an additional fee if you had an awning, this on a 2 man ridge tent with extra fly sheet on the front! Great times.

Things have changed since the early days, the 2m chasers gradually climbed from the original struggle for four but in recent times seem to have dropped away again. An element of dx chasing has arrived with new countries joining every day which is great for sota but seems to have scared many of the casual chasers away which is rather sad. We have made our points by plodding so it can be done but it is handy to live close to a source of summits!

Notice lately a trend towards very fast cw calling and wonder how many folk read it on machines and for that matter send it in the same way. At what point does it become a "data mode" rather than good old CW. In the days of teleprinters knew an old Flight Sergeant who claimed to read RTTY from the sound but never saw much evidence of it. Personally I could tell a holding mark and RY's on a good day. I would love an old creed printer, the house would not!

That's enough waffle for this month Sorry no activation reports. All depends on Audrey's knee. We will be at Norbreck as usual with the usual cake etc so please come along for a chat. A call sign/ name badge helps, some people never forget a face, I rarely remember one, not for want of trying, sorry. Meanwhile

Take care out there.

73
Rob and Audrey
G4RQJ

========================================================

*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

Posts: 4

Participants: 2

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the May 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Saturday 29th April.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions.If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to

my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS MAY 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF

Welcome to the May 2017 edition of SOTA News. My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Luc ON7DQ, Geert PA7ZEE, Viki M6BWA, Pauloi CT2IWW Bob F5HTR, Phil G4OBK.

73, Mark G0VOF

========================================================
The April 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 1100 times.
========================================================

SOTA AWARDS April 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

Deciding to issue emailed certificates free of charge has resulted in an overwhelming demand which has resulted in inevitable delays. The following list illustrates the extent of new claims, more than double last month!

Congratulations to Vicki, M6BWA, who has achieved Mountain Goat based on UHF (70cm) contacts only; that is a really remarkable achievement. Congratulations also to HB9CBR, W7USA, DL4MHA, VK2HRX and VK3ANL for also reaching the 1000 points level. There are numerous Shack Sloths this month, forgive me for not including a name check here.

Following a long period without any claims for the Microwave Award this month there have been two, both on 23cm. Congratulations to G4AZS and G7HEM. How soon before I have a claim for the same award on 13cm – there are a group of GM's who know what I am talking about!

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
M6BWA Vicki Archard (All UHF)
HB9CBR Bruno Ackermann
W7USA Raymond P Sara
VK2HRX Compton Allen
VK3ANL Nicholas Lock

Shack Sloth
N5ZC Rich Thorne

Certificates Issued

Activator
DG0JMB Joerg Brueckner 5000 points
VK2HRX Compton Allen 1000 points
VK3ANL Nicholas Lock 1000 points
DL4MHA Wolfgang Renner 1000 points
LZ1GJ Yani Petkov Ganchev 500 points
LZ1GJ Yani Petkov Ganchev 250 points
YO8AZQ Adrian Done 250 points
YO8SSH Sebastian Hojbota 100 points
LZ1GJ Yani Petkov Ganchev 100 points
YO8SDF Lacramiora_Tatiana Clucerescu 100 points
G0POT Michael Sansom 100 points
KN4BKS Elizabeth Burns 100 points
DK6HS Sven Hammer 100 points

Chaser
NS7P Phillip Shepard 75k points
NQ7R Thomas Kramer 5000 points
N5ZC Rich Thorne 1000 points
KC5BG Mike Emerson 1000 points
K6MW Mike Wood 1000 points
KD0IPI Jim Alders 1000 points
M6BWA VIcki Archard 1000 points
YO8SSH Sebastian Hojbota 500 points
YO8AZQ Adrian Done 500 points
YO8SDF Lacramiora_Tatiana Clucerescu 250 points
YO8SSH Sebastian Hojbota 250 points
KK6ABZ Jan Pettit 250 points
VK4HNS Neil Shand 250 points
KP4RV Rafael Bonano 250 points
LZ2OQ Georgi Aleksov 250 points
YO8SDF Lacramiora_Tatiana Clucerescu 100 points
KK6ABZ Jan Pettit 100 points
KG7FOP Roland Simmons 100 points
KE0FQS Michael B. Kingsbury 100 points
YO8SST Tatiana Done 100 points
VK4HNS Neil Shand 100 points
KP4RV Rafael Bonano 100 points

Summit to Summit
WA7JTM Pete Scola Platinum
HB9BQB Guido Giannini Silver
M6BWA Vicki Archard Silver
LZ1GJ Yani Petkov Ganchev Bronze
LZ1GJ Yani Petkov Ganchev Red
YO8SSH Sebastian Hojbota Red

Mountain Hunter
WC9G Ron Burns Platinum
MI0RTY Martin Strawbridge Gold
G0UUU Phil Earnshaw Bronze
KE0FQS Michael B. Kingsbury Bronze
KK6ABZ Jan Pettit Bronze
LZ2OQ Georgi Aleksov Bronze
LZ2HT Ivan Todorov Bronze

Mountain Explorer
WC9G Ron Burns Bronze
F5UBH Christophe Toullec Bronze
YO8SSH Sebastian Hojbota Bronze

SOTA Complete
F5UBH Christophe Toullec 100 summits

Microwave Award
G4AZS Adrian Bayling 150 km 23 cm
G7HEM Mike Hartley 100 km 23 cm

The massive number of claims for certificates has rather dominated my work this month – it is rapidly becoming a serious job – so there have been inevitable delays. I cannot see this situation becoming better so the turnaround times may be rather extended. I also ran out of blanks for Mountain Goat trophies, these are on order and should be with me in the first week of May. Just to add to my woes I ran out of Mountain Goat embroidered badges (having just taken delivery of a large stock of regular ones). Delivery of these may well be extended.

Thank you to the people who have made donations this month. These have countered the loss of income from issuing certificates free of charge so we can continue to provide the online data facilities.

I have replenished my stock of hats and have introduced a Heather Grey ski hat and Red and Olive baseball caps to the existing range. All colours are now in stock although I am phasing out the Navy Blue ski hat as it has not sold very well. Stocks of Polo Shirts are also running down and will not be replaced; I will try to list what is still available on the reflector.

The Rally in Blackpool allowed several of you to purchase SOTA merchandise on the stand and I (along with GM4COX) will be at the Scottish Rally at Braehead on 7th May with a range of stock. If there is something you are particularly wanting and would like to save on the (exorbitant) postage then let me know in advance and I will bring it with me.

Stay safe on the hills

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

========================================================

NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

Hi All,

We're going to skip the statistics for North America this month, between two computers, one of which is behaving like a teenager right now, I can't find the Perl script or directories to run it. Getting the statistics will pop to the top of the To-Do list for next month. Meanwhile, I need to get this into Mark, so thus encouraged ...

Sadly, Guy, N7UN, reported that Jim Rodenkirch, K9JWV, has become a Silent Key. Guy's note: "Some folks may have seen the announcement that Jim, K9JWV, has become a SK. Jim was involved early in 2009 with Stu/KI6J in the setup of SOTA for W6, W0C, W7A, and W7U. It was these early "seed" summits from KI6J that launched SOTA in the Western States. See qrz.com for a short biography of Jim.

RIP Jim! Thanks for your early contributions to SOTA!"

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: Bob, AC1Z, reports that he has exceeded 20,000 Chaser Points in the W1 Association. He actually achieved this in February of this year but unfortunately, the stage coach travels slowly out here on the Western Frontier.

Richard, N2GBR, reported his first activation, Cross Mountain, W3/PD-008. With high QRN on both 40 and 20, and an inability to get a spot out on his cell phone, he moved to CW, called CQ SOTA several times, and RBN took care of the spot for him, leading to about 10 QSO's before the rain started.

With the first activation under his belt, he went on to activate Priest, Sharp Top Mt, Apple Orchard, and High Knob, all in W4V, over a 2 day excursion.

Rob, AE7AP reports that Vick, K7VK, got to Double Sloth this month in the W7M Association.

NEWS: Quite a bit this month ---

Elliott, K6EL, our representative on the SOTA MT, reported from San Francisco:

"The March edition of QST magazine, at page 78, lists SOTA first among programs to consider for NPOTA who wish to stay active (inset on that page). I plan to email several dozen of the top NPOTA activators with an invitation to advise us if they want to tag along with a SOTA activation in their area, or to receive advice on equipment and easy summits. Can anyone think of a downside to mentioning this Yahoo group in the process?" [Ed note: Elliott is referring to the NASOTA Yahoo group and apparently no one found a downside].

He also commented that SOTA has received a great deal of free publicity in QST in the last year or so, which included a cover photograph and a cover photograph on the new ARRL Handbook! The current QST issue features "Take it outside" as a theme as well which may conjure up SOTA to a few.

From Guy, N7UN: "Paul/W6PNG and Guy/N7UN are planning to spend a week in W0C activating and visiting local folks. One key goal is to participate in the Rocky Mtn Rendezvous weekend. It would be great to get a lot of SOTA folks to "vacation" during this time and, of course, have some fun. Generally we try to meet at least one day for a SOTA party! Mark your calendars!"

--- Aug 5-6: NA SOTA Rocky Mtn Rendezvous + Colorado 14er Event + W7 SOTA Activity Weekend + ARRL UHF (222MHz+) Contest

From Matt, K0MOS: "Thanks to the Summit and MT team, Colorado increased the number of SOTA qualifying summits by a total of 61 summits [27 brand new summits, 37 new summits due to prominence change (500 ft to 492 ft), and 3 deleted summits due to prominence failure]. You can now choose between 1805 high altitude summits. SOTA DB is up-to-date. W0C-SOTA.ORG and a new W0C Arm will be updated/posted soon."

SUMMITS: Guy, N7UN, for the NA SOTA Summits Team dropped a note:

"During the March 2017 SOTA MT meeting, we agreed to try to be more transparent about existing “work-in-progress (WIP) “ efforts to bring new Associations into the SOTA framework."

"For the USA, we are very fortunate to have USGS data that provides summits names, elevations, lat/longs, and a calculated prominence and lat/longs of the col/saddle. This data makes it quite “easy” to update or initialize new Associations."

"For Canada, Central America, and South America it is not that easy. For the most part, the SOTA Summits Team can do a preliminary terrain analysis using SRTM tools that feed a GIS application to build a candidate summit list. That summit list must be verified against detailed digital maps which can be very problematic and time consuming."

"For North America, Iowa is the last potential Association for which we are trying to recruit a local AM. The following is the NA and SA current list of WIP projects:"

"Initial Inquiry Stage:
1. VE3 , VE4, and VE5: Need a local AM
2. CE Chile, CX Uruguay, PY Brazil, LU Argentina

Summit List in Production or Verification
1. TI Costa Rica
2. XE Mexico
3. VO1 and VO2 Newfoundland and Labrador

Finalizing ARM and SL docs
1. VY0 Yukon (Target for a 1 May launch)

As a final note, the SOTA Summits Team is actively looking for help in bringing these new associations on-line. If you have very good Excel and Word capabilities, please let us know. We need help!"

Elliott, K6EL, added to this that he has a volunteer for AM for Iowa but the two "peaks" are very flat and don't look like peaks from a distance which will impact the vertical height of the activation zones.

Continuing from Guy:"In 2009 and 2010, most of the W5 and W7 SOTA North America Associations were set up by one Association Manager with the understanding that as in-state, local SOTA participants emerged, a local AM would be appointed. A number of the early W7 Associations have been transitioned to local, in-state folks." Effective today [4/15/2017], W5N, W5O, and W5A will gain new Association Managers who will be announced shortly. We want to thank Mike, KD5KC, for his early work in establishing these three Associations."

EVENTS: From Gerald, G4OIG, a reminder: "After the success of the November 2016 NA<>EU S2S event, I have put forward Saturday 13th May 2017 for a second event with a projected time frame of 12:00 to 18:00UTC to suit a spread of activity across the States. The propagation predictions are unfortunately rather poor for the coming months and we are also within the major contesting season. On 13th May 2017 we will have to contend with the CQ-M contest. However, alternatives appear to be few and far between and virtually any date is likely to coincide with some contest activity."

"I hope that a good number of stations can be QRV on both sides of the pond. Having the ability to run more than just a few watts will certainly help out. In the longer term, my suggestion is that we aim for another event on 18th November 2017. Diaries at the ready!I hope we can make some good contacts on 13th May. If you don't try, you don't get." [For those not fluent in Oxford English, "diaries" roughly equates of our Station Notebooks ... you do keep one, right? EU<->NA is reminiscent of Marconi's first transatlantic tests].

In the "Heads-Up department: "Scott WA9STI of Los Angeles, CA, is travelling to Ireland for the first time with his XYL KB6LAS. He hopes to do a SOTA as EI/WA9STI on EI/IS-127 in Dingle on May 24 or May 25. An Alert has been posted but would appreciate any Spots if he is heard."

REPORTS:

We have had several activation reports, I have room for a couple of short ones:

This possibly should have been in the Achievements section ... from Bill, W4HBK on 17 m: "I've been trying some time now for a JA QSO but the path is very difficult from the East Coast for QRP and vanishing sunspots. But I finally made it with JI1IHV last week giving him a report of 329 for my first Asia. As it turns out he was running 40W with the help of a solar panel...the extra power did the trick."

From Ron, AE7AP in W7M: "Things are still slow in W7M. The snowpack is nearing its peak in the high country & beginning to melt in the lower areas. Many of the 4-point summits are now relatively snow-free. April saw a total of 5 activations in W7M by Rob-AE7AP, Bill-N7MSI & Vick-K7VK. The Montana chasers were active – Vick-K7VK achieved “Double-Sloth” in April. We’re ½-way through our 4-month Montana spring!"

Spring is coming to Northern Nevada about as fast as we're inching our way to metric. Lots of snow in the Carson and Sierra Ranges, it's going to melt, we're downhill from it, and last I checked, water and everything else runs downhill. Andrea and I can swim.

73,

Fred ("Skip") K6DGW
Sparks NV USA
Washoe County DM09dn
NA SOTA Reporter Dude

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UHF Mountain Goat at last on 2 April 2017 - Viki M6BWA

When M0JLA discovered in 2009 that he was entitled to a full licence he wanted to carry a radio on the hills and soon discovered the challenge of SOTA. I then studied and gained a Foundation Licence in December 2010 on the ‘if you can’t beat’em then join ‘em’ principle but decided I only wanted to carry the lightest and simplest possible equipment (any idea of CW was/is quite beyond me). After 3+ years and a lot of hard work (and fun) the VHF Mountain Goat was reached and going up hills still seemed to be enjoyable but it was time to look for a new challenge.

I decided to start trying to qualify all my SOTA summits with 70cm fm as well as 2m in March 2014, after the end of the winter bonus season, as I wanted to find something to do whilst waiting for M0JLA to finish on HF. The kit is a VX-7R, max power 5w which is fine as I am restricted to 10w. I usually use a 2m Sotabeam dipole which seems to work even better on 70cm. I did try a j-pole last year whilst up in Scotland and sometimes this can be better as it is on a fishing pole and thus higher but, after some extensive trials, I reverted to the dipole (although I have lashed it high up on a fishing pole before now!) I can change frequency at the flick of a button (if I hit the right one!). Very occasionally I have 2 radios with me and have to just remember which one is on which band. Mynydd Eppynt (GW/SW-018) is not one of the easiest summits to qualify even if you are calling on the radio which is actually attached to the aerial!!

I nearly always call (and qualify if I can) on 2m fm first and ask every caller if they can work 70cm (usually on 433.475) as well, as I know that getting 4 on 70cm can be difficult - and sometimes impossible. When the main 2m pile-up has died down (if there was one!) I QSY to 70cm after promising that I will return to my 2m frequency as soon as possible. On 70cm I get, if I'm lucky, enough of my 2m chasers to qualify but often it seems to be 3 - and sometimes nil. I nearly always go quickly to 433.500 to see if I can pick up any listeners (G3XEV is the most likely person to be found - thanks John) but any answer is rare. Then I'm back to my 2m frequency and then the 2m calling channel - with a special plea for 70cm if I’m short of contacts. I do occasionally get pile-ups on 70cm (Titterstone Clee and Stiperstones come to mind) and can get 17 or more contacts but this is not frequent. My current record is 22 contacts on 70cm on my UHF Mountain Goat day on 2 April 2017 when I had done some extensive SOTA advertising – and the sun was shining brightly! I was operating from Waun Fach GW/SW-002, the top of the Black Mountains which are just over the Welsh Border and the 7 70cm S2S ranged from the western Brecon Beacons GW/SW-003 and Plynlimon GW/MW-001 to near Birmingham G/CE-002, Gloucester G/CE-001, Ludlow G/WB-012 and the Forest of Dean G/WB-012. Other contacts included Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Llandrindod Wells with the furthest, probably, G0BIN at Bedworth NE of Coventry. Not bad for 70cm on 5w with a dipole as I never got round to erecting the 70cm beam I was carrying as it didn’t seem to be necessary to qualify the hill! A quick look at my summit to summit log shows a couple of 70cm contacts at 160km and 170km (G/LD-019 High Raise to GW/NW-026Mynydd Mawr) but on 2m there are a handful of 250+km S2S with the winner on 7/9/2016 GW/SW-016 Ysgyryd Fawr, near Abergavenny, to G/TW-002 Drake How Cringle Moor on the N Yorkshire Moors – a distance of 309km!

