SOTA News - December 2018 Edition

SOTA NEWS - December Issue 2018

Greetings to all. SOTA activity always declines in the NA/EU winter, but we do have several reports from around the planet … well, sort of “around.”

9A - Croatia: Boris, 9A2GA – "Our 1st 9A SOTA ACTIVITY DAY held on Nov. 4th 2018. is over. Six stations from 9A operated during the event on HF and VHF:

9A6CW/P from 9A/DH-078 (Trapošnik) 49 QSO
9A5YY from 9A/ZH-028 (Kuna gora) 35 QSO
9A3ST/P from 9A/PH-038 (Goli) 52 QSO
9A8RA/P from 9A/DH-024 (Zelenika) 57 QSO
9A3DZK/P from 9A/DH-001 (Dinara) 8 QSO
9A2GA/P from 9A/ZH-045 (Vlajnic brdo) and 9A/ZH-031 (Mali Petrovac) 49 QSO

We would like to thank all chasers and activators who contacted us, or just tried to contact us and made our 9a SOTA Anniversary day full of happiness. Till the next 9A SOTA ACTIVITY DAY in June 2019.

CT - Portugal: Paulo, CT2IWW – “Portuguese Summits on the Air activators and chasers gathered at the ARVM Amateur Radio Fair in Moscavide, near Lisbon, on the last Sunday of November. The event´s organizers provided the SOTA Portugal management team with a stand, where information was provided to those who inquired about the program. At about mid-morning the attendees gathered for a group photo.”

“The booth for the SOTA Portugal team was manned by Pedro Carvalho, CT1DBS, recently appointed Association Manager. The ARVM Amateur Radio Fair is the largest event of its kind in Portugal and has registered, over the years, an increase of both visitors and sellers. The organizers thoughtfully provide booths so that other clubs and groups can be present, making justice to the spirit of cooperation in amateur radio.”

ON/EA8 - Belgium/Gran Canaria: Luc, EA8/ON7DQ – " I finally got to finish the write up on my trip to EA8/GC Gran Canaria, you can find it at this URL:

All 12 pages now have text, GPS coordinates for parking, tracks where available (tracks are also on the SMP), etc … Enjoy reading, and maybe you will discover your next SOTA destination for the holidays? But especially read my last part on EA8/GC-012, Amurga, where I failed to reach the summit. Geert, PA7ZEE stressed it in his speech at the Hamradio 2018 in Friedrichshafen 2018, “It is important that we do not only report on our succesful activations, but also on our failures. It keeps out mind alert that this is just a hobby, and not worth risking lives.” Keep SOTA fun and … SAFE!"

NA W7A - Arizona: Pete, WA7JTM reported – “On October 25th the W7A AZ SOTA group got together to celebrate our two new Mountain Goats (N7LP and K7JFD), our first triple GOAT (WA7JTM), and the success of the W7A 10-point S2S Madness event that occurred on Sept 30th. On that day we simultaneously activated TWENTY-FIVE Ten Point summits.”

“Thirty-five SOTA enthusiast were on hand for this celebratory event. Certificates of participation were awarded to all of the SOTA Activators that participated in this event by Ray, W7USA. Certificates for the top Out Of State Chasers are in the works, and should be in the mail soon.” In order from Mtn Goat #1 (top row, L-R) Pete, WA7JTN; Brian, W7JET; Ken, K6HPX; Charlie, NJ7V; Ray, W7USA; Bud, N7CW; Kay, KE7BGM; and Paul, K9PM. (bottom row, L_R) Keith, KR7RK; Lee, N7LP; and Jim, K7JFD.

And, in the single band class, Keith, KR7RK, is about to become [may already have become, I’m preparing this on 30 Nov 2333 UTC] the 5th activator worldwide, and the 1st in NA to reach 1,000 points on 10 meters! He wrote:

“Some of you may have noticed that I like to try for 10 meter QSO’s on every activation. I’ve worked quite a few of the members of this list on 10m during my activations. I’ve had numerous activations where I’ve made 10m QSO’s all across the continental US, and a few times I’ve made it into New Zealand. Sometimes it’s seasonal, others it’s a pure surprise. I enjoy the uncertainty, and sometimes I end up with zero 10m in the log despite making an attempt. My current Activator point total on 10m is 987. So I need just 13 more points to achieve Ten Meter MG.”

