In my eyes the object is to work as many chasers as is possible, both at home and abroad…
Well, by “object”, I meant the objectives of the programme, but that aside, I couldn’t agree more. That is why I have worked well over six thousand activator QSOs in SOTA, and used 13 different bands and FM, CW and SSB from over 200 unique summits and well over 700 activations …
I don’t agree with this perception of chaser numbers diminishng in the North West, on VHF or as a whole. On the occasions I do a VHF activation, they are all still there and I make plenty of contacts.
However, “the proof of the pudding” and all that - I might be wandering over Whernside in half-term, with Jimmy, Marianne and Liam. We will just take 2m FM handhelds, but I’m sure we’ll both get the QSOs we require, and hopefully a few more too. It might be trickier on a weekday, but I doubt it’s too great a gamble!
Regarding the 2m regulars around the North-West, there’s very few of them that call in on 80m/40m CW/SSB, but they are usually there on 2m FM, so I do think that VHF has an important role in maintaining and extending the profile of SOTA, just as does HF.
There is an interesting debate here. On the one hand HF is promoted as the way of reaching more potential chasers, but then a perceived reduction of VHF activity is bemoaned.
Anyway, we’ve been here before. And whenever I extract the number of activator QSOs from the Database, whether for 2m, for VHF, for FM, for 2m FM in the North-West or whatever, the result is invariably a year-on-year increase.
Maybe it’s time to repeat the exercise?
Tom M1EYP