As we all know, it is only a small percentage of the British population who have an amateur radio licence and even fewer of those who will answer a SOTA call on any frequency. When you add in the limited range of 70cm (or even 2m) then things get more difficult and the less that a band is used then the fewer people will actually bother to listen. I remember a contact on 2m with an amateur in Milford Haven who said he liked to listen out on that band but only heard any activity about twice a month! Then there are the people who ‘didn’t bother to reconnect the 70cm radio when they rearranged the shack’ or when the aerial blew down or even (from one of my precious 70cm contacts near Cross Hands) “I bought a new radio and this one doesn’t work on 70cm at all – sorry!” Also common is ’the radio does do 70cm but I haven’t got a clue how to get there (and what is the calling frequency if I actual get it to work??)’. I have even had contacts go and read the manual (What! Isn’t that against the rules in any hobby??) and then successfully talk to me – to their surprise. I continue to be amazed and heartened by the pains that some listeners will take to try to help me qualify a summit. They have telephoned friends, run upstairs to get the aerial higher, taken the dog (and the radio) for a walk up the hill to see if we can talk – even got in the car and driven for some miles to get to a spot with better reception. They are a great bunch of people the 2326 different people I have spoken to (OK the statistic is ‘call signs’ but the number of individuals won’t be much lower) during my nearly 6+ years of activating. I won’t call them chasers as the majority of people I speak to are not collecting points and thanking me for a new summit. They are mostly ‘real’ people who know they may be helping me to get points by answering/friendly listeners who think they’ll have a chat and hear what she is up to/bored whilst doing a task and think they’ll have a short natter – and sometimes, a Sir Galahad or two who comes to rescue me when I plead for just one more call sign for 20 mins or so and they want to help me (or to get me to shut up!) Certainly in February this year my 4th 70cm on Mynydd Llangorse (GW/SW-015) came after 30 mins of calling, just as I was standing up to take down the rig as I was cold and wet and couldn’t bang my head against the wall of silence any longer. It was then that 2W0MFD (Terry from Brecon) turned on the radio and galloped to the rescue. I was still cold and wet but a lot happier thanks to that last contact.

Meanwhile whether you are in the shack, the car or on a hill, don't forget that your cheap handy may well work on 70cm and make the contact - especially if you poke it out the window, get out of the car or even run to the top of the house and put the fishing pole out of the window (thanks for the many difficult contacts G0TDM, John!) Each time I travel to a different area (eg Snowdonia, Lake District, Arran etc) I tend to speak to a different set of people as I use only 2m and 70cm, unlike those using HF (and more power) who may well talk to the same chasers from almost anywhere in Britain (conditions permitting). This may explain the large number of different callsigns worked and go some way to excuse my inability to remember callsigns or names (and write them down correctly!) What I do remember is a contact in May 2016 from Arran to GM0FSZ Eric in Girvan who found that his 70cm set was still on my favourite frequency (433.475) from when we had last talked during my visit to Northern Ireland a year earlier! Come on the rest of you. Give the 70cm band a try and you might well be listening when, in despair, I call on 433.500.

I look forward to the QSO!

Viki M6BWA

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May OK SOTA tour – Phil G4OBK & Victor GI4ONL

On 3rd May Victor GI4ONL and Phil G4OBK will meet at midday at Stansted Airport and take a flight to Brno which is in the south west corner on the Czech Republic near to Austria. This will be a 5 day SOTA Tour of the summits west north west of Brno. OK/JM-065 will be activated in the evening of the arrival day with the tour operation proper starting properly on the 4th May.

Target area Brno Tour.jpg919x712 317 KB

Target area around Brno

We will both use Elecraft KX2 10 watt transceivers with link dipole aerials, concentrating on the 20m, 30m and 40m bands. An HB1B will be carried as a backup radio. You can expect to hear us operating from around 30 summits over 5 days, before returning to the UK on 8th May. We have been working with Jan OK2PDT who have given us some useful advice on summit access in his local area.

With a tight schedule we do not expect to be operating on any summit for longer than 30 minutes, before moving on to the next one. Chasers can expect the operation to be around 75% CW and 25% SSB, with the most likely SSB operation to be by G4OBK on the 20m band.

G4OBK GI4ONL SP-BZ-070.jpg2765x2074 1.39 MB

Phil G4OBK & Victor GI4ONL

73 from Phil & Victor
============================================================

SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

In April, its SAKURA (Cherry blossoms) season in Japan. This spring temperature is very low and it was slow start of spring. But this makes long lasting of SAKURA flowers and we enjoyed it very much. SOTA Japan Activities are increased in this month by the spring season start.

From 11 to 20 April, famous SOTA activators HB9JOE Andy and HB9FPM Eva have visited Japan with JA call sign JJ1CKD and JJ1CKE. They got JA operation license using JA-CEPT bilateral agreement of Ham Radio operation between JA and CEPT registered countries, that has been taken into effect from December 2016. I believe these licenses are the first case that made into effect through this new JA-CEPT scheme. As per this license, Andy and Eva made several SOTA activation in Japan.

13 April Mt. Ooyama JA/KN-006

15 April Mt. Kintokiyama JA/KN-007

16 April Mt. Darumayama JA/SO-051

During this time Eva HB9FPM completed 2000 Mountain Goat award. Congratulations!

One week after these Andy and Eva's activation, we had a NA-JA S2S parties on 22, 23 April. This weekend was NA QRPTTF/SOTA event day. Then we expected many S2S QSO between JA and NA, also with DX but the condition was not the best one and very few DX QSO have been reported. We wish to set up another S2S party in near future.

SOTA activities in April 2017 in Japan as of 30 April 2017.

Activation

Total 172 Activations with 1809 QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 167 activations with 1718 QSO from Summits
JA5: 0
JA6: 5 activations with 91 QSO from Summits
JA8: 0

Chasing

Total 367 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 345 chasing QSO
JA5: 0 chasing QSO
JA6: 22 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

S2S

Total 183 S2S QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 175 S2S QSO
JA5: 0
JA6: 8 S2S QSO
JA8: 0

The number of Activation increased 28.4%, Chaser increased 46.2% and S2S increased 34.5% compare with last month.

---

Toru Kawauchi
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp

---

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SOTA NEW ZEALAND REPORT from Warren ZL2AJ

SOTA Activity Report for March / April 2017

List Summits activated

ZL_Activations.jpg472x528 297 KB

First for the March / April ZL SOTA report, an activation report from Jackie ZL2WA

Mangatangi Summit, Hunua, ZL1/WK-136 activated on 21.04.17 and 22.04.17

"This was only my second SOTA summit activated and I enjoyed it immensely. The weather was perfect for walking up to the summit. OM John, ZL1BYZ and myself set off along the track, sometimes very steep but quite manageable for a shack sloth like myself. John, being the fitter (and with longer legs!), forged ahead at a fairly quick pace, with me trailing behind. We used hand-held 2m sets to keep in touch and so I didn’t get lost, my sense of direction is embarrassingly bad.

The views along the way were beautiful, with native bush and views of the immense Mangatangi Dam. Once at the top, John and found a suitable area to set up the antenna, a linked dipole offering 20, 17 and 15m, with hook-on bits for 40m. He had the trusty Elecraft KX3 up and running and put the call out for contacts and spotted us on SOTA watch. I made three contacts on 2m and one on 40m before the utc roll-over. The magic four contacts were just made in time; thank you to the four ZL’s who came to my rescue! I made another five contacts on the new day – 4 VK’s and one ZL, all on 17m. I was very pleased with my results, and John was equally happy with his 15 contacts too. It was time to roll up the dipole and pack away all the equipment for the trek back down the hill and to the car. Thanks to all the chasers who made it a successful activation."

de ZL1WA
Jacky Shaw

Jacky and John are active chasers, and regularly activate summits in and around the greater Auckland area. It was great to work both Jackie and John on their summits during this weekend.

During this report period, I had a work trip to Wellington and managed to activate 4 summits during this visit. One of the summits was a joint activation with Ben ZL4BEN and Wynne ZL2ATH. It was a pleasure to be able to meet these two gents for the first time. Wynne is an active sotateer in the Wellington region, and Ben is a keen young ham looking at starting out with SOTA.

As the days get shorter and the weather a little less predictable it is important to remember that as well as packing your radio equipment and food, make sure you take warm clothing on your trek. Bonus point season is about to begin. For ZL1, summits over 1200 mASL from 1st June to 15th September attract 3 bonus points due to the extra difficulty posed by often snow covered summits. No one has claimed bonus points in ZL1 yet. For ZL3, summits over 1100 mASL from 1st June to 30th September attract 3 bonus points for the same reason. Only Andrew ZL3CC has claimed bonus points from his activation of ZL3/CB570 last winter. The bonus points are not a motivator to take extra risks – safety first especially when conditions are extreme.

Chaser activity is up this period which signals an increase in interest from the amateur community in this award. Activation activity is down but only slightly and that is not unexpected when put beside the holiday period in January. If you are planning an activation, please make sure others know. Set an alert on www.sotawatch.org and let local hams in the area know to keep a listening watch. A post on our facebook group is also helpful, to give you the best opportunity to have a successful activation.

An audit of our summit list identified a few duplicate summits, 2 in ZL1 and 2 in ZL3. They have now been removed. We also added 14 new summits to ZL3 bringing the total count for ZL to 5184 summits. Only 111 summits have been activated, however that does not stop you from reactivating a summit to claim the points from a summit that has already been activated by another rham. In fact you can activate a summit as often as you like, but you can only claim the points from the summit once per UTC year.
I will be presenting a SOTA talk at this years conference in Rotorua. I hope to see / have seen many of you there.

Total Summits Activated for Period – 25
Total number of ZL summits – 5184
Total number of ZL summits activated – 111
Total ZL Chaser contacts logged for period 585

Regards,
73’s ZL2AJ Warren.

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THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 112 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

Very little for us to report this month due to Audrey's continuing knee problem. she can walk reasonably long distances on the flat but up and down is still giving problems although improving. We can't risk it just yet but soon we will try a suitable hill, not easy to find in this part of the country.

Main excitement for us has been the annual Norbreck Rally which as always was very well attended by Sota aficionados. Great to meet up with old friends and to make new ones previously only voices on the air, particularly Esther and Jan, GI0AZA and GI0AZB all the way from Ireland. and the usual group up from Wales. Colin,M1BUU's rig, built on the summit before his contact taking him over the 1000 points mark was on show and produced a good number of complements from visitors. Roy G4SSH was presented with something special, more on that in a future edition of the SOTA News. This Rally was the usual busy interesting and pleasurable event, so busy indeed that we bought nothing (a first) and did not even get to see Mickey 2E0YYY's stall, Sorry mate, next time.

Locally the A592 through Bowness down to Newby Bridge has awakened from its winter slumber (Shut both ways) for months which was so popular that the highways people are having a repeat performance at the end of the year. Good news the suggested diversion is only 40 miles extra.

The weather at the end of the month has been unseasonable with snow on high ground and high winds to help. Viki M6BWA and Rod M0JLA have had some very cold wintery days during their spring visit to this part of the world .
The highlight of my (Rob's)activities was standing on top of some stepladders in the garden, one hand on the fence and the other holding a handheld trying unsuccessfully to work them on 70cms from Illgill Head, 51 with me but no go. We did meet successfully on 2M later.

Nothing further but we will be back! meanwhile,

Take care out there.

73
Rob and Audrey
G4RQJ

========================================================

*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

Posts: 7

Participants: 4

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the June 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Tuesday 30th May.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions.If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to

my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS JUNE 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF
Welcome to the June 2017 edition of SOTA News. My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Luc ON7DQ, Paulo CT2IWW, Gerald G4OIG, Jörg DL3LUM, Colwyn MM0YCJ, Paul DL6FBK.

73, Mark G0VOF

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The May 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 1100 times.
========================================================

SOTA AWARDS May 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

Demand for certificates continues unabated and the numbers ordered this month look likely to become normal. Congratulations are due to Don, G0RQL, who has now exceeded 100k Chaser points, I doubt there is an Activator whose log does not feature Don somewhere. We have a new Mountain Goat in HB9FVF and Shack Sloths K7HLN and K3TCU; once again, congratulations.

Behind Don, but not that far behind, is Gary W0MNA on 75k points and four new “Supersloths” DD5LP, N7WM, W6JMP and M3FEH

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
HB9FVF Matthias Senn

Shack Sloth
K7HLN Robert L. Solomon
K3TCU Gary Kulling

Certificates Issued

Activator
VK3PF Peter Freeman 2500 points
M0JCQ James Stevens 500 points
DL4TO Gerhard Sedlak 500 points
VK3IL David Giddy 500 points
GW8NZN David F. Roberts 250 points
DF9GU Bernd Kohler 100 points
SQ8JMZ Robert Szura 100 points

Chaser
G0RQL Don Roomes 100000 points
W0MNA Gary Auchard 75000 points
DD5LP Ed Durrant 10000 points
N7WM Wendell Morrill 10000 points
W6JMP Gene Trasti 10000 points
M3FEH Karl Kruger 10000 points
M3ZCB Caroline Blackmun 5000 points
VK3ZPF Peter Fraser 2500 points
GI0AZA Esther Harper 2500 points
GI0AZB Ian Evans 2500 points
WC9G Ron Burns 2500 points
GI0AZB Ian Evans 1500 points
K7HLN Robert L. Solomon 1000 points
VK5PL David Poole 1000 points
M3FEH Karl Kruger 1000 points
SQ8JMZ Robert Szura 1000 points
K5QR Andrew Bonnot 1000 points
SP6NVB Bogdan Morawski 500 points
VE2GT Pierre Jolin 500 points
K5QR Andrew Bonnot 500 points
W2SE Bruce Babcock 500 points
VE2GT Pierre Jolin 250 points
YO8SSB Damian Lucian 250 points
ZL3JD Phil van Kuilenburg 100 points
W6SAE Steven Ewald 100 points
K5QR Andrew Bonnot 100 points
KN4BKS Elizabeth Burns 100 points
YO8SSB Damian Lucian 100 points

Activator Unique
VK2JDL Phil Clancy 100 summits

Chaser Unique
ON4FI Karel Naessens 6000 summits
M3FEH Karl Kruger 2000 summits
M3FEH Karl Kruger 1000 summits
GI0AZB Ian Evans 250 summits
GI0AZB Ian Evans 100 summits
VE2GT Pierre Jolin 100 summits
LZ2OQ Georgi Aleksov 100 summits

Summit to Summit
VK2IO Gerard Hill Platinum
VK3ZPF Peter Fraser Silver
M1MAJ Martyn Johnson Silver
M3ZCB Caroline Blackmun Silver
M1MAJ Martyn Johnson Bronze
M3ZCB Caroline Blackmun Bronze
GI0AZB Ian Evans Red
ND9Q Douglas Quamme Red
VK3IL David Giddy Red
WC9G Ron Burns Red
SQ8JMZ Robert Szura Red

Mountain Hunter
GI0AZB Ian Evans Platinum
GI0AZB Ian Evans Gold
M3FEH Karl Kruger Gold
GI0AZB Ian Evans Silver
M3FEH Karl Kruger Silver
VK3ZPF Peter Fraser Bronze
M3FEH Karl Kruger Bronze
YO8SSB Damian Lucian Bronze

SOTA Complete
VK3PF Peter Freeman 250 summits
VK2IO Gerard Hill 100 summits

Microwave Award
M0DDC Alan Copperwaite 50 km 23 cm

The increase in the number of certificate orders brings with it increased problems. There is a growing tendency to order a certificate without first checking your entry on the database, I have had certificates ordered for which the person involved has not qualified (e.g. Activator certificates where they have not made any Activations!) and, more commonly, inaccurate dates for the award qualification. I have to check every claim manually and it appears people are relying on me to do the checking for them. There are notable exceptions, where claimants are precise and I know I can process their claims with just a cursory check, the others take a very long time.

In future, I will reject claims which are inaccurate, have the wrong claim date, require me to process the log to verify the claim information (e.g. filter the log to find just CW when it contains a mix of modes) or where the database has not been used correctly – a classic example is failure to enter information in the format required (Microwave and Summit to Summit awards in particular). There is, in process, an update to the awards claim procedure which will enable your claim to be checked prior to submission; this is several months away from implementation so the responsibility to check the accuracy of your award claim is yours – not mine!

The volume of claims have resulted in problems with my email server where it just refuses to send the pdf files (or takes forever to do so). An interim solution has been put into place where the pdf of your certificate will be placed on a central server and I will send you a link (by email) so that you may download it. I will leave certificates on the server for about one week before removing them in order to keep the numbers at a manageable size; please download the file before it is removed.

Finally, I am on vacation with immediate effect until about 20 June. No orders will be processed between now and when I return so that means orders placed between 30 May and 20 June may not be shipped or otherwise processed until the end of June. There is absolutely no point chasing your order as I will not be checking my SOTA email server or the shopping site.

I plan to make a couple of activations from CT3 during the next two weeks and would be happy to work any SOTA participant (if you can put up with my poor CW!), probably 20m and 17m CW & SSB. Alerts will be posted on SOTAwatch

Stay safe on the hills

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

========================================================

NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

Hello again to all. May saw a wild mix of weather across the continent, but SOTA activity was fairly robust in spite of the thunderstorms, snow hanging around from the bumper snowfall year, and even tornadoes.