“Friday 30-Nov-2018, I plan to activate W7A/AE-027, Mount Hopkins. I hope to be QRV around 2200 UTC. I’ll start off on 10 meters and gradually work down in bands. My intention is to operate past 5pm local, when the UTC date will change to 01-Dec…thus bringing me into Winter Bonus Season. Thus, I should be able to earn 3 more points. My plan will be to switch back up to 10 meters at the turn of the day.”

NA W2 - Bruce, W2SE, reported that he achieved 20,000 chaser points on 17 November 2018. Congratulations Bruce!

NA W6 - California: Oleh, KD7WPJ, activated Mt. Baden-Powell [W6/CT-004] on 25 Nov, escaping the CQ WW CW contest by retreating to 30 meters [this works well when the CW sub-bands are wall-to-wall signals in major contests]. The mountain, part of the San Gabriel range east of Los Angeles is named for Lt. Gen. Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, and with his sister Agnes, the Girl Scouts. Unfortunately, Oleh’s sign isn’t all that readable but he’s definitely on the summit.

And finally, from Andrew, KD5ZZK, it isn’t often one gets to chase the same station for credit on two days over the New Year UTC boundary: “This is something I’ve only done a few times on a single summit. Activate on December 31, then activate again right after 00:00 UTC when it changes to Jan 1. This year I’m doing something over the top. Because of my broken arm from an ATV accident last Nov, I’ve been playing ‘catch up’ at work. I have not been very active with SOTA during 2018. I haven’t activated anything in Arkansas or Oklahoma this year. This gives me the opportunity for double points in one trip. I’m taking 10 day trip to Mena, AR. The Queen Wilhelmina State Park makes a good ‘base camp’ from which to venture out each day. I will activating a bunch of summits in the area from Dec 27-31. Then the following day, reactivating the same summits again Jan 1-5. I have posted my Alert schedule on SOTAwatch.”

“It appears the local APRS infrastructure, is not what it used to be in the Mena, AR area. Apparently, several high profile digipeaters are off line. WD5MHZ-1 has been down since July, and POTEAU doesn’t even show up on APRS-IS history. I can set up a temporary digipeater at my camp site in the Queen Wilhelmina State Park. The campground is on a high ridge. My antenna will only be a Comet GP-6 at about 20ft high, but HAAT is pretty good. Dave KG5EIU, will be joining me during the first few days of the trip. I hope to hear from the regular chasers, and any new folks also.”

That’s it for now, for many, the holidays are approaching, SOTA News wishes all of you the very best.

73,

Fred [“Skip”] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Interim SOTA News Dude

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From my DECEMBER-2018 news in Spanish

SOTA activators and activations carried out in Spain and the Spanish-American Countries in November-2018:

With the information available in the database up to December 1st, this is the graph of the activations and activators in Spain in November 2018.

EA2 has recovered this month its usual leading position in number of activations, followed by EA8, EA5, EA1, EA6, EA3 and EA7. We haven’t had any activations from the 4 and 9 EA call areas. However, we’ve had a greater number of activation this month compared to the previous month, for which we had the valuable and always welcome contribution from several colleagues from other EU countries coming over and activating from EA2, EA5, EA6, EA7 and EA8.

This is the graph of the number of activations per month in 2018.

With the information available in the database up to December 1st, this is the graph of the activations and activators in the Spanish speaking American Countries with existing SOTA associations in November 2018.

We just see 1 single activation from TI Costa Rica carried out by the US ham K7JRO.

Let me mention that I spotted a couple of Alerts yesterday Nov 30th on SOTAwatch for activations from LUD/TA on 40m SSB by LU8ACH,
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Unfortunately, by the time I’ve collected all the data from the database, no activations from LU were loaded, so I don’t know yet whether these 2 actually took place and the logs haven’t been yet uploaded to the database or the activations had to be finally cancelled for whatever reason.

This is the graph of the number of activations per month in 2018 with an exception on February for which there’s no data available.

73,

Guru

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I had been producing charts for the activators on a monthly basis, but I wasn’t doing it for the chasers because the number of chases is much higher than that of the activations.
Being the activations much less in number compared to the chases, I could afford producing the activations chart by manual counting but the number of chases is far too much for a manual counting.
With the key help of my friend Javier @EA2GM, I have learnt how to do the counting with Excel and here you can see the result.
This graph shows all the SOTA chases made by the Spanish hams in November 2018.

There’s no need to say who’s the TOP chaser in Spain.
We don’t see any chases from EA8 and EA9.

73,

Guru

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