2025 - So how was your SOTA year?

[MW0WML]

So how was your year?

I’ll start off.

I set myself a goal of being more active in SOTA in 2025. I wanted to average 10 activator points a week over the whole year…. well I’m happy to say I have achieved that. 2025 was, by some margin, my most productive SOTA year so far in the 14 years I have been active in the programme. I think the “10 points a week” target was mostly what spurred me on.

774 Activator Points over 123 Actvations (45 of which were new Uniques), with 218 S2S contacts.

September was my busiest month, due to my visit to France and Germany duing my main summer holiday.

At the end of the year I picked up Asia as a continent via a 10 day trip to Cyprus. Which meant I ended the year with 34 Associations and 62 Regions.

So how was it achieved…. I just decided to put some priority into SOTA this year and plan a bit more. I produced a target list of summits and summit combinations which I could do from home on a day trip, then ticked them off on any day I had free when the weather was acceptable. This meant around a half of the points gained were “at home” and the rest on concentrated trips abroad.

Highlights

• The annual GW SOTA get together organised by @GW4BML Ben.
• Another great trip with @GW4VPX Allan, this time to Northern Ireland, meeting up with some of the locals along the way, such as @GI4ONL Victor, @GI0AZA Esther and @GI0AZB Ian.
• Finishing the FL/VO 10 Pointers and meeting @HB9EAJ Stephan for a couple of joint activations.
• Getting an Asia Association via 5B Cyprus
• Adding 45 new Unique summits for me. I really enjoy the planning and execution of activating new summits.

So… what about 2026…. I’ll start a separate thread for 2026 plans.

[MM9ROS]

Well, from getting my foundation licence in October, getting my first SOTA activation (and accidental chase) in November, and getting a few more in December, it’s been a short one, but it’s been fun! Plenty of mistakes to learn from, and hopefully building up a bit of confidence to get further afield from my wee local hills and out into the good stuff.

[MW0PDV]

For my 60th birthday year I wanted to get to 500 activator points.
Along with a stretch goal of 60 activations for my 60th birthday year.

So I was very happy to make my 60th activation for 2025 on Boxing Day, bringing my total points to 561, with 344 of those point this year.

My highlights:
My birthday holiday cottage in the lakes and activating one of my favourite summits Helvelyn, G/LD-003.
Followed by our motorhome trip the week after to Friedrichshsfen for Ham Radio 25, with a DM and ON activation.

Edit
Oh and how can I forget our motorhome trip to Ireland with 3 EI activations in September

[F5JKK]

Comparing 2025 to 2024, I’m happy with the result!

Six activation’s instead of one.
Yes, 2024 offered me a second hip replacement! A bit lazy, I know!

But 2025 made me activate three associations I’d never even touched before. (many km from house)

F/AB-457

FL/NO-079

FL/VO-005

I’m not counting points because in the region (F/CR) you have to climb over 1500m for season bonus, which represents 20% or less of all the summits.

I am happy with what we have and to have one day crossed paths with the SOTA program

Happy new year to all

73, Éric F5JKK

[G5JFJ]

Early 2025 was pretty quiet for me in terms of radio and SOTA, I was focussing a lot on my running training so spare time was pretty much allocated for that.

I definitely did enjoy the GW SOTA Hog Roast this year after missing 2024, though could we get better weather next year hihi.

Other highlights included:

• Using my full license to operate abroad when I was out in Zermatt for the week and activating HB/VS-126, my highest elevation summit.
• Doing a climbing course in North Wales and using the lovely weather during the week to activate in the evenings after.
• Getting 100 uniques, I enjoy the fact that SOTA brings me to summits I would not have considered visiting before.

I have definitely picked up activity recently as I push for MG, which I predict I should hopefully reach in the next few months.

[M5TEA]

2024 was quiet for me SOTA wise up until the winter bonus kicked in and I decided to go for mountain goat in 2025. Had a few big days out which resulted in 122 points in 2025 before the winter bonus ended in March.

After that it was steady as you go before I got to MG in October. Plans then changed to start completing the Lake District summits I’d never got round to, and then I spent a week in Tenerife with plenty of summits.