I finally decided I needed to rewrite the statistics summary program, and the first month's results are below. This version includes some double-entry audit trails so I can verify the results, and capitalizes on the recent ARM updates which removed extraneous commas from some of the summit names. The Last Month values are all zero because I couldn't run statistics for April. While I doubt we'll see any activations on VLF or 24 GHz, I also never thought we'd see 433 MHz AM activations and we have, so we'll leave all of them in for now. I don't know what the two "Other" QSO's were but that's how they were logged to the SOTA Database... SSTV?

NA Statistics for May
Produced: 05/29/2017 at: 20:18:50 UTC

Total Activations: 639 [0]
Total Activators: 178 [0]
Total Chaser QSO's: 5995 [0]
Total Chasers: 270 [0]
Unique Summits: 430 [0]

BAND # LAST MONTH
VLF: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
1.8MHZ: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
3.5MHz: 12 ( 0.2%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
5MHz: 95 ( 1.6%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
7MHz: 1243 ( 20.9%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
10MHz: 765 ( 12.9%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
14MHz: 3447 ( 58.1%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
18MHz: 125 ( 2.1%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
21MHz: 19 ( 0.3%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
28MHz: 9 ( 0.1%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
50MHz: 11 ( 0.1%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
70MHz: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
144MHz: 182 ( 3.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
220MHz: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
433MHz: 13 ( 0.2%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
900MHz: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
1240MHz: 8 ( 0.1%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
2.3GHz: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
3.4GHz: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
5.6GHz: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
10GHz: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
24GHz: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
uwave: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]

MODE # LAST MONTH:
AM: 0 ( 0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
CW: 4287 ( 72.3%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
Data: 5 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
FM: 202 ( 3.4%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
Other: 2 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
SSB: 1432 ( 24.1%) [ 0 ( 0%)]

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: None claimed this month.

NEWS:

Wayne, N6KR, of Elecraft fame announced on the NA SOTA Group: "The latest KX2 firmware provides built-in logging capability in CW/PSK/RTTY modes, when using the internal keyer. This is really convenient if you're operating the rig hand-held, or whenever you can't stop to do logging."

"The log stores up to 2048 characters in EEPROM, along with time stamps and band/mode data. Text can be reviewed in the rig itself or dumped to a terminal application, allowing you to transfer the contacts to a paper or PC log later. If you'd like to try this feature, send me an email (n6kr at elecraft dot com)."

Wayne [and his young son Griffen] are fairly ardent campers and hikers. This will likely end up in a firmware release soon if it hasn't already.

HAPPENINGS OF INTEREST:

From Etienne, K7ATN: "A great article on all the SOTA fun to be had in Mount Rainier National Park by Darryl-WW7D and an invitation to all to join us in Seaside on Friday, June 2 for the annual SOTA Gathering. Here's the latest Pacific Northwest SOTA Newsletter for May and June 2017:"

http://www.pnwsota.org/sites/pnwsota.org/files/downloads/K7ATN/PNW%20SOTA%20Newsletter%20May-June%202017.pdf_

Back issues: http://www.pnwsota.org/content/pacific-northwest-sota-newsletters http://www.pnwsota.org/content/pacific-northwest-sota-newsletters

Bob, K0NR, reports: "Announcing the 2017 Colorado 14er Event, now with 1805 SOTA summits"

"Amateur Radio operators from around Colorado will be climbing many of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountains and Summits On The Air (SOTA) peaks to set up amateur radio stations in an effort to communicate with other radio amateurs across the state and around the world. Well, last year we celebrated the 25^th annual event so this year it must be the 26th. We are continuing the all weekend approach on August 5 and 6."

More here: http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2017/05/08/colorado14er2017/
and here: http://www.ham14er.org

There was a discussion thread about all of the lingering snow in the Western mountains and high country which prompted a definition from Etienne, K7ATN:

whumpf [wuhh-UMp-fffn.] The noise made when the fracture of a lower snow layer causes an upper layer to fall or collapse making a whumpfing sound. An obvious sign of instability. For backcountry skiers, a whumpf is a sign not to go there.

REPORTS:

John, K1JD, and Fred, KT5X [aka WS0TA] sent a photo: "May 23rd on Barillas Peak in the Pecos Wilderness, New Mexico. TNX QSO's folks! Appreciated! T'was uhhh, 'chilly'."

Barillas Peak_1705.jpg1630x1222 704 KB

Barillas Peak

And our report of the Month comes from Brad, WA6MM, and is the source of the above definition: "I had a fun but tough first activation of Galena Mountain, W0C/SR-110, in Colorado last weekend.Galena Mtn is a 2.75 mile (5.5 m RT) climb with 2900 ft of elevation gain up to 12,893 ft. The road around Turquoise Lake was free of snow but the trail head parking lot was closed.I ended up parking at the entrance to the parking area, keeping my truck just off the main road.The snow was firm when I left the trail head at 7am and I didn’t yet need snowshoes. – I put those on after the first hour of climbing. There is still a lot of snow here and I underestimated how long it would take me to summit."

Galena Mt_1705.jpg1200x675 168 KB

Galena Mountain

"Part of the issue was trying to follow the Colorado Trail for the first 1.5 miles and 1300 ft of climbing through the snow filled forest.I saw no evidence of other hikers so I had to break trail. Following the trail markings on trees started out rather straightforward but got more difficult to follow higher up.I needed to navigate with my iPhone GPS app to help keep me close to the actual trail and most efficient path up the mountain.I only got temporarily /lost/ a few times .This slowed down my progress until I got above the tree line and navigation became much easier."

"I left the Colorado Trail at 11,300 ft and headed directly north towards Galena over continuous snowfields.I was startled many times hearing the infamous 'whumpfs' beneath me.There where no signs of surface cracks but it always gets my adrenaline going when I hear that sound! It appeared the recent snowfall had not bonded well to the deeper layers in this area.So, I decided to stay away from the steeper sections of these slopes and take a safer route.I was able to take my snowshoes off around 12,000 ft as I entered more mixed rock/snow terrain for the final push to the summit."

"I finally reached the summit after over 3.75 hours of climbing.I was about an hour behind schedule.The weather was great with little wind and blue sky above me.The forecast called for showers after 12 noon and I could see the clouds in the distance.I set up my antenna and operating position just to the south of the summit proper.I was not able to spot myself via SotaGoat even though I had bars on my phone.In fact, I was able to call my XYL to let her know I summitted.Not sure what the problem was.In any event, since I posted an alert on Sotawatch I was confident I would get spotted via RBNhole."

Operating position on Galena Mtn_1705 copy.jpg1280x960 316 KB

Operating position on Galena Mountain

"I started on 40M CW but the band seemed really dead.I gave up after several minutes and went to 20M CW.I quickly made 15 contacts.It was now 11:45am and the clouds were moving in around me – weather changes fast up high!It was time to pack up and descend.I was back to the trail head in under 2 hrs and it didn’t start raining until I was driving home."

"Many thanks to all the chasers looking out for me!Until the next time ..."

That's it for this time, summer weather [well ... warm springlike weather] has made it to NW Nevada. Time to charge the batteries with the solar panel.

73,

Fred ("Skip") K6DGW
Sparks NV USA
Washoe County DM09dn
NA SOTA Reporter Dude

============================================================

First non-American KH6 SOTA Activation – Jörg KH6/DL3LUM

Hi all!

I just wanted to highlight to you that on 5th May 2017 I have activated KH6/OH-025 (Diamond Head) with 16 QSO's (W's, ZL, JA) on 20 mtr cw. According to the database it seems I am the first non American to have activated a KH6 SOTA.

vy 73 Jörg DL3LUM PA1MUC

============================================================

Second NA<>EU S2S Event- Gerald G4OIG

A total of 36 European summits and 18 North American summits were activated during a 4 hour period on Saturday 13th May 2017. Despite abysmal conditions with deep QSB and high QRN levels, several trans-Atlantic QSOs were made, including a number of summit to summit contacts.

Feedback indicates that most people enjoyed the event despite the conditions. The next event has already been planned for 18th November when it is hoped that radio conditions will be much better. These events provide an opportunity to experience a longer than normal stay on a summit which in itself adds to the challenge of activating.

73 for now,

Gerald G4OIG

============================================================

Creag Mhor (GM/NS-065) The final Scottish ‘Graham’ receives a first SOTA activation – Colwyn MM0YCJ

Creag Mhor (GM/NS-065), an anonymous and remote hill in the County of Sutherland was the only Scottish 4 point summit that had not been activated. This was successfully performed on Sunday 7th May 2017. Creag Mhor (big crag, big rock or big cliff) is the highest point of the range of remote hills to the southeast of the Munro Ben Klibreck. The range is usually known by the name of Creag Mhor's lower neighbour, Ben Armine, which is also a Graham.

Graham, was the maiden name of the late Helen Torbet (Nee Graham) who provided the list of Scottish hills between 2000 feet and 2500 feet, separated by a drop of at least 150 metres. Corbetts are Scottish peaks from 2500 feet to 3000 feet first listed by John Rooke Corbett, a Scottish Mountaineering Club member. Our imperial past meant that the Corbett’s originally had a drop of 500 feet (152.4 metres). The current metric list uses the same 150 metre drop for classification as the Grahams. Most will know that those peaks above 3000 feet are the Scottish Munros. The final Munro to be activated was GM/WS-006, Sgurr nan Ceathreamhnan (Rocky peak of the quarters - 1151m, 3776ft) on 22/04/2012. This was after I failed to activate it, despite broadcasting from the summit, two months earlier on 16/02/2012; missing the winter bonus but surviving to fight another day. The final Corbett activated was GM/NS-028, the remote Beinn a' Chaisgein Mor (Large forbidding mountain, 857m, 2812ft) on 04/10/2015.

The points allocated to each peak are decided by each Association Reference Manual. The points are 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 points and the Scotland (GM) Association parameters are; Band 1, score 1 point for summits less than 500m above sea level (ASL). Band 2, scores 2 points, from 500m to just below 700m ASL. Band 3, scores 4 points (This is the Creag Mhor banding) from 700m to just below 900m ASL. Band 4, scores 6 points from 900m to just less than 1000m ASL, Band 5, scores 8 points from 1000m to just below 1100m ASL and Band 6 peaks above 1100m score 10 points. The current reflector has interesting comments by GM4COX speculating on a Nepalese/Tibetan association, the likely points bandings and winter bonus dates.

Back in Scotland driving up to Creag Mhor through Inverness my approach followed the interminable A9(T) to the village of Helmsdale clinging to the east coast. There is a more direct minor road passing through Glen Loth but I chose to stay on the A9(T) as an east coast seaview was a pleasing novelty. There was a gold rush in Helmsdale during the 19th century, but as I drove north, there was no rush to arrive then turn left (west) on the single track A897 to turn left again to the railway station at Kinbrace. After crossing the railway line the B871 continues to reach Badanloch lodge and there is a large area for parking on the south side of the public road (Grid reference; NC801330) close to the river Helmsdale at its outflow from Loch Badanloch.

I got my size 9 walking boots laced up but the start of the day involves a cycle along a very well maintained track with an excellent surface, small racing bike tyres would not have survived, but care and a hybrid should have been OK. On the full fat mountain bike the 13.5km into the stalkers path will take you some time and effort, as I discovered. The track goes past a loch with fishing boats, a picnic table and a no unauthorised vehicles sign. It will take you over an hour to reach a trackside quarry (NC685310) on the left just past the start of the stalker path, where you can stash your metal steed. There is a well-defined stalker path which starts at NC 686310 heading SE and later south. The surface is mainly grass with evidence of recent quad bike and historic Land Rover activity.

I read on Sotawatch that GM/NS-065 was activated for a second time 3 days after me and the operator (G4YSS) had permission from the Badanloch and Loch Choire estate managers to drive down the track from the public B871, saving a walking or cycling distance of 27km (2 x 13.5 km).

Low cloud covered the hilltops but the gentle east wind didn’t move the vegetation cropped by the many herds of red deer. There was some light drizzle on the approach - rain looked likely.
The stalkers track climbs alongside the fence of a deciduous plantation of mainly birch trees and rising to GR NC696296 then traverses the side of Meall nan Aighean. It loses 60 metres in height then continues uphill again south below Ben Armine; although I couldn’t see the summit; Gorm loch beag is a useful feature for navigation.

About a kilometre past the lochan a smaller stalkers track branches right (GR NC702261) to a vague bealach between Ben Armine and Creag Mhor. This well-defined track must soon be abandoned after a generous kilometre for a cross country trek south through peat hags and rough ground. You soon start climbing again after crossing a burn and you then follow your nose to the summit going slightly east of south. The summit of Creag Mhor has a triangulation station and a diminutive surrounding wall offering a lee shelter if there is any wind 713 metres ASL (Band 3, 4 points). The drizzle had stopped soon after setting off but the cloud still obscured any views on arriving at the summit.

The brass screw cap had already been plundered from the trig pillar, which made it ideal for a fishing pole mast. The gently rounded summit consists of a lovely blanket of springy moss and alpine plants so there was ample space for the lengthy 40m inverted-V dipole.

Once all of the civil engineering was completed I retired under my orange coloured bivouac shelter, connected the LiFePO4 battery, aerial and microphone to my FT817 and started calling CQ, SSB. There were good Orange and Vodaphone phone network signals so I spotted myself on the SOTA website. The first 40m QSO was at 08:49 UTC; M3FEX followed quickly by G3VXJ and G4IAR. A regular Spanish station EA2CKX was the fourth contact so a successful activation completed. Then G3RDQ, next a Belgian station ON5SWA, and Don G0RQL at 08:57, contributing a modest 4 points to his 100,000 point chaser total and adding another unique summit; well done Don and many, many thanks for all of our contacts and your Spots.

My intention had been to try 20m and 2m but my feet were wet and I had a hectic timetable collecting the boss that afternoon in Aviemore; I really couldn’t be late for that! So I packed up and headed off to the nearby Graham Ben Armine. I retraced my steps back to the stalkers track and despite roughly following a compass bearing, arrived exactly where my earlier footprints had started. From there it was easier than I thought to climb north the 250 vertical metres to the summit of GM/NS-069, Ben Armine - Creag a'Choire Ghlais. It was almost on my way back to the bike parking.

The peak had a first and only activation by G4YSS on 08/05/2015 and the summit is a large flat area with some very small cairns at the summit. There is no trig point and it has the same soft springy moss covering as the earlier peak. Despite there being no shelter from the cairns I set up next to them and started calling on 40 metres. Again there was a good phone signal. At 10:42 UTC I spoke with G0VWP, EA2CKX again, G4OSB/P (but not on a summit), G0RQL again (another 4 points for Dons’ chaser total), G0GWY, and at 10:48 G7BGA.
Despite the time pressure, the weather had improved and my feet were warm again after the second ascent so I strung up the 20m antenna and at 11:01 EA2DR (Pola), DL3HXX, OK2PDT, a transatlantic QSO, 9A7W and OE6GND. Quite a good spread from an output of 4.7 watts. Despite continuing to call there were no further contacts and again I packed up and reluctantly started for home.

Taking care to avoid the crags of Coire na Saidhe Duibhe, and helped by the clearing weather, I took a more or less direct, and initially very steep descent back to the stalkers track. Once there it was a swift return to the estate road with the only track in the dust was the one caused by my approach tyres. A return bike ride is always somewhat slower than the approach and stopping to look back at the now clear summits didn’t help.
Two Golden Eagles were quartering the sky on my return, but they moved away being wary of humans. Unusual to see two eagles together. During the day I had also seen Red Deer, Hares up top, Rabbits near the track, Ptarmigan, Golden Plover, Green Plover (Peewits), Curlews and Ravens but no humans. I had contact with plenty of humans, but had also been charmed by the calls of Green Plover (Peewits), Curlews and Snipe drumming! A long way for 8 activator points, but on a day such as that, well worth the effort.

Note: all grid references were derived from the 1:50,000 ordnance survey landranger map, they are not GPS results.

73, Colwyn MM0YCJ

============================================================

SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

May is the best season in Japan and has a long holiday at the beginning, also there were very few rainy days this May. This pushed up the number of SOTA activations. The total number of QSO’s reported on the SOTA database is up by 50% compared with last month.

SOTA activities in May 2017 in Japan as of 31 May 2017.

Activation

Total 245 Activations with 2899 QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 240 activations with 2873 QSO from Summits
JA5: 2 activations with 7 QSO from Summits
JA6: 3 activations with 19 QSO from Summits
JA8: 0

Chasing

Total 545 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 495 chasing QSO
JA5: 3 chasing QSO
JA6: 47 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

S2S

Total 248 S2S QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 241 S2S QSO
JA5: 2 S2S QSO
JA6: 5 S2S QSO
JA8: 0

Japan local FM radio station FM Palulun broadcasts a ham radio program
every Sunday night. On 28 May, the interview with Eva HB9FPM and Andy HB9JOE that
was recorded last month, was broadcast.

