Good things to say that seem to genuinely interest and enthuse people
I should get contacts into the USA this afternoon on this band
I made a contact with Australia from this very spot on a morning last week
This is one of the officially listed hills for “Summits on the Air”, which is why I’m here
My radio is very low power (5 watts) but can communicate all around the world
I’ve contacted several people who are on hill/mountain tops around Europe, doing the same as me
Radio waves of course travel in straight lines, but bounce between the ground and the ionosphere, allowing them to travel around the world (be careful you’ve not chanced upon a Flat Earther when saying this)
Most of my contacts are in Morse code
Bad things to say that seem to genuinely bore or annoy people
Yes I’m staying here all day
No it isn’t anything like CB
Well yes I can get television pictures, but it is a dedicated amateur radio protocol known as “Slow Scan Television” and usually involves the exchange of still “testcard”-like images using a small computer or tablet and a specialist software application
It’s a tricky one. During a pile-up I try to give a brief but polite answer to any curious walker who interrupts me. Of course, it means I miss callsigns and chasers must wonder what happened.
Some chasers [perhaps not realizing the many distractions that cause an activator to stop or falter] will go elsewhere. Yesterday, during a busy 30m activation a horse fly was trying to bite me and persisted in coming back at any exposed flesh, which seriously affected my sending and receiving. Chasers will have assumed I was either incompetent or drunk.
A few weeks ago three fighter jets went pass, one after the other, in the valley below and I could hear neither chasers nor my sidetone for about 40s. What can you do? I sent series of V’s but chasers probably thought I was nuts.
The only consistently successful way of avoiding being disturbed during intense pile-up or contest operating styles on SOTA, is to either:
Wear headphones. Not subtle inconspicuous earbuds, but bigger visible studio-type headphones (which I find more comfortable anyway).
Sit inside a bothy bag. Passers-by see this as an impenetrable soundproof wall, judging by the conversations I overhear from a couple of metres away!
Having said that, most of the time I prefer to abandon the chasers and give priority attention to curious passing walkers. That is best for the reputation and profile of both SOTA and amateur radio in general. Plus, chasers are keen and WILL come back and try again later!
Most of my sending errors during an activation are caused by insects trying to bite me or getting into my eyes, ears, nose or mouth and the wind blowing away my notebook or flipping over the pages or lifting them and getting them between my fingers and the paddle levers. All of these are the sort of issues the chasers can’t realize from their comfortable shacks.
73,
Hi Guru,
I fully agree! For the same reason I created a flyer some years ago. You just need to say a few friendly words (which does minimum damage to the pile-up) and hand the flyer to the visitor.
In the meantime the content of the flyer is online (German only) Herzlich Willkommen! – dl3tu and I created a poster with a QR-code which contains the link to this page. I usually put this poster next to my station.
If someone arrives in the middle of a pile-up, I briefly explain what I’m doing and ask the visitor to scan the QR-code for more information.
That wouldn’t work here in the UK because there’s too many antisocial people about, and the flyers would simply add to littering in the countryside. I imagine that you don’t have the same level of problem in Germany.
I well remember a well-known chaser complaining about discomfort from his “ill-fitting slippers” in response to an activator mentioning something about chasers not realising the challenges being faced by an activator that was perhaps not responding immediately to a call
I like this idea very much and I’d like to adopt it. Can you explain how could I create a QR code to work as a link taking the user directly to the SOTA WEB page?
On reflection the arrival of a police car up the track that I had just cycled up to activate GM/SI-223 was probably an indication that someone thought I was going fishing ( I had the 7m sota pole which went down to about 90cm )… Perhaps I don’t look or sound like a poacher but they never asked what I was doing…
Thank you, Simon!
Your QR is now downloaded into my smarphone, so I can show it for scan to anyone passing by and willing to know about SOTA, either on a summit or anywhere else.
73,
I’ve had very much the same experience as M1EYP with much the same “talking points.” When someone asks if it’s a fishing pole I say “Yes, didn’t you see the trout stream on the summit?” That’s so patently ridiculous that it always gets a laugh and breaks the ice. Then I say, “No, really…” and tell the truth. Telling folks I talked to stations from Washington State to Spain using Morse code always seems to impress them.
Somehow the non-amateur doesn’t seem as thrilled by a 70 mile QSO on 2 meter FM using a roll-up J pole, even if it is more unusual for me.