Next year, once LD is complete I’m going to start on NP and SP.

[F4LEK]

Only 15 activations in 2025 for me, a little disappointing. There was always something in the way (work, home renovation, bad wx, laziness…).

Today was my last activation of the year. Beautiful day, but I forgot something… Can you guess ?

Shame on me

[M5TEA]

I try and carry a few adapters in the rucksack all the time as I can’t be trusted to pack what I need either. Hope you got it to work regardless!

[F4LEK]

I definitely need to buy a few more. I only have one, and I usually leave it on the antenna, except when I take it to the shack for some experiments. I managed to connect it using a piece of radial as a center connector and a rubber band to hold the whole thing together.

[MM0EFI]

Mine was alright, thanks. It started in Cyprus and then gave up work to concentrate on SOTA and then somehow spent the next two holidays in places with NO SOTA. That’s Florida and Bermuda.

Thankfully POTA to the rescue.

MM0EFI/VP9 at the Hamilton Aboretum (today)

Thankfully, I completed my activations of the 89 Cairngorms National Park summits in December, so at least I salvaged something.

[MW0WML]

@MM0EFI

gave up work to concentrate on SOTA

Great plan….. don’t do what I did and get another “little job”….

@MM0EFI

completed my activations of the 89 Cairngorms National Park summits

BIG achievement! Some remote (by UK standards) in there!

[GM4LLD]

Less SOTA than I wanted for a few reasons.

First grand daughter arrived, here 1 day old with my XYL.

We’ve had builders in building a new kitchen extension and rearranging the lounge (new windows, floors, reinforcements added that previous owners didn’t bother with when they did work!!! etc.) With all the works I just didn’t feel like SOTAing a lot of the time, it was nice to be home when there was no hammering and noise.

New kitchen “vaulted” roof:

New kitchen extension:

But I did manage with Andy MM7MOX to activate the Northern-most mainland Marilyn in the UK, GM/NS-139 Sgribhish-beinn ( sgree-vish-ben). 11 more uniques including Beinn Ime GM/SS-006, 18 completes including one today I’ve been waiting for since April 2008.

I’ve improved my call by changing from MM0FMF to GM4LLD

I enjoyed some spectacular activations Beinn Ime and Beinn Ghobhlach in particular along with finding a simply brilliant B&B near Ullapool… ideal for bagging Fannichs and other wonder GM/NS summits.

I do have a hit list for 2026 but every time I publish a list of targets stuff happens and I don’t do them so I’ll simply say “and that’s another off the hit list for 2026” when I write about them!

Beinn Ime GM/SS-006 on a brilliant day.

Beinn Ghobhlach GM/NS-080 summit view and panoroma to Fisherfield

MM0FMF (as I was) summit Sgribhis-beinn GM/NS-139 looking out to Cape Wrath and then end of Scotland. Next stop Canada!

However, if it was just me then SOTA would not work. It only works because of all the chasers and activators involved makes the radio work. And also my colleagues on the SOTA MT who make the program work. So give yourselves a round of applause for being involved and my SOTA MT colleagues and AMs for the work they do.

[MW0PDV]

@GM4LLD

First grand daughter arrived, here 1 day old with my XYL

Congratulations.
I can relate to that, for a big chunk of 2024, our newest Granddaughter took priority over most things.

[MW0WML]

Brilliantly summed up Andy… it’s not a “failure” if life and other things get in the way.

Hear, hear to you comment about the Chasers and the Management Team!

[G4TGJ]

The highlight of the SOTA year was achieving Mountain Goat in April. I didn’t get a huge number of activator points over the rest of the year but I did manage to get out most weeks with 72 activations (and hopefully one more this coming week). I concentrated on S2S with 502 QSOs and 2386 points.

[DL6GCA]

SOTA 2025 was a rollercoaster ride for me.