Please listen at this web site.

http://hamsradio.net/ham/?p=4508

Eva and Andy

---

Toru Kawauchi
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp

---

============================================================

THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 113 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

Sorry to say this months effort is going to be short due to a number of circumstances. My (Audrey 's) knee continues to be troublesome although improving whilst Rob has recently had an eye operation in Manchester this has left him with one working eye for the present which makes typing difficult and driving impossible. Hence me being roped in to type. This has reduced our activations to zero and even chasing is quite a chore as he has to write everything on his pad three inches high. He is sorry to have missed John YSS in his Scottish trip as he enjoys top band activity. In fact as John performed his first top band activation Rob was lying on his back having his right eye re -bored.

The race is now on to get the whole show back on the road for our usual trip to the Isle of Man in July. We don't know how we will be but Mull Hill GD-005 will be a permanent roost. The trams will be running on Snaefell GD-01 and we can always hobble to the trig. So sorry that's all for now .

Take care out there,

73's Rob and Audrey
G4RQJ.

========================================================

*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the July 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Thursday 29th June.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions.If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@N7UN wrote:

Recently WA3WSJ, AM for W3, and N4EX, AM for W4C, resigned their role as Association Managers.

We are pleased to announce the following:

Patrick, KI4SVM, will assume the role of AM for W4C.

Richard, N2GBR, will assume the role of AM for W3.

Both new AMs are very, very active in SOTA. Congratulations guys!

And of course our sincere thanks to the time and effort that N4EX and WA3WSJ did in starting W3 and W4C.

Guy/n7un
Elliott/K6EL

Posts: 2

Participants: 2

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS JULY 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF
Welcome to the July 2017 edition of SOTA News. Another association joins SOTA this month, VO1 Newfoundland with 329 summits. My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Luc ON7DQ, Ed DD5LP, Colwyn MM0YCJ, Glyn G4CFS.

73, Mark G0VOF

========================================================
The June 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 970 times.
========================================================

SOTA AWARDS June 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

I returned from vacation with an incredible in-box of award claims with a significant increase in the number of trophies ordered. Congratulations to all claimants who have reached significant milestones with special congratulations to the three South Korean stations who have achieved Mountain Goat in an area of the World with few SOTA Associations.

G0RQL has, following his reaching 100k Chaser points last month, managed to claima certificate for chasing 8000 unique summits, he is always there when I activate a hill (including in CT3).

VK2IO continues his achievements having now reached 25k Chaser points, another worthy Chaser. There has been an upsurge in interest for operating on the higher bands and this is reflected in the number of Microwave Awards issued. This will never be a main-stream activity but is both challenging and interesting especially with HF being in the doldrums right now.

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
N7CW Bud Semon
N2GBR Richard Jones
6K5XZE Chul Hwa Jung
HL3ANE Harry Cheong
DS3FYA Jung Young Man
OE5HWM Helmuth Mayrhofer

Shack Sloth
WC0Y Edward Hall
K5QR Andrew Bonnot
JF1NDT Yukio Osada
KE8CYC John Winn
2E0WDX C.Vincent Cairns
W2SE Bruce Babcock

Certificates Issued

Activator
OE5HWM Helmuth Mayrhofer 1000 points
DL1TSC Thomas Schardt 250 points
YO8SST Tatiana Done 100 points
DD2ZN Marko Pralle 100 points

Chaser
G0RQL Don Roomes 100000 points
VK2IO Gerard Hill 25000 points
AB4WL Ken Moore 2500 points
MI0RTY Martin Strawbridge 2500 points
KR7RK Keith Schlottman 2500 points
K5QR Andrew Bonnot 1500 points
MI0RTY Martin Strawbridge 1500 points
WC0Y Edward Hall 1000 points
JF1NDT Yukio Osada 1000 points
W2SE Bruce Babcock 1000 points
KP4RV Rafael Bonano 500 points
M6HMK Helen Melhuish 500 points
YO8SSB Damian Lucian 500 points
DL1TSC Thomas Schardt 250 points

Chaser Unique
G0RQL Don Roomes 8000 summits
K5QR Andrew Bonnot 250 summits
YO8AZQ Adrian Done 100 summits
K5QR Andrew Bonnot 100 summits

Summit to Summit
DL1TSC Thomas Schardt Red
VE6IXD Ian Drummond Red
G7HEM Mike Hartley Bronze
KR7RK Keith Schlottman Bronze

Mountain Hunter
VE6IXD Ian Drummond Silver
AB4WL Ken Moore Bronze
M6HMK Helen Melhuish Bronze
HB9NBG Rene Lutz Bronze
VK1VIC Anthony Vickers Bronze

Mountain Explorer
HA2EBA Istvan Kovari Silver
KR7RK Keith Schlottman Bronze

Microwave Award
HB9FVF Matthias Senn 100Km 23cm
VK1AD Andrew Moseley 100Km 23cm
VK1AD Andrew Moseley 50 km 23 cm SSB
VK1AD Andrew Moseley 50 km 23 cm FM
K0NR Bob Witte 50 km 23 cm

I still see numerous requests for awards where I am left to determine the correct date when the award was achieved, this is totally unacceptable and increases my workload considerably. “How do I determine when I reached my award?” is a question I am asked regularly and the answer is simple – do exactly what I have to do: download your log from the database and cross refer your total in the right hand column (labelled “Score”) with the date in the column labelled “Date” and put that date in the relevant box on the order form. When applying for Mountain Explorer or Mountain Hunter the process is more involved but all you have to find is the last qualifying date for an Association on the relevant continent; all I then have to do is check against your call that a particular level of award has been achieved.

When applying for the Microwave Awards failure to enter the data correctly results in me being unable to check the distances for the award – see the instructions provided by Andy MM0FMF on how to do this correctly.

With effect from the beginning of July I will NOT correct dates on certificate claims. The responsibility for claiming the correct date is yours, not mine, and finding the correct date from the database is simplicity itself. If the claim is obviously wrong (usually Mountain Hunter and Mountain Explorer transposed) then I will change it to whatever appears to be correct, other information will be entered as shown on the order form. Please supply the correct information.

The website order form is designed to supply me with all the appropriate information and to calculate all costs so you can pay for awards and/or merchandise. Please use it.

Incorrect claims for awards will no longer be referred back for correction and will be issued with the date you put on the order form whether it is accurate or not, if there is insufficient information I shall not issue the Award at all.

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

========================================================

NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

Hello All!

June weather in NA has been somewhat eclectic which is sort of reflected in our statistics for the month ... up a bit in nearly all categories but not a lot. In the high elevations in the west, there is still a lot of snow on the ground. The southwest saw extreme heat in the latter half of the month, well above 43C [110F] in many places. The midwest and points east and south experienced extreme weather events.

NA Statistics for Jun
Produced: 06/27/2017 at: 21:21:30 UTC

Total Activations: 678 [639]
Total Activators: 207 [178]
Total Chaser QSO's: 6502 [5995]
Total Chasers: 268 [270]
Unique Summits: 480 [430]

BAND # LAST MONTH
3.5MHz: 18 ( 0.2%) [ 12 ( 0.2%)]
5MHz: 120 ( 1.8%) [ 95 ( 1.6%)]
7MHz: 1159 ( 18.0%) [ 1243 ( 20.9%)]
10MHz: 841 ( 13.1%) [ 765 ( 12.9%)]
14MHz: 3751 ( 58.4%) [ 3447 ( 58.1%)]
18MHz: 237 ( 3.6%) [ 125 ( 2.1%)]
21MHz: 28 ( 0.4%) [ 19 ( 0.3%)]
28MHz: 29 ( 0.4%) [ 9 ( 0.1%)]
50MHz: 9 ( 0.1%) [ 11 ( 0.1%)]
144MHz: 209 ( 3.2%) [ 182 ( 3.0%)]
220MHz: 2 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
433MHz: 12 ( 0.1%) [ 13 ( 0.2%)]
1240MHz: 1 ( 0.0%) [ 8 ( 0.1%)]

MODE # LAST MONTH:
AM: 2 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
CW: 4563 ( 71.0%) [ 4287 ( 72.3%)]
Data: 10 ( 0.1%) [ 5 ( 0.0%)]
FM: 217 ( 3.3%) [ 202 ( 3.4%)]
Other: 2 ( 0.0%) [ 2 ( 0.0%)]
SSB: 1628 ( 25.3%) [ 1432 ( 24.1%)]

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

At the top of the list, and many thanks to Pete, WA7JTM, for the list, June saw five, [count 'em, 5] new Mtn Goats for a total of exactly fifty in the New World! In order of achievement:

#46 N7CW 6/2 100% CW, 100% W7A summits
#47 N2GBR 6/3 100% phone, 100% unique summits
#48 AC1Z 6/12 100% CW
#49 KE7BGM 6/18 100% CW, 100% W7A summits, 2nd NA Lady Goat
#50 K9PM 6/19 100% CW, Least activations to MG [100], 100% W7A summits

With 100 summits, K9PM chose all 10-pointers! Elapsed time ranged from 15.6 weeks [KB7BGM] to 80.0 [N7CW]. A hearty BAAA to all the new Goats!

Pete, WA7JTM, also mentioned: "Back this last January I operated the ARRL January VHF Contest from a SOTA summit, Scarlet Mtn W7A/MN-143. I sent the log into the ARRL and mentioned that I was not only in the contest but doing a SOTA activation at the same time. Well in the just out July QST I/we got a good piece of press in the article for this contest. We also got even more mention in the 'expanded results' article on the ARRL website. I won the SW ARRL Division and came in fourth in North America in the QRP Portable class. We/SOTA got quite a plug from the article author, KK6MC."

NEWS AND HAPPENINGS:

Roswell, New Mexico, is the extra-terrestial capital of North America so this photo snapped by Alan, NM5S, on W7A/CS-045 a cinder cone named Turkey Hills South in Arizona is a bit surprising. Perhaps we should rename it "Mt. Ararat, AZ."

Mt Ararat.jpg1024x768 109 KB

Oleh, KD7WPJ, reported what possibly could have been a multi-hop sporadic E QSO with EA1DR on 20 meters while activating W6/CT-004. It occurred at 2334 UTC [middle of night in EA]on a dipole with 2.5 watts. He also worked Oregon[CN94] on 6 meters that same day. June was a wild month for Es on 6 and 10, the DXMaps site was literally packed with spots, so it's not out of the question.

REPORT OF THE MONTH:

This month, we hear from Paul AA1MI/HB9DSTand a report of a long NA expedition from the deep south to the Canadian Maritimes. [Ed note: I had to edit some for length]:

"I returned to the USA in May -- my daughter graduated from medical school in Atlanta, and two weeks later she got married in seacoast New Hampshire. Opportunity for activations and more associations: I now have 49 associations. I not only got a number of first summit activtions, I also got a first Association activation (VY2)."

"My brother Ed picked me up after graduation, and we first went to W5M/MS-001 (Choctaw County HP - only W5M summit). For our overnight, we drove just south of Nashville to the casinos at Tunica Resorts, where he got us a room that cost us just the resort fee of $14.00. I signed up for as a new member of the casino club, and we both got the evening buffet at no charge. Can't beat those prices!"

"The next morning to activate W5A/OH-001 (Rich Mountain). Then, less than an hour to W5O/OU-005 (Sycamore Lookout). Then, off to Jasper, TX, close to my next target summit where we met up with our cousin Dave (who we hadn't seen in about 50 years, and who lives in San Antonio) and his wife Maggie. We spent a really pleasant weekend catching up with them and going to the local rodeo. When people asked where we were from and I said Switzerland, they looked at me like I was an alien: 'What y'all doin in lil old Jasper Texas?????' I didn't even try to explain SOTA. While there we activated W5T/NT-039 (Newton County HP)."

"We spent a day in New Orleans before I hopped a plane to Boston to start preparations for the wedding. The weather in New England had been rainy and cold, but luckily the Saturday of the big event turned out to be perfect with lots of sunshine."

"After those two big events, especially the wedding, it was time to decompress so I toured the Canadian Maritimes. After driving through Maine, the first stop was at Saint John for an overnight. Then the next day I bagged my New Brunswick summit VE9/AL-002 (Carty). There was still time left in the afternoon, and I drove to one of the trip's highlights, Hopewell Rocks park on the Bay of Fundy where they have the world's highest tides. That day the difference between low tide and high tide was 19.5 meters!! It felt strange walking along the ocean floor knowing what would happen in just a few hours."

"The next day off to Prince Edward Island, which has two summits (both easily accessible by roads). So not only was I the first to activate -- VY2/PE-001 (Glen Valley) and VY2/PE-002 (Caledonia) -- it also meant I was the first to activate that Association, something I was pretty excited about."

"The final stop was Cape Breton Island, NS -- which the tourism website says "is ranked as the #1 Island in North America by Travel + Leisure magazine, and is home to the Cabot Trail which was ranked in USA Today’s 10 Best Motorcycle Trips, MSN Travel’s 10 Most Underrated Attractions, and Zoomer’s 7 Greatest Road Trips."

"Getting detailed info about summit access on Cape Breton is not trivial, however, I stopped at the Information Center at Port Hastings for assistance. Susan was exceptionally helpful and found SOTA very fascinating. She saved me literally hours of time and aggravation! I chose VE1/CB-015 (Melrose Hill), another first activation. With a 4x4, this is a drive-up summit on dirt roads. My car, however, was not equipped for that, so I had to hike for an hour before getting to an area with a communications tower and some satellite dishes."

"Finally back to New Hampshire and a stop at Campobello Island (directly on the Maine/Canadian border) to visit the Franklin Roosevelt summer residence. The island is Canadian property, so to access it by car you have to go through border security checkpoints at the bridge going both in and out -- just for an island with several hundred inhabitants."

"Pleasant SOTAs and got to see some sights that I otherwise never would have seen."

That's going to be it from "SOTA In The Western Hemisphere" for this month. Hard to believe we've already passed the solstice. Sunspots are a thing of the past right now, but Sporadic E has been really hot.

73, Activate Safely, and Have Fun,

Fred ("Skip") K6DGW
Sparks NV USA
Washoe County DM09dn
NA SOTA Reporter Dude

============================================================

SOTA at Ham Radio Friedrichshafen – Ed DD5LP

Hi all,

A reminder for all attending Ham Radio at Friedrichshafen (Friday 14th - Sunday 16th July) of the following:

Each day at noon – there will be an informal SOTA meet-up at the QSL Wall.

Saturday is SOTA Day!

12:00 noon - Informal meet-up at QSL Wall.
14:00 - 15:45 SOTA presentations in the Austria meeting room -
The program is expected to consist of the following five mini-presentations of 15 minutes each, all in English,
followed by time for questions.
• The latest developments of the KX2, KX3 and related products by Eric WA6HHQ, CEO of Elecraft
• Using the RBN for SOTA by Hans-Peter HB9BXE
• From paper logging to tablet logging – the VK3ZPF “VK port-a-log” Android app by Manuel HB9DQM
• Log4OM: Free logging software with full SOTA support by Daniele IW3HMH
• SOTA Cycling Tour DL–OE–I by Jakob DK3CW
• "Extreme SOTA" by Emil DL8JJ
full details can be found on the SOTA Reflector: http://reflector.sota.org.uk/t/ham-radio-2017/14945
16:30 - 18:30 - group activation of DM/BW-348 Gehrenberg - please contact Ed DD5LP if you need transport from HAM RADIO to the summit and dinner.
19:00 - onwards - SOTA Dinner at Wirtshaus am Gehrenberg, 88677 Markdorf - with, as prize for most original SOTA clothing item warn by an attendee, as voted on by those attending, a WSPRLite unit from SOTABEAMS!
If you haven't already done so, please let Ed know soon if you wish to attend the dinner as places are running out.

73 Ed DD5LP

============================================================

Seana Mheallan, the Last of the West of Scotland Peaks Activated – Colwyn MM0YCJ

All of the 348 peaks in the Scottish SOTA Association of the Western Scotland Region have finally been activated. The sole remaining unactivated summit was Seana Mheallan (GM/WS-321), a modest hill in Glen Torridon close to the side of the A896 and the river Torridon. Seana Mheallan lies directly across Glen Torridon from the magnificent peak Liathach (GM/WS-028/043).

Seana Mheallan has its own craggy sandstone terraces with some developed for rock climbing, so the west face appears steep and inhospitable to the average hillwalker. In contrast, the north ridge provides a steady climb from the floor of the Glen to the summit at 437metres (1435 feet). There is even a convenient footbridge across the river Torridon opposite the car park, Grid Reference (NG957569). The footpath passes the white Scottish Mountaineering Club hut called the Ling Hut, then climbs up the side of the waterfall that feeds the Lochan an asgair. Once past the impressive cataract, the path meanders off trending east, so eventually you have to take a decision to abandon the path and head back towards the hill.

Seana Mheallan (Ancient Small Hill) was activated on Saturday 24th June 2017. We were in the area anyway, for reasons too dull to list. The weather had been poor the day before, Friday, and we awoke on the Saturday to gale force winds, rain showers and the tops of the Torridon giants shrouded in cloud. The walk over to the car was grim.

In a text book case of hope over expectation, the rain had stopped when we passed the car park. So we stopped, kitted up and set off, over the footbridge, past the Ling Hut and the waterfall, above which we left the path.

