Does anyone have recent experience and/or advise for SOTA activations in the Cape Town area, or are there local activators reading the reflector?
Infos in the reflector are a few years old, and checking summits in sotl.as gives me the impression that there is not a lot of recent activity.
I would be interested in finding hiking trails which match my skills/experience which are safe. (i.e. without risking being minus my equipment when trying to activate or other possible risks with which locals are familiar, but not necessarily tourists from Europe…) I don’t expect hikes in summer temperatures being as easy as at home either.
Are there any better maps than opentopomaps available locally? (Not necessarily digital, I know how to use paper maps and compass if that’s the best I can get)
It also looks to me like 2m FM and 40m SSB seem to be the most favoured bands/modes there, not much CW to be found.
There’s plenty of activity, mainly focused in the Gauteng, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal areas, and now Lesotho as well. There’s a WhatsApp group that everyone uses where most stuff is discussed. Contact Sid @ZS5AYC and Adele @ZS5APT who are AMs and they can add you to the group.
If you are in Cape Town, do Maclears Beacon on Table Mountain - easy hike after taking the cable car, and 2m will yield you four contacts, and 40/30/20 will get you Jo’burg and surrounding areas, plus Namibia. 30m south of the equator also allows voice so it’s a useful band to consider.
There’s other options around but if you only have time for one, hard to go past Table Mountain and its high point.
I’m more familiar with the Mpumalanga summits in the northeast of the country, but Sid (@ZS5AYC ) and Adele (@ZS5APT ) will be your best bet for detailed info.
Unless the summit is in a national park you need permission from the landowner to get on the summit but that is normally easy if you just look up who activated the summit last and get the info from them.
SA is a bit different as there is not a lot of activity on vhf and uhf and we don’t often use it for summit activation. Its more of an HF world down here. That said, if the chaser group knows you are here they will do their best to chase. We do have a local whatsapp sota spotting channel so be sure to get onto that.
Please feel free to send an email if you can’t get a hold of Sid or Adele and we’ll try our best to assist.