On the one hand, there were absolute highlights:

First ever S2S with D4 (from my vacation in EI - It was the first activation in D4 ever and the only S2S)

I achieved the Edelweiss Lowland Award (177 summits) as an activator

Lowland-Summit-Diplominhaber: Aktivierer – HB9SOTA

… and got 116 new complete (62 by my own activation in 2025)

On the other hand, I suffered a knee injury on the descent from a summit, which made all hiking impossible for me from mid-September onwards.

Nevertheless, I discovered many new regions and landscapes in DM/BM, DM/RP, DM/NW, DM/SX, EI/IS, EI/IW, HB/GR, HB/VD… and I came across places I probably wouldn’t have seen without SOTA. In that respect, SOTA brought me a lot of joy again this year, and I’m happy to have discovered this program for me…

73 Armin

[VK3SQ]

@GM4LLD

First grand daughter arrived, here 1 day old

Congratulations Andy! Now you will have to discuss how you are addressed; pop, grand dad; Grand ma, nanna, etc.
By the way the house alterations look good.

All the best for the season and HNY to you and the family.

Geoff vk3sq

[M1BUU]

My year has been OK. I did less activations than in previous years.

My son has taken up fell running and 2025 was his first full season, we’ve been to some pretty wonderful places around the Yorkshire Dales and English Lake District. The weather has mostly been very agreeable too. A few would be SOTA days have been taken up by fell races.

Highlight of the SOTA year has got to be the GW SOTA S2S Hog Roast event. It was very much a last minute thing for me, Ben extended an invite and I took up his offer. Despite the rain it was a very enjoyable event and I didn’t even mind the rally cars going past my tent in the (very) early hours of the morning!

GW SOTA event warm up, activation on the day before.

Setting up the GW SOTA event site the evening before.

I learnt of John G4YSS’ injury on Kinder Kinder Scout earlier this year, and read his (non) activation report detailing the experience of having to get help from Mountain Rescue. G4YSS:G/SP-001 Kinder - My Achilles Heel

I’ve thought for a while that I’d like to help Mountain Rescue in some way, but hadn’t really worked out how that would be. At one of my son’s fell race events we got talking to some Mountain Rescue volunteers and got invited to the Mountain Rescue depot in Clapham, near Ingleton for a look around.

Some weeks later, I went to the Mountain Rescue depot with my son and we were given a wonderful private tour of the depot and were shown the equipment and vehicles. It just so happened that a Mountain Rescue dog handler walked through the depot at that time with his beautiful Collie search dog. We got chatting and I ended up signing up to be a ‘dogsbody’. A dogsbody is a person who hides as a training subject for the search dogs to find, either as ongoing training for qualified dogs, or to train up dogs going through their assessments.

I enjoy volunteering as a dogsbody, the dogs are simply amazing, they are very highly trained and only the best dogs are accepted to start training. I’ve said it before, but I think of my volunteering as a way of saying thanks for Mountain Rescue looking after our John G4YSS so well.

A number of would be SOTA days have been spent hiding in the Yorkshire Dales, getting sniffed out by highly trained noses! Last night I took part in my first night search training, it was a totally different experience, but quite exciting. The dogs’ noses seem to work the same in the darkness! A great end to the year.

Best wishes for 2026.

Colin

[MW0WML]

@M1BUU

Highlight of the SOTA year has got to be the GW SOTA S2S Hog Roast event.

Great to see you there Colin!

@M1BUU

We got chatting and I ended up signing up to be a ‘dogsbody’

I’ve done this a handful of times for SARDA Wales too. Plenty of warm clothes and a good book/podcast required… then a chance to make a big fuss of the dog when they find you. I love how they think it’s all a great big game… I wonder if somehow the dogs know when it is for real!?

[N7MAW]

SOTA in 2025 for me was a year of figuring out what set up to take depending on the type of summit. After multiple failed activations I’d like to think I’m turning a corner. At one point I was pretty close to just giving up. I’m not sure what 2026 will bring with multiple competing priorities, but SOTA will play a role in one way or another. SOTA in 2025 also definitely motivated me to get out and to explore summits that I otherwise would never consider climbing. The chaser community is awesome and I hope to do more chasing in the upcoming year.