The intervening ground was a bit boggy after the recent heavy rain, but we swiftly reached the north ridge which had many stretches of clean even rock produced by glaciation. It was also drier underfoot, but on that day the ridge was exposed to the strong winds. A few punishing showers swept over as we ascended.
The ridge continues up to eventually breach the 400 metre contour where it levels off to join a large, irregular summit plateau. Which one of the many ‘peaks’ is the correct summit is hard to gauge and the ordnance survey map was needed to confirm the summit was over a kilometre away to the south. Many of the prominent areas had large glacial erratic boulders, making it look like a large outdoor art installation. The undulating plateau gave some shelter from the wind, but crossing one of the glaciated slabs coincided with a gust which blew me over. Something which doesn’t happen very often. As I picked myself up – along with my long suffering companion - I knew that this was not going to be an easy activation!
On reaching the summit cairn (GR NG929551, locator: IO77gm) I was able to find a small niche in the summit rocks a few metres down on the lee side of the summit.

I installed my companion on top of an insulting foam seat and under the bivouac shelter to weight everything down. I unfurled the 20 metre inverted V-dipole antenna but was not keen to use the fishing pole; my spectacles were blown off my face. So I used a walking pole to hold up the centre, meaning that the antenna was at best 125 centimetres high!

Once installed beside my long-suffering companion I set up the FT817 and started calling CQ on 14MHz, SSB, with 5 watts output. There were a few stations but none came back to my calls so I spotted myself, and at 11:36 UTC G0RQL (Don) came through for the first QSO. Hearing Don is a bit like listening for radio 4 during the cold war, you are reassured by the familiar voice and know that despite appearance to the contrary on the summit of the hill, once you have your specs back, we have not experienced a nuclear blast!

There was a flurry of stations with PA1INA, Mike in Sussex (G6TUH), EA2LU, OK1DVM, EB2JU and DL3HXX all within an 11 minute period. A successful activation in very adverse weather. Don had mentioned another local activator in the east of Scotland on 40 metres, but as the 20 metre contacts dried up, the rain and stronger winds started again.

My long-suffering companion had finished her lunch and the wind chill, even in June, was cutting through my gloves, so retreat was the decision. Leaving, then returning to the bivvy shelter (to set up the 40m antenna) would not have been pleasant and after some preliminary and careful packing, the remainder of the kit was stuffed unceremoniously into the rucksack and we swiftly headed back the way we had come.

So the final western region summit received a first activation. I had tried to activate it some years ago one summer Saturday evening, but couldn’t make any headway against all of the powerful overseas stations. Owing to all the high hills around Seana Mheallan, VHF had proved useless and I had retreated, not from the wind, but from the midges on that occasion. It was some consolation to finally achieve the first activation of GM/WS-321, despite the weather, but on the plus side, at least midges hadn’t been a problem!

73,
Colwyn Jones
MM0YCJ
29/06/2017

============================================================

SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

Hi Mark and all

Please find the following SOTA News from Japan.

June is the rainy season in Japan but this year we have less rainfall. It is good for activators but a relatively small number of activations have been made this month.

High band conditions have improved day by day and Sporadic E layer propagation made for good conditions on the Higher bands including 50MHz.

SOTA activities in June 2017 in Japan as of 30 June 2017.

Activation

Total 183 Activations with 2006 QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 177 activations with 1969 QSO from Summits
JA5: 0
JA6: 6 activations with 37 QSO from Summits
JA8: 0

Chasing

Total 415 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 382 chasing QSO
JA5: 7 chasing QSO
JA6: 26 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

S2S

Total 185 S2S QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 178 S2S QSO
JA5: 0
JA6: 7 S2S QSO
JA8: 0

In July, Kansai Ham Festival "KANHAM 2017" will be carried out in Osaka Ikeda city on 15 and 16 July.

SOTA Japan association is planning to have stand in exhibition area. We will promote the SOTA global activities to all Kansai area ham radio stations. Also in this occasion, we will have SOTA gathering party #7 in Osaka. If someone has a plan to visit Osaka in these two days, please visit our stand and join the SOTA gathering party #7.

All activators in Japan associations are waiting for the finishing rainy season, and usually will over in mid July.

JA/YN-043 Mt Honjyagamaru 1630m

---

Toru Kawauchi
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp

---

============================================================

THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 114 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

At least today I (Rob) can see to type this but still no driving and Audrey's knee is improving but we are targeting our Isle of Man trip in July for a start to some limited activation. We cannot promise to complete all the summits there this year and activations may be shorter than usual due to load restrictions and the very steep climb up Bradda Hill will be a non starter unless we can find a gentler route with no exposure.

Most of our activity looks like being from Mull Hill which can even be done as a drive up if care is taken on the two rough tracks to the summit but before Sota we once bottomed the car quite badly here and are not keen on repeating the experience. We would in any case not think of doing so for Sota and will treat it all as getting ourselves back on track. We are hoping to try some activity on four and six metres and are in the process of resurrecting an ex military, portable variable length ground plane antenna, which unfortunately does not quite reach ten metres but is a fearsome beast when extended that far! Mating it to a portable pole is not the easiest job with one and a half eyes but we will get there. On 4m will have just FM from the Wouxun hand-held but the 817 will give us more modes on 6m so hope for some fine wx and maybe some E's. We do have internet access at base so look out for Alerts often at short notice and evenings, for the rest of the hills we will do our best.

That's about all for now, hope to work lots of you from GD

Take care out there

73
Rob and Audrey
G4RQJ

========================================================

*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the August 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Sunday 30th July.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions.If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 2

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS AUGUST 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF
Welcome to the August 2017 edition of SOTA News. My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Luc ON7DQ, Bob F5HTR.

73, Mark G0VOF

========================================================
The July 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 1,210 times.
========================================================

SOTA AWARDS July 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

July has been a very busy month (again) for awards but, in particular, trophies. Stock was briefly reduced to zero but our supplier managed to supply replacement blanks in a reasonable timescale. Most will have been shipped but a couple are still with the engraver. Congratulations to all Mountain Goats and Shack Sloths, your achievements are remarkable. Unfortunately DS3FYA is not listed on qrz.com so I do not have your name for a name-check in this report.

Amongst other achievements that I am highlighting this month M0JLA with 2500 Activator points, OK2QA on 25k Chaser points, with hot on his heels prolific Chaser Karl, M3FEH, on 20k (and 3k Unique summits too) – no mean achievement when limited to just 10 watts, SSB only and simple antennas. Having spent some time this month actively chasing (OK, from a very northerly location in the UK) I can appreciate how hard it is to accumulate high points when the Sun is not playing.

One other certificate worth mentioning is the Microwave Award for VK1AD at over 300 km on 23 cm – not easy to do especially with limited equipment (although I gather the other station had “big ears”!)

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
K9PM Paul M Mueller
N0TA John Reilly
KE7BGM Katherine McDonough
AC1Z Robert Daniels
WG0AT Steve Galchutt
OM6TC Jozef Stefik
W6PNG Paul Gacek

Shack Sloth
LA3NGA Henning Theodorsen
HL3ANE Harry Cheong
DS3FYA
JP3DGT Katsushige Oiji

Certificates Issued

Activator
M0JLA Rodney Archard 2500 points
CT2IUV Nuno Freitas 1000 points
OM6TC Jozef Stefik 1000 points
VE2DDZ Malcolm Harper 500 points
WC9G Ron Burns 250 points
KY7S Douglas Henderson 250 points
AA0BV Joe Olson 100 points

Chaser
OK2QA Rudolf Klvana 25000 points
M3FEH Karl Kruger 20000 points
G8VNW Nick Daniel 10000 points
SV1QED Michael Panagiotopoulos 2500 points
K5QR Andrew Bonnot 2500 points
G0FVH David Dolling 2500 points
LA3NGA Henning Theodorsen 1500 points
MI0WWB William R Bradley 1000 points
VE2DDZ Malcolm Harper 1000 points
PE1PIC KeesJan Colmer 1000 points
JP3DGT Katsushige Oiji 1000 points
JS6TMW Steve Fabricant 1000 points
VK3WAR Craig Arnot Ward 1000 points
LZ2OQ Georgi Aleksov 500 points
YO8SSB Lucian Damian 500 points
K1LIZ Elizabeth Burns 500 points
K1LIZ Elizabeth Burns 250 points
N3FJ Rob Olszewski 250 points
M0PLA Paul Athersmith 100 points

Chaser Unique
M3FEH Karl Kruger 3000 summits
VK3PF Peter Freeman 1000 summits
VE2DDZ Malcolm Harper 100 summits
SV1QED Michael Panagiotopoulos 100 summits

Summit to Summit
M0JLA Rodney Archard Gold
VE2DDZ Malcolm Harper Silver
LA3NGA Henning Theodorsen Red

Mountain Hunter
VK3PF Peter Freeman Platinum
VE2DDZ Malcolm Harper Gold
K1LIZ Elizabeth Burns Bronze

Mountain Explorer
AK5SD Scott T. Dupuie Silver

Microwave Award
VK1AD Andrew Moseley 300 km 23 cm

Merchandise stock levels are, for the moment, reasonably buoyant (except for Mountain Goat embroidered badges) and, because I have been able to negotiate on prices with our suppliers, selling prices can be maintained. However, the fee paid to our trophy engraver has not changed since the glass trophy was introduced but I will now be forced to slightly increase engraving prices to ensure that she continues doing the work. This will be reflected in the initial price of a trophy and also in the price of “add-on” lettering effective from the 1 August.

I would like to clear the remaining stock of Polo Shirts before introducing new, and different, stock later this year (there is only so much limited space in our spare bedroom wardrobe and the xyl wants to use some of the space – unreasonable I know but I have to live with her). Anybody ordering a Polo Shirt will be able to chose from a small list of other SOTA merchandise to be included free of charge with their order; just as an incentive to clear this stock. Once they are gone I will not be replacing them.

Before introducing new stock I plan to have a poll on the reflector to see what interest there is in various branded items. Suggestions from members of the SOTA community would also be most welcome.

Finally, just a reminder about the dates on certificates (and also the class of award you are claiming): I will take the award date to be the date you put on the order form and will no longer check whether it is correct or not. The only checking I will do is to see that you are qualified to make the claim; information to get the date correct is on your database record, please check before ordering. Adopting this procedure means that I have reduced my checking time by over 60%, which means I have more time to be on the air.

Stay safe on the hills and if you hear a weak GM, with very shaky CW call you – be kind to me

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

========================================================

NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

Greetings all. Paul, W0RW, reports big news from Colorado this month. You can buy your very own 83,368 acre [33,738 ha] ranch for the paltry sum 105million USD. Why in the NA SOTA Report? Well, included in the deal, at no extra cost, is Culebra Peak, known in some circles as W0C/SL-002. It's a "14'er" at 14,044 ft [4,282 m], and has never been activated. Might want to rush in and make an offer, there may be a queue already. Full details with photo at:

www.mirrranchgroup.com/ranches/cielo-vista-ranch https://www.mirrranchgroup.com/ranches/cielo-vista-ranch/

STATISTICS:

NA Statistics for Jul 2017
Produced: 07/28/2017 at: 15:24:45 PDT

Total Activations: 739 [678]
Total Activators: 218 [207]
Total Chaser QSO's: 7027 [6502]
Total Chasers: 309 [268]
Unique Summits: 545 [480]

BAND # LAST MONTH
3.5MHz: 31 ( 0.4%) [ 18 ( 0.2%)]
5MHz: 49 ( 0.6%) [ 120 ( 1.8%)]
7MHz: 1288 ( 18.3%) [ 1159 ( 18.0%)]
10MHz: 659 ( 9.4%) [ 841 ( 13.1%)]
14MHz: 4403 ( 62.8%) [ 3751 ( 58.4%)]
18MHz: 166 ( 2.3%) [ 237 ( 3.6%)]
21MHz: 13 ( 0.1%) [ 28 ( 0.4%)]
28MHz: 22 ( 0.3%) [ 29 ( 0.4%)]
50MHz: 14 ( 0.1%) [ 9 ( 0.1%)]
144MHz: 349 ( 4.9%) [ 209 ( 3.2%)]
220MHz: 1 ( 0.0%) [ 2 ( 0.0%)]
433MHz: 10 ( 0.1%) [ 12 ( 0.1%)]
1240MHz: 2 ( 0.0%) [ 1 ( 0.0%)]

MODE # LAST MONTH:
AM: 4 ( 0.0%) [ 2 ( 0.0%)]
CW: 4503 ( 64.2%) [ 4563 ( 71.0%)]
Data: 4 ( 0.0%) [ 10 ( 0.1%)]
FM: 359 ( 5.1%) [ 217 ( 3.3%)]
SSB: 2143 ( 30.5%) [ 1628 ( 25.3%)]

July was the highest activity month in 2017. It's been interesting that the 40 m/20 m and the SSB/CW ratios have remained fairly constant over the last several years. 30 meter usage has been slowly creeping upward andaccounts for some of the CW total but the "money bands" continue to be 40 and 20.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: Lotsthis month

The Mountain Goats continue to multiply. Darryl, WW7D and W7W Assoc. Mgrreports:"Please join me in congratulating Tim, KG7EJT, the first mountain goat earned in the W7W association. Tim earned his first activator point in Jan of 2015 and earned his 1000th point on Sunday while activating Tiffany Mountain (W7W/OK-029)."

The photo shows a moderately exuberant Tim , taken by his wife, just after his 4th QSO on Sunday. Congratulations Tim!

KG7EJT Mtn Goat.jpg1024x576 126 KB

Tim KG7EJT

W7A welcomed three new Mountain Goats as well. Pete, WA7JTM, reports that Bud, N6CW; Kay, KE7BGM; and Paul, K9PM, made it 3 AZ Goats in 17 days in June. Kay is the 2nd female Mtn Goat, and Paul set a new recordNA achieving 1,000 activator points in only 100 summits. A SOTA Party was had for them on 11 Jul in Scottsdale AZ. Hearty congratulations to the three of you!

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8 AZ Goats

Pete also made news himself, as reported inJuly QST, by capturing 4th place in the 2017 ARRL VHF Contest in the QRP Portable class:

“The Single Operator, Portable category in January is only for the hardiest ofsouls. VE3EG narrowly edged out lastyear’s winner, WB2AMU. WA7JTM putScarlet Mountain in DM33 on the air andtook advantage of the Summits on theAir (SOTA) program (and the abundanceof enthusiastic SOTA chasers in Arizona), to finish 4th place nationwidein the category. Maybe more SOTA activators will take the hint and activatesummits next January.”

And, unabashedly "Tooting His Own Horn," as he put it, Jack, KB7HH, has managed 15,000 chaser points.

Ryan, K70DX, started off the month with a "Utah Six Pack" ... 6 summits in one UTC day. Ryan isn't the first but he's in somevery rare company. I know of Tommy, WZ4M[then W4TZM], and Curtis, KC5CW, who have also managed this featwhich is an average of 3 hours per summit. Nice going Ryan!

Andfinally, while it's not an "officialaward," I can't end this section without mentioning good friend Todd, KH2TJ, whoappears on the cover of the ARRL Annual Report, reclining ... where else? ... on a summit. Todd drives Union Pacific locomotives to provide the family income,and has a strong connection to KH2, but ARRL chose a SOTA guy for the cover. Nice going Todd!

ANNIVERSARIES: My buddy Mike, KD5KC, emailed, "Happy Birthday W5-SOTA. Seven years old today. My, how you have grown." Indeed! SOTA started out slowly in the New World, and Mike was a prime mover to expand it. Initially, we had Associations based on call-areas, a few summits [California had something like 280]. Mike compiled the first W5 catalog of summits and he and several others began to realize that there were tens of thousands of potential summits in the western part of the continent and call-areas weren't going to work very long. Thanks to a LOT of work by a number of dedicated folks on both sides of the Atlantic, the North American summit catalog was expanded many-fold and re-organized on more of a State/Province basis, especially in the west. Anyone who has wrangled databases can appreciate the magnitude of this effort.

Thank you Mike and all of you who put so much time and effort into getting the summit catalogs correct,beating the database into submission, and the Association and Region Managers who stepped up to make this all happen.

NEWS:

From Etienne, K7ATN:

Summer! Time to get out and activate some summits! Consider August 5 and 6 for the PNW SOTA Summit-to-Summit Party.

Here's the latest Pacific Northwest SOTA Newsletter for July and August 2017:
http://www.pnwsota.org/sites/pnwsota.org/files/downloads/K7ATN/PNW%20SOTA%20Oregon%20Newsletter%20Jul-Aug%202017.pdf

There are links to the two SOTA presentations made at SeaPac this year and a story by Peter-K3OG on his activation of Mount Rainier.

EVENTS:

There will be a SOTA gathering at the Pacific NW DX Convention in Spokane WA the first weekend in Aug. Andrea and I are going, turning it into a "Road Trip" to country I've only seen from the air and she's never seen.

From Ryan, WG4I: Pat(KI4SVM) and myself (WG4A) have a planned Georgia/ Carolinas camping trip for October 20 – 22 at Sarah’s Creek in NE Georgia, see https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/conf/recarea/?recid=10497. The campground is primitive with pit toilets but at least onSOTA Awards Manager.

July hr cooking, charging batteries etc. I will be bringing my pop-up trailer if anyone wants to come but needs a place to sleep.

There are many SOTA summits within minutes of the campground. It will be an excellent opportunity to activate multiple summits in a day, contact others doing adjacent summits in the area and get your SOTA complete. It is under a 2 hour drive from Atlanta, Ashville, Charlotte, Knoxville, and many other areas.

