Heading out this morning to give a go at W7N/CK-043, Gass Peak in S. NV. This will be my second SOTA summit. I am not sure this is the right page to plan the activation (I’m a POTA guy and like that set-up better for scheduling an activation.) Hope to be on the summit in about 5 hrs from now. Slow CW, QRP, and on 14.066 and 7.066 +/- qrm/n.
72 Jason - WV3V
Hi Jason
The sotawatch.org.uk site is the best place to post an Alert for a planned activation, usually specifying a set of band-mode combinations planned. When on air, Spots are posted notifying chasers that an activator is on the air on a specific freq and mode. Spots can be posted by the activator or by chasers who hear or contact the activator.
There is no requirement or convention for alerts to be posted here or anywhere else other than sotawatch. Posting on sotawatch has the effect of greatly increasing the odds of making contacts.
Good luck with your activation.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA
There is another benefit to posting an alert on Sotawatch when you are using CW. When the Reverse Beacon Network hears you calling CQ it will automatically generate a spot for you, but only if you have alerted and are within the correct time frame (by default between 1 hour early and 3 hours late, but that can be overridden).
Thanks for the reply and information. This was my second sumit and I’m so used to POTA and the web site there, I was struggling to find how to post in advance. But luckily I found it. It was definitely a butt kicker up and back.
Glad the MRTR-4b worked well and the dipole.
72 and hope to chat agn on the air.