First SOTA Activation - Steve KK6ZLX

Congratulations to Steve KK6ZLX on his first SOTA activation Pt. 968 W6/CV-017 for which Steve qualified on 2m.

Steve’s report can be found at: http://callingfrequency.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/activation-report-sota-w6cv-017.html

Cheers,

Andrew (VK1AD)

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Thanks, Andrew!

Well done! Hope it’s the first of many successful activations for you. Beautiful looking area there. :slight_smile:

Congrats Steve - be careful SOTA is addictive! Although 2 meters can be effective on summits I believe you experienced the challenges of VHF from the hills! Nice job taking advantage of SOTAwatch ALERT and self-spotting - it almost sounds like cheating but you need to do whatever you can to make contacts after lugging equipment to the summit! This may be the motivation you need to get that General upgrade - 20 meters is the most useful band both SSB and CW and propagation is usually good unless there is a significant solar event. Typically I make the required contacts to activate the hill within 5 minutes of calling CQ then it becomes a challenge to see how many contacts you can make and how many different bands you can use!

73 Rick WB0USI

Nice story, Steve! I recommendate you to use HF also. I promize you will be busy!

73, Saku OH2NOS

Thanks! As the temperatures rise, that green will be changing to brown and gold.

Thanks! I am currently studying for my upgrade to General. Once that has happened, I’ll start considering SSB. This first summit is located in a fairly heavily-populated area, with line of site to a several cities; I’m inclined to think that, in this instance at least, it was more an issue of people not being on the air than VHF itself. I can definitely see how that would be a challenge deeper into the mountains, though.

I’ve set a some goals for myself to try and make at least a few contacts in some of the lesser-used bands, such as 6-meter and 70-cm FM.

Thanks, Saku! I will start looking into it when I upgrade my license and start to consider acquiring HF equipment.

Welcome Steve!

Trip reports like your excellent blog can be linked here so any Activator can find it in the future.
http://www.sota.org.uk/Summit/W6/CV-017

73, Etienne-K7ATN

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I meant to do that but had forgotten. Thanks for reminding me!