Let me know if you are interested. Several of us will be getting there on the 19^th to get the good spots and reserve adjacent ones for those on their way. We should be able to put several tents on one site to split site cost.

That fills the newsletter for this month. If you're planning on visiting anywhere along the 21 Aug eclipse, and you have reservations, you are commended on your foresight. If you don't ... good luck [

73 and activate safely,

Fred ("Skip") K6DGW

Sparks NV USA
Washoe County DM09dn
NA SOTA Reporter Dude

============================================================

SOTA France – Robert F5HTR

Hi to all,

Some news about French SOTA. July is usually a very good month to activate our summits.
Last year, July saw 117 summits activated by 28 different Hams.
This year, July represents a new all time record with 140 summits activated by 23 different Hams!
This is the first time SOTA FRANCE has reached such an amount of activity a month.
On 23rd of July, there were at least 14 activations in a day ! Another record.

Some statistics for the F region :
F/AB : 290 summits done - Total of summit 567 = 51% sumits done in this region
F/AM : 420 done, Total 752 = 55%
F/CR : 91 done, Total 301 = 30%
F/JU : 86 done, Total 86 = 100%
F/MC : 118 done Total 200 = 59%
F/PE : 117 done, Total 315 = 37%
F/PO : 157 done, Total 252 = 62%
F association : 56% done

Statistics for FL association :
FL/NO : 64 done, Total 85 = 75%
FL/SO : 5 done, Total 5 = 400%
FL/VL : 70 done, Total 90 = 77%
FL/VO : 115 done, Total 153 = 75%
FL association : 81% done

This month, ranking of best progression :
F4EGG : 12 summits - 120 pts
F5UBH : 9 summits - 88 pts
F6HBI : 10 summits - 84 pts
F5UKL: 14 summits - 56 pts
F5HTR : 6 summits - 36 pts
F5LKW: 10 summits - 30 pts
F4ESK : 3 sommets - 30 pts
F/JG1XMV/P : 3 sommets - 30 pts
F6FTB : 9 summits - 16 pts
F6HHK : 1 summit - 10 pts
et aussi F6ENO, F6IPR, F4FHV, F5IUZ et F8BBL

TM10SOTA is over, we have done about 1015 QSO confirmed with LoTw and EQSL.cc
Activity with TM10SOTA could be more intensive of course. Many Hams were on the official list of operators and do not profit from it.
Administration allows us only 15 days of traffic with special call.

We create two new association this month with the French Islands of Martinique (FM) : 14 summits and Saint Pierre et Miquelon (FP) with 4 summits.

All the team of SOTA FRANCE wish you a nice activation in our nice country. We stay at your disposal to give you more detail if you need.
Do not hesitate to contact regional chief about a summit.

My best regards to all,
Have a nice holiday!

F5HTR
Bob
F & FL association Manager

============================================================

SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

Hi Mark and all

Please find the following SOTA News from Japan.

The rainy season was over and the hot and wet Japanese summer started.
Accordingly activation numbers have reduced this month.

SOTA activities in July 2017 in Japan as of 29 July 2017.

Activation

Total 149 Activations with 1497 QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 148 activations with 1493 QSO from Summits
JA5: 0
JA6: 1 activation with 4 QSO from Summits
JA8: 0

Chasing

Total 292 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 270 chasing QSO
JA5: 2 chasing QSO
JA6: 20 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

S2S

Total 150 S2S QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 147 S2S QSO
JA5: 0
JA6: 3 S2S QSO
JA8: 0

As we reported last monthly report, Kansai Ham Festival "KANHAM 2017" has
been held in Osaka Ikeda city on 15 and 16 July.

SOTA Japan association had a stand in exhibition area to promote the SOTA
activities to all Kansai area ham radio stations. These two days we got
many visitors to SOTA stand.

SOTA Japan association operating Mailing List for exchanging the various
information and more than ten new members are welcomed after this
festival.

We also had a SOTA gathering party #7 on 15 July after 1st day of KANHAM
SOTA operation.

On 11 August it is Mountain day in Japan, and it is newly started national
holiday in Japan from last year. Many SOTA operations will be carried out
on the day. Please listen and meet with us on air.

---

Toru Kawauchi
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp

---

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THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 115 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

July so off we go on our yearly visit to the Isle of Man. Our first day is usually taken fairly easily as we go over on the night boat from Heysham so have slept in seats in the lounge, this is my (Robs) test for old age, when I can't manage it ,its time to worry! Overnight gives you two extra days on the island and is cheaper on the fare. This year our extra day is relentlessly wet but there's plenty to amuse us.

Wednesday the 5th is the Manx National Day and we usually attend the festivities in the morning and activate LD-004 Bradda Hill in the afternoon but this year Audrey's knee is not up to the descent of the almost vertical grass slope which is a major part of this hill so it's off to LD-005,Mull Hill, a much easier proposition. We set up by the large pillbox at the very summit and as we do so a very well spoken young man asks us politely if we can tell him what these buildings were. He has been sent by his teacher to study the summit area and write a short thesis on the subject. He has done the ancient stone circle and thought he would ask about the pillbox on his way down. As one of our interests is military remains of WW2 we are able to give him quite a lot of info on the former radar station that occupied the site. He leaves, delighted, with some web sites to look at. We wonder if his teacher was looking for this or it was supposed to be Ancient history. One day it will be! Hope he gets good marks. Back to the activation and just six leisurely contacts on 2fm but HF is dead a nit

Thursday 6th Slieau Freoaghane Arrived at the usual parking spot(room for about six cars) to find it completely filled by two 4x4s parked back to back both with ramps down, no room! About 1/4 mile further west toward Barregarrow on the B10 we found a spot on the other side of the road that just took a car. The walk up is unchanged and once the green road is left a pleasant walk through the heather after which the hill is named. 8 contacts on 2FM nil on 2ssb 5Mhz and 7Mhz but 10 Mhz provided a long CW run and here I met a problem. My normal practice is to get the callers callsign written on the paper first because I don't remember them easily. To my horror due to my current eye problem when I looked down at the pad I could not read a single letter I had written and Audrey can't read my scribble at the best of times. This caused me a lot of problems and repeats, even more than usual so apologies to all operators and thanks for your patience.

Saturday 8th South Barrule and here we were aware that Andy G6PJZ had already alerted for this one today. As he was clearly on a much tighter schedule than us we decided to just do a VHF only activation so as not to impinge on his possible chasers.(most of his activities having been HF). In the event we worked just nine on vhf, very leisurely contacts and alerted chasers to Andy's impending arrival in the hope they would stay around and work him. In the event we met Andy just as we started our descent and had a very pleasant chat before setting off slowly on a test of Audrey's knee on a more awkward slope. There had been a fell race earlier and we saw that they diverted from the main route down on a minor path leading directly to a gate at the Round Table crossroads which is a couple of hundred yards west of the start of the green road, the normal parking and start point. Actually the green road entrance has become very rutted and not too good for normal cars to park. Try up the road to the round table where there is space for a couple of cars. The route from round table is nice enough but
not obvious, would not recommend it in cloud. Back at the car gave Andy a shout on the h/held to be number four in his log. HF was in dead as a nit mode so many thanks to the chasers who stayed around on VHF.

Tuesday 11th Mull Hill. An outing to try 4 and 6m on the ex Mil groundplane
Setup was fine but prolonged calls produced no response. To add insult to injury a shout on 2m yielded just two contacts, our first failure to complete in our SOTA history. TV must be getting good!

Thursday 13th Snaefell GD-001. In view of the knee situation particularly the descent we opted for a trip up on the tram from the Bungalow Station. The last trip on the tram was well before SOTA, when we walked up from sea level and got the tram down! Once on top the weather was reasonable but a strong breeze was blowing. It's worth pointing out that the cafe is well in the activation area so people with limited mobility could probably operate in it's shelter if prevented from going any further by disability. Anxious to feel as though we had made some effort we walked to our usual spot at the far end of the air traffic control building over looking Ramsey. Nice shelter and out of other peoples way. A long activation, lots on 2fm, a couple on 5Mhz, and lots on 7Mhz and 14Mhz CW. The weather had turned a little unpleasant as we walked back to the tram stop. This summit has very variable weather and at least a sweater is always needed.

Sunday 16th South Barrule again. We tried the route from The Round Table again. The path is not well defined and takes care to avoid trips and wet feet. On top a VHF only activation. Embarrassingly at the end we were asked for a quick trip onto a 70cm activity and I found I could not read the FT 817 display in the sunshine but bodged it eventually.

The last day of our holiday we had a quick trip up Mull Hill on the way to the boat. We set up by the big pillbox but were only able to work three Irish stations on 2FM.Determined not to be out done we up sticks and carried the whole shop antenna and mast as a single item 20yards across to the other pillbox where we managed to raise some activity from the English side.

We were sorry not to be able to activate all five summits this year and surprisingly no one managed to work us on all four we did achieve but we hope for better things in 2018 as we are already booked.

Not sure when we will get back to full operation because of knees and eyes but we will be back!

Meanwhile,

Take care out there

73
Rob and Audrey
G4RQJ

========================================================

*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

Posts: 4

Participants: 2

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the September 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Wednesday 30th August.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions.If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS SEPTEMBER 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF
Welcome to the September 2017 edition of SOTA News. Some exciting news with two new associations going live from 1st September: 4X – Israel & XE1 – Mexico Central as well as other major updates! See http://reflector.sota.org.uk/t/1st-september-2017-updates/15890 for details.

My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Warren ZL2AJ, Toru JH0CJH, Luc ON7DQ, Bob F5HTR.

73, Mark G0VOF

========================================================
The August 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 1,036 times.
========================================================

SOTA AWARDS AUGUST 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

Slightly quieter on the awards front this month but still a lot of claims. Congratulations to KG7EJT and PA7ZEE for achieving the Mountain Goat level and PA7ZEE for achieving 25k Chaser points while DL2YBG, WA7SB and N6JZT have made “Supersloth” level.

Sometimes these tables of statistics hide some quite amazing achievements by our participants not least of which is Paul, HB9DST. Achieving Mountain Explorer Platinum is a fairly common occurrence but what is hidden behind this achievement is that he has activated in 50 Unique Associations which, I believe, is a first; congratulations.

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
KG7EJT Tim Nair

Shack Sloth
K0MP Bill Leahy
AB4PP John Paul Keon
WF4I Derek S. Brown
NC6B Donald K. Olsen

Certificates Issued

Activator
PA7ZEE Geert Paulides 1000 points
KR7RK Keith Schlottman 500 points
SQ9APD Bartosz Kuzma 250 points
WX7EMT Chris Caviezel 250 points
HB9GHJ Urs Gredig 250 points
KF7SEY Troy Greenberg 100 points
KE6MT Rex Vokey 100 points

Chaser
PA7ZEE Geert Paulides 25000 points
DL2YBG Klaus-Peter Dreessen 10000 points
WA7SB Rick Hallowell 10000 points
N6JZT Hal Rounds 10000 points
SQ9APD Bartosz Kuzma 2500 points
W2SE Bruce Babcock 2500 points
M0WBG Neil Challis 2500 points
YO8AZQ Adrian Done 1000 points
SP6NVB Bogdan Morawski 1000 points
WX7EMT Chris Caviezel 500 points
KF7SEY Troy Greenberg 500 points
IS0LYN Mario Lumbau 500 points
2E0DIJ Duane Yates 250 points
YO6EVA Gajdo Eva 100 points
K6ABM Austin Munger 100 points

Activator Unique
HB9BIN Dr, Juerg Regli 1000 summits
M0JCQ James Stevens 100 summits

Chaser Unique
K8LJG John C. Kroll 500 summits

Summit to Summit
KR7RK Keith Schlottman Silver
M0JCQ James Stevens Bronze
WX7EMT Chris Caviezel Red

Mountain Hunter
N9XG Ian Offer Bronze
HB9FZE Stefan Weilenmann Bronze

Mountain Explorer
HB9DST Paul Schreier Platinum
K1LIZ Elizabeth Burns Bronze
M0VFC Robert Chipperfield Bronze

Microwave Award
G4AZS Adrian Bayling 250 km 23 cm
VK1AD Andrew Moseley 200 km 23 cm
VK1AD Andrew Moseley 100 km 23 cm

I have received several very generous donations towards the costs of running SOTA and these are very much appreciated. Now that certificates for printing yourself are issued without charge these donations help fill a gap in the income stream so many thanks to those of you who have been so generous.

There are still a few Polo Shirts left which are available with a free incentive to purchase them; once these are sold I will not be purchasing new stock so now is your last chance to acquire one of these embroidered shirts.

Reported above is the amazing achievement of HB9DST in activating so many unique Associations which raises the question is there a demand for an award to mark these sort of achievements? Both Activator Unique and Chaser Unique are summit orientated, should there be a class within this award to show the number of Associations activated or does this discriminate unfairly against those unable to access many Associations? Comments to me please.

That is all for this month, stay safe on the hills,
73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

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NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

Hi All,

Despite a month of moderately severe weather across most of North America [and some very serious weather in E. Texas and Louisiana as I compile this], SOTA activity in the new world was up in all categories. CW operation seems to be higher than past history, and I'm not sure what to make of the 7 AM QSO's.

NA Statistics for Aug
Produced: 08/29/2017 at: 10:00:24

Total Activations: 732 [639]
Total Activators: 204 [178]
Total Chaser QSO's: 7709 [5995]
Total Chasers: 290 [270]
Unique Summits: 545 [430]

BAND # LAST MONTH
3.5MHz: 20 ( 0.2%) [ 12 ( 0.2%)]
5MHz: 36 ( 0.4%) [ 95 ( 1.6%)]
7MHz: 1265 ( 16.5%) [ 1243 ( 20.9%)]
10MHz: 843 ( 11.0%) [ 765 ( 12.9%)]
14MHz: 4941 ( 64.6%) [ 3447 ( 58.1%)]
18MHz: 196 ( 2.5%) [ 125 ( 2.1%)]
21MHz: 14 ( 0.1%) [ 19 ( 0.3%)]
28MHz: 18 ( 0.2%) [ 9 ( 0.1%)]
50MHz: 11 ( 0.1%) [ 11 ( 0.1%)]
70MHz: 1 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
144MHz: 289 ( 3.7%) [ 182 ( 3.0%)]
433MHz: 11 ( 0.1%) [ 13 ( 0.2%)]
1240MHz: 3 ( 0.0%) [ 8 ( 0.1%)]

MODE # LAST MONTH:
AM: 7 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
CW: 5502 ( 71.8%) [ 4287 ( 72.3%)]
Data: 1 ( 0.0%) [ 5 ( 0.0%)]
FM: 300 ( 3.9%) [ 202 ( 3.4%)]
SSB: 1844 ( 24.0%) [ 1432 ( 24.1%)]

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

Etienne, K6ATN, sent an advance copy of the Pacific Northwest News which featured Tim, KG7EJT: "Tim Nair-KG7EJT reached Mountain Goat status during his July 16, 2017 activation of Tiffany Mountain (W7W/OK-029). Dennis-WA2USA, in Indiana, was the fourth contact on Tim’s activation that got him to 1,000 points. This particular activation was mostly on 20 meters, with one contact on 40 meters."

"In a Facebook Post, moments after his activation, Tim stated, 'Just reached Mountain Goat level!!! Thanks for the contacts!!!'. 'This is truly an amazing accomplishment', stated Todd-W7TAO. 'You are really the first native Washington SOTA Mountain Goat, earning most of your points in our great state. This is an exceptionally difficult task with most six point or higher peaks being rugged and accessible for only a very short season. Well done sir. This is a big deal and to boot, you are a first class operator!' Tim’s first SOTA activation was in January 2015 and it took him 182 summits in order to reach 1,000 points. When Tim started doing SOTA, all contacts were made using 2 meter FM for the first 1½ years. About 90% of all his activations have been 2m FM. The Tiffany Mountain activation was an exception as it was strictly HF."

(Ed Note: Please forgive me if I posted Tim's achievement last month, I don't have access to that issue right now)

The PNW News also made note of SOTA on the front cover of "QRP Quarterly," two "QST's [US],", "Practical Wireless [UK]," "Amateur Radio [VK]," "Break-In [ZL]," "CQ [US]," as well as a featured article with KG7EJT [see above] in "Mountaineer Magazine." Of course, Todd, KH2TJ, was featured reclining on W7M/EM-110 on the cover of the ARRL Annual Report for FY 2016. [Todd signed my copy of that photo for me]

Steve, K7PX, on W0C/FR-052 w/Pike's Peak in background. credit: Steve, WG0AT.

Bob, K0NR, provided a photo of the "QRP Quarterly" cover. Bob's article about the Colorado 14'er Event was published in that issue.

Curtis, KC5CW, provided a fairly detailed report on activation of two "virgin" 14'ers, W0C/RG-004 and W0C/RG-002, along with Andrew, KD5ZZK [who drove up from Baton Rouge LA] and Jamie, K6JFD [who drove 1,000 mi east from So. Lake Tahoe CA]. Curtis mentioned as an aside that Andrew achieved Triple Mountain Goat on this expedition.

RESOURCES:

Having a hard time explaining "prominence" to someone new to SOTA? Try this link, thanks to Chris, KJ6WEG: www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8P5a1uqIMw

Dan, NK6A, will be presenting a talk on SOTA at the ARRL Southwest Division Convention on 16 Sep at the Torrance Marriott [Los Angeles]. More info at www.hamconinc.org/welcome-1.html

FUTURE EVENTS:

Ryan, WG4I, advised: "Pat (KI4SVM) and myself (WG4I) have a planned Georgia/ Carolinas camping trip for October 20 – 22 at Sarah’s Creek in NE Georgia, see https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/conf/recarea/?recid=10497. The campground is primitive with pit toilets but at least one of us will have a generator for cooking, charging batteries etc. I will be bringing my pop-up trailer if anyone wants to come but needs a place to sleep."
"There are many SOTA summits within minutes of the campground. It will be an excellent opportunity to activate multiple summits in a day, contact others doing adjacent summits in the area and get your SOTA complete. It is under a 2 hour drive from Atlanta, Ashville, Charlotte, Knoxville, and many other areas."
"Let me know if you are interested. Several of us will be getting there on the 19th to get the good spots and reserve adjacent ones for those on their way. We should be able to put several tents on one site to split site cost."

WORDS TO THE WISE:
Being the wizards of electricity that we all are, I'm sure we all know to avoid thunderstorms, but sometimes lightning can happen out of the blue. Todd, KH2TJ [of ARRL Annual Report fame], offered the following, also reported in the Sacramento Bee:
"August 24, 2017 6:28 AM A hiker survived a lightning strike Tuesday near Donner Summit, according to the California Highway Patrol. A couple from Austria and a Fairfield friend were on a hike Tuesday from Donner Summit to Squaw Valley when the Austrian man pulled ahead of the others at Tinker Knob near Soda Springs, says a post on the CHP Valley Division Air Operations page on Facebook. His two companions heard 'a large crack and saw a flash of light'.”
"Wary of further strikes, the other hikers stayed off the ridge and called 911 about 2 p.m. They called to the man, who was able to wave his arms and shout. A CHP helicopter arrived to rescue the man, who was taken first to Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee and then to the UC Davis Firefighters Burn Institute for treatment."

COLORADO 14'er REPORT:
The "Colorado 14'er Event" is an annual mountaineering event on the Colorado peaks over 14,000 ft [4,268 m] elevation. It was inevitable that when SOTA arrived in North America, it would find a home in the event too. From Bob, K0NR:
"I did some analysis of the Colorado 14er Event activity using information from the SOTA database. I know this is not complete because not all operators submitted their logs to the database, but this is still the best record that we have. In particular, some of the more casual VHF FM operators have not adopted the SOTA infrastructure, so this data will likely under-report VHF activity. We will keep encouraging these folks to use the SOTA database."

"In recent years, we've had two major shifts in the event guidelines:
1. We expanded the summits from the traditional 54 Colorado 14,000 foot mountains to include all SOTA summits in Colorado (W0C).
2. We expanded from Sunday only to all weekend (Saturday and Sunday)
Because of these changes, I have not attempted to do comparisons with previous years. See http://www.ham14er.org/ for detailed info on this event."

"There are 777 QSOs with W0C summits entered for August 5 and 6 (UTC date). The actual event is based on Mountain time in the US, so this may skew the results slightly.
The most popular band was 20m (51%) followed by 2m (16%) and 30m and 40m both at 11% of the total."
"The most common mode was CW (60%), followed by SSB (24%) and FM (16%). There were 26 summits listed as activated and some summits had more than one activation over the weekend."

"No surprise, some familiar SOTA calls were on the air cranking out the most QSOs:
KX0R 141
NS0TA 111
N0TA 81
W0CP 78
KD0YOB 66

Of course, we had super participation by the chasers. Here are the top chasers for the event:
W0MNA 20
W0ERI 19
W7RV 19
WA2USA 18
W4EX 18
NG6R 16

"There were many S2S contacts but I have not been able to tabulate those in time for the Sept SOTA News. It was a super SOTA weekend...thanks to everyone that participated! Thanks to Guy N7UN and Andy MM0FMF for providing the data."

REPORT OF THE MONTH:

13-Eclipse.JPG1224x918 165 KB

Eclipse in the Teton Wilderness. credit: unknown

Bob, AE7AP, reported that they just returned from an 11-day backpacking trip into the Teton Wilderness including some activations in Yellowstone National Park.:

Trip Highlights & Challenges
· We had lots of solitude – often going days without seeing anyone.
· Many of the trails were not cleared – there was tons of deadfall once off of the main-line trails.
· The “Parting of the Waters” was cool – it is a creek that is located perfectly on the continental divide. It splits & one half goes to the Pacific Ocean & the other half to the Atlantic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parting_of_the_Waters
· Seeing the start of the Yellowstone River – where the North Fork & South Fork converge.
· The South Fork of the Yellowstone is one of the most remote & beautiful on-trail places that we have been. It has solitude, green meadows, flowers, waterfalls, huge snow cornices … It didn’t look like anyone else had been in there for a while.
· The trail out of the South Fork had some snow chutes remaining – I was glad that we brought our microspike traction devices.
· It was fun to see the Grizzly (at a distance). We ran into another trio that had a close encounter (not fun).
· We simultaneously ran into a N. Bound & S. Bound CDT hiker at a trail junction (one of us on each trail). The S. Bound hiker was Jerry-KG6ENL (“Trailblazer”) – whom we previously saw July-4 in the Scapegoat coming out of the Dearborn River! The N. Bound hiker was Rabinath from the Netherlands - Blog: http://www.trailjournals.com/journal/entry/575675
· We were in the path of totality on a 10,200 ft. prominence for the eclipse & had the Tetons as a backdrop – it was perfectly clear, calm, and awesome!

Rob, AE7AP, on top of the 'Chinese Wall' in the Bob Marshall Wilderness [Montana]" Credit: Rob's wife Barb

· Working Vick-K7VK from W7Y/TT-076 – this was the only local QSO that I was able to make. I had lots of time & Wx crunches that limited my time on 40m.
I really, really, appreciate those chasers that worked me first (and hopefully spotted me) on each summit. I didn’t have APRS coverage in this area & I doubt that RBNhole got me reliably either – particularly when I changed plans! The first chasers on each of the six summits were: VE7HI, KB7HH, NQ7R, N4MJ, K0MP, & WA6MTZ. Thank you!

73,
Rob – AE7AP

Thanks to all who contribute news items to me, that's going to finish off New World SOTA for Aug.

73,

Skip, K6DGW
NA SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV DM09dn
k6dgw@foothill.net

============================================================

SOTA France – Robert F5HTR

Hi to all, activator and chaser!

Activity in France for both "F and FL" associations has been really good during this month.
I have counted at least 191 activities for the month of August. There were probably many more I think!
Of course, this is a new record for France to get a such intensity of traffic !

We could hear the usual folks from France : F4EGG, F5LKW, F5UBH, F6HBI, F8FEO, F6HCC, F4FHV, F5RGY, F5UKL, F6EFI, F4VRL, F5HTR
During this festival month, a lot of foreign Ham’s came to activate French summits.
SOTA activity is increasing, and we noticed duing the past month a kind of Radio tourism. A lot of Hams come to hike or to ride bicycles around the mountains, especially in Vosges.

We could hear this month, as expedition in Vosges :
F/M0BLF/p, F4EGG/p, F5HTR/p, F5UBH/p, F/PB2T/p, F/M0WML/p, F/G4WSB/p

The greatest surprise was meet Hans and his friend on the departure parking place !
Thanks to the mast on his rucksack, we recognized him easily. It is not very often to meet another OM in mountains !

FotoPB2T-UBH-HTR.jpg4723x3149 1.37 MB

My best 73 to you all

F5HTR
Bob
F & FL association manager

============================================================

SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

August is summer holiday season and large number of activations have been
made.

SOTA activities in August 2017 in Japan as of 31 August 2017.

Activation

Total 196 Activations with 1790 QSO have been made and reported.
Activation increased by 32% compare with last month.

JA: 180 activations with 1627 QSO from Summits
JA5: 9 activations with 125 QSO from Summits
JA6: 3 activations with 14 QSO from Summits
JA8: 4 activations with 24 QSO from Summits

Chasing

Total 427 Chasing QSO have been made and reported. QSO numbers of Chaser
increased 46% compare with last month.

JA: 392 chasing QSO
JA5: 1 chasing QSO
JA6: 34 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

Normally JA5 and JA8 areas have a very small number of activations or almost
None at all, but as you can see the number of activations increased
drastically because of summer holiday season. Actually I had a short trip
to JA8 Hokkaido in the summer holiday with my wife and made an activation for
a very short period.

Also 11 August was national holiday in Japan. It was newly settled last
year as Mountain day. This new holiday also pushed up the number of SOTA
activations.

Keiichi JF8LPB made SOTA activations from Germany and Czech. Brief report of
his activation is shown below, and reported by John's blog site.

On 19 August, Keiichi made activations from three summits with DK9JC John
and DO1DJJ Joerg. John and Joerg are very supportive and Keiichi appreciates
their hospitality very much. Keiichi uses a FT2D and FT-817ND with 25W linear
amplifier with Inverted V antenna. The results of his activation were:
1. DM/RP-158 Erbeskopf 816m 20m SSB: 11 QSO
2. DM/RP-187 Wildenburgerkopf 664m 2m FM: 4 QSO. 1 QSO has been made with John
who stayed at RP-158
3. DM/RP-171 Roesterkopf 708m 2m FM: 1 QSO 40m SSB: 14 QSO

On 27 August, Keiichi made activations from two summits. He appreciates
OK2SRO Honza's advice to avoid the activation on Friday and Saturday because
there was ham radio festival on these dates. Also he made a QSP of his
operation to his ham radio friends.

Results of his activation are shown below
1. OK/ZL-043 Kycera 757m 2m FM: 5 QSO
2. OK/ZL-045 Hostyn 734m 2m FM: 23 QSO
He got a huge pile-ups of calls from local stations including OM and SP stations
on 2m, at Hostyn summit.

Keiichi states special thanks to DK9JC Johnny during his stay in Germany.
Keiichi is Class 1 licensee in Japan but he got novice class license by
mistake of the regulatory authority. DK9JC John gave great support to so Keiichi could properly
gain a Class A license in Germany.

With regards to the biggest ham radio event in Japan, Tokyo Ham Fair 2017
will be carried out on 2 and 3 September this year. SOTA Japan association
will promote in this event again with Yama to Musen stand. I will report this in next monthly report.

73, Toru

---

Toru Kawauchi 川内 徹
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp

---

============================================================

THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 116 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

Very little to report this month, no personal activations due to medical problems, poor conditions on the bands and rising local noise levels (up to S8) and a worrying lack of activations on local fells.

So how about a few tips for people starting on hill walking and sota activation.

Make sure someone knows where you are going and when you intend to be back Be careful if using unfamiliar circular routes that you do not know. Start out with straight up down routes and take notice on the way up of diverging paths and note which one you take, particularly in woodland, (make a little mark on a tree, draw an arrow on the ground with the tip of a walking pole or place a recognisable stone) Once on the summit mark where you arrived as the start of your return route, if you stay for a long activation cloud may creep up and hinder your finding your path again. You may be cold by this time and the problems of a different route down will be much harder to deal with. In my (Robs) case you may find exposure that upsets vertigo, or a river not easily crossed or any number of man made obstructions and a turn back will be hard if darkness is approaching. Good maps and compass skills are the way to go as is a gps assuming the batteries are up to it! but knowing your downward escape route is invaluable. Two of the questions we have been asked on a summit in cloud are, "Which is the way down?" and "Where is the way back to the car park?" Knowing where you started from is important! Most of this is basic Boy Scout stuff but few people seem to know it Take care, have fun and remember to let your backup person know you are down .

Back to business and we hope to be at Telford Rally in September and also to attempt a few hills in the area, our first activations for some time. This will be a test of our abilities so hope it works out ok. If not we may have to cut this column to an occasional basis instead of monthly. We hope for the best.

Meanwhile That's all for now.

Take care out there

73,
Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

========================================================

*********** SOTA NEWS PART 2 FOLLOWS BELOW ********

Posts: 9

Participants: 4

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

Contributions are invited for the October 2017 edition of SOTA News.
The deadline for submissions is next Friday 29th September.

I will acknowledge receipt of all contributions.If you do not receive an acknowledgement, please resend your contribution to my Gmail address.

Thank you to all contributors.

Mark G0VOF
SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
markwalmsley.g0vof@gmail.com

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka "Skip" on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au

New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com

Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za

Posts: 3

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@G0VOF wrote:

SOTA NEWS OCTOBER 2017 - Part 1 of 2

Editorial - by Mark G0VOF
Welcome to the October 2017 edition of SOTA News.

My thanks go to the following contributors:- Barry GM4TOE, Skip K6DGW, Roy G4SSH, Kevin G0NUP, Rob and Audrey G4RQJ, Geert PA7ZEE, Paulo CT2IWW, Toru JH0CJH.

73, Mark G0VOF

========================================================
The September 2017 edition of SOTA News was viewed more than 1,126 times.
========================================================

SOTA AWARDS SEPTEMBER 2017 from Barry GM4TOE - SOTA Awards Manager.

September was another very busy month for awards with about 50% more claims than August, in particular the number of trophies claimed is well up and has caused yet another engraving bottleneck!

Congratulations to Mountain Goats WB0USI, JS1UEH, NS7P, N3II,OK2SRO, OE1WED and N6JZT. There are many notable Chaser claims this month. EA2CKX and W0ERI on 75k, N6KZ and F5UBH on 10k and of particular note VE2DDZ who achieved Shack Sloth all Summit to Summit.

It is good to see claims for the Microwave Award continuing to come in but with all the GM activity on 13 cm the only claim on this band has been outwith the UK – come on guys, you know who you are!

Trophies Issued

Mountain Goat
WB0USI Rick Loughrey
JS1UEH Takeshi Saiki
NS7P Phil Shepard
N3II David Collins

Shack Sloth
VE2DDZ Malcolm Harper (All S2S)
EA2CKX Pedro Chinchurreta
G4FVK David Sewell
KP4RV Rafael Bonano
PC9DB Mark Vroomen

Certificates Issued

Activator
WB0USI Rick Loughrey 1000 points
OK2SRO Jan Zeiner 1000 points
OE1WED Gerhard Weißenbőck 1000 points
N6JZT Hal Rounds 1000 points
N3II David Collins 1000 points
ON7DQ Luc Decroos 500 points
N7LP Lee Pemberton 500 points
KI4TN Ron Burns 500 points
OE7AJT Andy Jobstl 250 points
K1LIZ Elizabeth Burns 250 points
WC0Y Edward Hall 100 points
ZL2AJ Warren Harris 100 points

Chaser
EA2CKX Pedro Chinchurreta 75000 points
W0ERI Martha S. Auchard 75000 points
N6KZ Jim Zimmerman 10000 points
F5UBH Toullec Christophe 10000 points
ON7DQ Luc Decroos 5000 points
K8LJG John C. Kroll 5000 points
KI4TN Ron Burns 5000 points
YO8SSB Lucian Damian 1500 points
YO2MSB Sorin Daniel 1000 points
YO8SSB Lucian Damian 1000 points
ZL1WA Jacky Shaw 1000 points
KP4RV Rafael Bonano 1000 points
K1LIZ Elizabeth Burns 1000 points
WD4CFN Steve Ghertner 1000 points
EA4AAI Gerardo Campó Cayuela 500 points
M0PLA Paul Athersmith 250 points
N9XG Ian Offer 250 points
EA4AAI Gerardo Campó Cayuela 250 points
N9XG Ian Offer 100 points
JP3OYB Naoyuki Taniguchi 100 points
DL3HV Helmut Vogel 100 points
EA4AAI Gerardo Campó Cayuela 100 points

Activator Unique
VE6IXD Ian Drummond 100 summits
JF1NDT Yukio Osada 100 summits
N3II David Collins 100 summits

Chaser Unique
EA2CKX Pedro Chinchurreta 7000 summits
W0ERI Martha S. Auchard 4000 summits
K8LJG John C. Kroll 1000 summits
K5QR Andrew Bonnot 500 summits
YO8SSB Lucian Damian 100 summits
JF1NDT Yukio Osada 100 summits

Summit to Summit
NA6MG Daniel Ducey Platinum
JF1NDT Yukio Osada Silver
AE7AP Robert Kingery Silver
YO8AZQ Adrian Done Bronze
N3II David Collins Bronze
WC0Y Edward Hall Red

Mountain Hunter
EA2CKX Pedro Chinchurreta Platinum
YO8AZQ Adrian Done Gold
N9XG Ian Offer Gold
K5QR Andrew Bonnot Gold
N9XG Ian Offer Silver

Mountain Explorer
ON6ZQ Christophe David Platinum
N3II David Collins Silver
OK1CYC Miroslav Pribyl Bronze

Microwave Award
GM4WHA Geoff Harper 50 km 23 cm
VK2JDL Phil Clancy 50 km 13 cm

I was faced with “Nil Stock” on Chaser certificates, not in actuality but according to the database stock control; I had set the count when we removed the charge for pdf versions of the certificates to see how many were ordered and it caught me unawares. Thanks to Ron KI4TN for letting me know and the count has now been reset to 1000.

Once more my thanks to the many of you who make donations towards the running of SOTA – the impact of these cannot be underestimated especially when you see the cost of the commercial servers we now need to use.

I was going to organise a survey on the reflector to try to establish demand for new branded products, I will do this but personal events have rather taken my eye off the ball. When I do this please let me know what would be of interest so I can restock before the year end.

Finally: Tommy my Labrador, veteran of many SOTA activations, chick magnet supreme and my close companion died on Thursday. I will miss him.

73

Barry GM4TOE
SOTA Awards Manager

========================================================

NORTH AMERICAN REPORT from Skip K6DGW

End of September and I can't remember where all that time went. Houston TX was hit by hurricane Harvey, Florida was hammered by Irma, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico were destroyed by Maria, and the eastern Caribbean basically got all three plus Jose. The entire area is still reeling and recovery will be slow. There are numerous SSB emergency nets operating on 20, 40, and the 60 meter channels, let's be sure to give them space when we're activating.

The ionosphere and geomagnetic field were pretty active during the early part of September, Kp was up to 6 and 7 for several days, which may account for the slight drop in our activity numbers and the increase in 40 meter activity.

NA Statistics for Sep
Produced: 09/28/2017 at: 21:38:44 UTC

  Total Activations:    618  [732]
   Total Activators:    201  [204]
 Total Chaser QSO's:   6410  [7709]
      Total Chasers:    292  [290]
     Unique Summits:    443  [545]

BAND     #               LAST MONTH

3.5MHz: 18 ( 0.2%) [ 20 ( 0.2%)]
5MHz: 39 ( 0.6%) [ 36 ( 0.4%)]
7MHz: 1383 ( 21.9%) [ 1265 ( 16.5%)]
10MHz: 887 ( 14.0%) [ 843 ( 11.0%)]
14MHz: 3378 ( 53.6%) [ 4941 ( 64.6%)]
18MHz: 134 ( 2.1%) [ 196 ( 2.5%)]
21MHz: 13 ( 0.2%) [ 14 ( 0.1%)]
28MHz: 8 ( 0.1%) [ 18 ( 0.2%)]
50MHz: 5 ( 0.0%) [ 11 ( 0.1%)]
144MHz: 412 ( 6.5%) [ 289 ( 3.7%)]
220MHz: 3 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
433MHz: 10 ( 0.1%) [ 11 ( 0.1%)]
1240MHz: 4 ( 0.0%) [ 3 ( 0.0%)]
2.3GHz: 2 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]

MODE # LAST MONTH:
AM: 2 ( 0.0%) [ 7 ( 0.0%)]
CW: 4441 ( 70.4%) [ 5502 ( 71.8%)]
Data: 3 ( 0.0%) [ 1 ( 0.0%)]
FM: 425 ( 6.7%) [ 300 ( 3.9%)]
Other: 1 ( 0.0%) [ 0 ( 0%)]
SSB: 1428 ( 22.6%) [ 1844 ( 24.0%)]

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: David, N3II, has made Mountain Goat status on CW with 100% unique summits, the 1,000th point occurred on W4V/LX-028 on 23 Sep. Rumor has it, I haven't checked, that this may be the first CW W3 Association MG. At any rate, Congratulations David!

David also activated his 10th Association on 10 Aug [W2/WE-050] for a silver Mountain Hunter award.

In an email dealing with the MG trophy custom [see below], Phil, NS7P, dropped in a small aside that he also achieved MG status, as did Hal, N6JZT, a week later. Congratulations to you both!

SERIOUS NEWS DEPARTMENT [thanks to Bob, K0NR]: "Colorado has seen a marked increase in the number of climbing deaths this year, most commonly associated with 14'ers (14,000-foot-plus [4,268 m] summits). The Denver Post reported that the death toll is 11 this year. As far as I know, none of these fatalities are connected with SOTA.

"See 'With 11 fatalities on Colorado’s fourteeners this season, it’s time to do something' http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/15/colorado-fourteener-deaths-plan/ "

"This series of fatalities has authorities wondering what do to, if anything, to reverse the trend. Many of these deaths were in the Elk Range with 5 of them on Capitol Peak. See 'Spike in Capitol Peaks Unprecedented' http://kdvr.com/2017/08/28/spike-in-back-country-deaths-unprecedented and 'Should We Warn Hikers About Dangerous Trails?' https://www.outsideonline.com/2240561/aspen-deaths-14ers "

"In general, the causes of these accidents tend to include these familiar factors: Lack of preparation, Lack of appreciation of the difficulty of the climb, Deciding to try a non-standard 'shorter route' on the descent, and Hiking groups choosing to split up on the trail. I think another factor is the large number of people interested in climbing 14ers as a weekend sport. After knocking out a few of the 'easy ones' (I actually don't find any of them easy), they take on very challenging summits without the required skills and experience. The lesson is clear: study the summit, know your limitations and be prepared."
NEWS: Paul, W6PNG and W6 Association Manager reports: "Life has aligned such that my wife and I are going to split our time 50-50 between the UK/EU and California. Its all good and we are jazzed about renovating a 200 year old home on the English/Scottish border and using it as a base."

"So while I'm passionate about SOTA and looking forward to participating in the UK/EU as well as the US, W6, as an association has a mountain of potential and deserves an AM that is 'in situ' and fully engaged. As such, its time to hand the mantle to someone willing to promote, energize, and drive SOTA in California. Feel free to reach out to Elliott or Guy if you are interested in the role."

Thank you Paul for your work and best wishes in your new time on the other side of the Atlantic.

Etienne, K7ATN, provided the links to W7W and W7O events in September and the Pacific Northwest News:

http://www.pnwsota.org/content/willamette-valley-summit-summit-party-september-2017

http://www.pnwsota.org/content/puget-sound-summit-summit-party-september-2017

Rob, AE7AP, reports from W7M: "September was a slow month in Montana with only 3 W7M activations – likely due to wildfire smoke. Rob–AE7AP activated Beartrap Mountain (W7M/LI-133),
Sutton Mountain (W7M/LI-205), and McGuire Mountain (W7M/LI-046) during a two night stay at the historic McGuire Mountain fire lookout with Barb-AE7AQ. The lookout is a D-6 Cupola type that was built in 1924.
We went in “heavy” on the 2.5 mile hike with steak, eggs, bacon, wine, cook stove, and all of the fixings so that we were sure to eat well. We even managed to get a grouse along the way! The three activations went
very well despite the smoke, but a 4th activation attempt was thwarted by a large solar flare."

"Vick-K7VK escaped the smoke by heading north to activate Tunnel Mountain (VE6/HC-035) and Eager Hill (VE7/EK-048). The W7M chasers had more luck – making a total of 60 QSO’s, including one DX QSO by Vick-K7VK to JP3DGT/3 on Doutokoyama (JA/OS-010)!"

And, from the Canadian border to the Mexican border - Pete, WA7JTM, filed this report: "It was a pretty quiet month here except for the VHF Contest weekend when a couple of us went out and played VHF Contest and SOTA at the same time. I operated for just under three hours from a Sonoran Desert SOTA summit Sunday morning. Let's just say it was a "HOT" location… even with the shade tarp I had erected on the summit"

"I hiked to W7A/MN-119 (DM33 Grid Square) and K7TAB (Chris) was on SOTA Summit W7A/MN-057 (DM43). We managed to work each other on four different VHF Bands… 6, 2, 223, and 432. Chris later operated form another Grid Square, but was not on a SOTA summit. I used my FT-817 on 6/2/432 running four watts, and an HT on 223.5 FM. My 6M antenna was my HF/VHF link dipole on a thirteen foot crappie pole. For the other VHF bands I put up a short 10 foot pole with a four element Yagi on 2M, a two element Yagi on 223, and a five element Quagi on 432."

"Conditions were typical, with no DX on 6M. Best 50 MHz DX on my dipole was DM24 (143 miles). Best 144/432 MHz DX was 125 miles. Amazing how far you can go on VHF from a mountain top with a small station or an HT. I also activated HF on 20 and 40 meters CW until the X-Class “Flares” hit. That wiped the bands clean of all signals. I ended up working 57 stations on VHF (almost 20 contacts per hour rate on VHF!), but only 6 stations on HF. Anyhow I encourage others to try SOTA and VHF QRP Contesting simultaneously…great fun!"

Oleh, KD7WPJ, who must be on the east coast, provided this news from Fred, AB1OC: "The Nashua Area Radio Club has continued to have fun doing SOTA activations with our portable 6m Station. We recently activated Mt. Washington [W1/HA-001] in New Hampshire. Mt. Washington is the highest peak in the northeast with an elevation of 6,288 ft [1,917 m]."

"Our station was solar-powered and used a pair of LiPo packs on an MPPT charger as a backup when the sun was obscured by clouds. [IMG] Our portable 6m station used an IC-7300 operating at 100W into a 3 element yagi on a 22' push-up mast. The setup allowed us to make over 50 SSB QSOs on 6m during our time on the mountain."

"It was cold at times when passing clouds engulfed the mountaintop but our club had a great time with the activation! The views were tremendous and mountain topping is a great way to have fun on 6m. You can read more about our Mt. Washington Activation here -

MOUNTAIN GOAT TROPHY CUSTOM: Early in the history of NA SOTA, when there were a lot fewer activators and thus fewer MG's, a custom developed that the last Goat would purchase the new Goat's trophy. The number of activators has multiplied today and so have the number achieving Mountain Goat status. There was considerable discussion on the NA SOTA Yahoo group regarding this and I believe the BFOMG ["Benevolent and Fraternal Order of Mountain Goats"] is working on it.

INVITATION: As he has been doing at past ARRL Pacific Division conventions, Elliott, K6EL, will be hosting a SOTA luncheon. The official invitation follows:

"Registered SOTA participants (only) are invited to our free sixth annual SOTA lunch at Pacificon, Bishop Grill, Marriott Hotel, 2600 Bishop Drive, San Ramon, CA, at 12:15 pm on Saturday, October 21st, hosted by K6EL. You do not have to pay for Pacificon if you are coming only to the lunch. The main table will accommodate the first 24 people to respond, and any excess can grab a nearby table. There is only one restaurant at the hotel. As in past years, we will be joined by an Elecraft founder. Please wear a name tag of some sort. Respond via the NaSota Yahoo group or direct to attorneys3@aol.com"

COOL STORY DEPARTMENT: Steve, WG0AT, relates a really good story with a happy ending: "During recent activation of Mt Waugh W0C/SC-032 ...K7PX and I were on a hasty down hill descent with weather moving in on us. Bashing down through thick forest when I stopped and turned around to see K7PX emerging from the trees. I immediately noticed he was missing his FT1D APRS radio! (Off trail bushwhacking is brutal on exposed skin, clothing, and gear ...ripping items from pack and body as you claw your way through!)"

"Previous weekend I had just done a fox hunt with our W0TLM Club so I was keyed in on "lets find this wayward radio!" The big advantage was his FT1D was still on and sending a APRS beacons every 5-minutes. Luckily each beacon contained a LAT/LON, bearing, distance and elevation. Distance said "0.0 Mi." so we knew we were close but how close was the question! LAT/LON was a ways off and uphill ~300' (ugh!) but elevation was real close to where we stood?"

"We slowly searched back up hill until I saw a new beacon pop in on my FT1D giving us a new bearing pointing down hill from us. So we swung around ...there it was laying on the ground! If it were a snake it would have bit us! Hah! ...Woohoo radio found! Down we went before weather closed in."

NORTH AMERICA: North America, according to ARRL and ITU, extends through Panama in Central America. It also includes Greenland. I have heard that there is a SOTA Association starting in Mexico. If anyone can give an email address of the Association Manager or organizer, I'd really like to get them included in this monthly drivel. I can read Spanish. If anyone hears of a Greenland association, I'll discuss that with the Denmark folks. With a last name of Jensen, I think we'll get along just fine.

73,

Skip, K6DGW
NA SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV DM09dn
k6dgw@foothill.net

============================================================

SOTA NEWS FROM JAPAN by Toru JH0CJH

SOTA activities in September 2017 in Japan as of 30 September 2017.

Activation

Total 178 Activations with 1697 QSO have been made and reported.
Activation numbers are still high as like last month. But other than JA regions activity is lower. Perhaps the reason is that weather conditions are not fine in September.

JA: 173 activations with 1677 QSO from Summits
JA5: 5 activations with 20 QSO from Summits
JA6: 0 activation
JA8: 0 activation

Chasing

Total 361 Chasing QSO have been made and reported.

JA: 339 chasing QSO
JA5: 2 chasing QSO
JA6: 20 chasing QSO
JA8: 0

On 2 and 3 September, Japan's biggest ham radio event Ham Fair 2017 was carried out in Tokyo.
SOTA Japan association have attended with "Yama to Musen (Mountain and Radio)" group as usual. Total cumulative numbers of visitors during two days are 39,000 and enjoyed meeting each other.

This year OE ham radio Joe OE5JFE, JJ1FJK in JA callsign, visited Japan in
this timing and visited us in Ham Fair.

Joe made Mt Fujiyama JA/SO-001 activation after attending the Ham Fair.

He also made an activation of Mt Ooyama JA/KN-006 with Takeshi JG1GPY on 18 Sept. The activation has been recorded by Takeshi JG1GPY.

---

Toru Kawauchi 川内 徹
toru@kawauchi.homeip.mydns.jp

---

============================================================

THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 117 By Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

So off we go on another month and Autumn has already arrived. Our only sota activity has been our usual visit to Shropshire for the Telford Rally and a week of leisurely activations in the Welsh Borders.

The rally was excellent as usual with a good number of Sota friends to chat to. The intermittent rain showers did not help the outside stalls some had wisely opted to go indoors. Our only purchase was the remains of a ww2 command receiver to restore. its ident plate says it started life in 1940 so it's about a year older than me (Rob). We did not feel that Audrey's knee was up to The Wrekin, particularly on day one of the holiday so retreated back to base fairly early.

Monday 4th Sep, and a half reasonable day so off to Long Mynd and Stiperstones. We noticed a board at the car park by the copse/paddock saying that Long Mynd now has tracks that are suitable for mobility scooters -and certainly the track from there looked do-able but of course you need a car to get there in the first place and possibly a little help in the car park which is rather lumpy. Stiperstones was its usual pain on the feet at the top, not helped by a heavy rainstorm as we made our way down after the
activation. We did not attempt Corndon later because of the steep descent and Audrey's knee but were told of a shallower route that we will look out for in the future.

Tuesday was a total write-off due to heavy rain but a trip to RAF Cosford Aviation Museum filled the day very nicely.

Wednesday and an early evening trip up Callow Hill. Here there are quite a few changes from previous years. There are No Parking notices at the start of the bridleway due to extensive logging work. We asked the lads working there who said park on the grass under the trees a little further back so that the vehicles could get in and out, we don't fancy meeting one in the narrow lane! Up the bridle way it is quite muddy in places but when you follow the turn to the left and up the ramp all the trees on your left apart from a single row beside the track have gone! right down to the valley floor, opening up a view to the north. The narrower path from the top of the ramp back toward the summit tower has become quite overgrown and needs a bit of pushing through. Still a lovely little summit.

Thursday and a trip to Titterstone Clee. The brown signs along the road seem to have vanished so hope that the areas safety as a park is not threatened. The weather was dull and quite windy but this summit generally has something to put us off, plague of flying things etc which is a shame as we quite like the hill and the way it stands proud in spite of all damage done to it by successive industrial regimes and the like. We kitted up in our heavier coats which we had with us and were soon battling the wind across the summit plateau toward the trig point, the only person there was a chap in a digger reducing the remains of the last large white radome to rubble and piling it into a skip, he waved in greeting from the shelter of his cab. Only a small white radome on a short mast now remains along with a few masts. We found enough cover on the leeward side of the hill for the activation and by time we descended the digger etc had gone so we left the hill to its solitary sulk and were soon back in the warmth of the car while the remains of summer continued outside.

Friday and our last day for this years trip and so Burrow is a must. Hopesay church with its interesting clock is the best starting place. The path up has become much more obvious just hope they never put crops in the two steep grass paddocks that have to be crossed to reach the seat and stile of sorts that gives entry into the wooded castle area. Unfortunately the seat has now succumbed to wood rot and the bits lie around close by the stile. The fields are usually full of harvesting at this time but this year all seems to have been gathered in some time back. Funny Summer? As we started to eat our sarnies after a nice activation a strong wind arrived with a seriously heavy rain shower that saw us into waterproofs and gear packed in about three minutes and we headed to the lower sections of the earthworks to collect our regular supply of blackberries to be frozen and turned into jam and preserve for Christmas.

Little to report or comment on for the rest of the month, activations in LD and NP seem few and far between and an S9 noise level on HF does not help.

We have been thinking about the future of View from the North in the light of our recent few activations and have decided that we should probably go to an occasional submission than a monthly format. This does not mean our interest in sota has waned in the least but our age has gone in the opposite direction, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weaker! But still hope for a recovery in the near future. We started writing this feature to help encourage the growth of sota at a difficult time but that was a hundred plus months ago. Sota has grown hugely and we feel that The View may have become a little "Parish Pump".

So once again thanks for reading.

Take care out there.

73 Rob and Audrey
G4RQJ.

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