Andrew VK1NAM achieved his Mountain Goat award yesterday 26/9 activating his “favourite summit” Mt Gingera, VK1/AC-002, in company with Al VK1RX. The qualifying contacts were made on 2m FM with local chasers and the 4th was an S2S to VK1DA at Vk2/ST-005.
Andrew has a log of how far he has walked to each activation, so no doubt he will reveal the “MG distance” in due course. At the time of writing he and Al are camping in the valley between Mt Gingera and Mt Ginger Ale, about to walk the 12 km back to the car park at the base of Mt Ginini. Most of that road has no phone coverage but is well served by the 2m FM repeater at Mt Ginini.
Good on you Andrew VK1NAM . Your activities have done much to promote SOTA, amateur radio and just getting out of the shack.
Well deserved. SRI we missed each other yesterday. Things got a little warm in the afternoon!
Cheers Tony VK3CAT
Congratulations, Andrew VK1NAM!
Certainly well deserved - you’ve done more activations than any VK.
Great to make the S2S with you as a newly minted MG.
Congratulations Andrew VK1NAM
Well deserved!
I was pleased to be a chaser on your milestone day, in addition to the many contacts I’ve had with you along your MG journey.
Congratulations Andrew from me and the crew of crow eaters here in South Aussie .
Its always nice to work you from home and S2S which I have done many times, and you always make a point of tracking us down if we don’t meet up first off. I bet you are still hoping no cure is found for SOTA fever.
73 "Will Be Goat Too if it kills me"
Ian vk5cz …
Thanks Andrew, and what a pleasure it was to have you as the 4th contact on 2m, and a summit to summit (S2S) too. Congratulations to you upon reaching 500 activator points. Thanks Al VK1RX for the celebratory beer and your company over 2 long days and 24 km (15 miles) of well worn boot steps.
Together Al and I climbed to the summit of Mt Gingera, Mt Ginger Ale and later Mt Ginini a dive up summit. For Al, Mt Ginger Ale was a new summit at 1770 metres ASL, well done Al. There is no doubt Mt Gingera VK1/AC-002 is my favourite VK1 summit at 1880 metres ASL, complete with a sprinkling of ice and snow. The winter bonus points were well earned.
A special thanks to all of the SOTA chasers in Australia and overseas, it has been and will continue to be a great pleasure to have you in the SOTA activator log.
Thanks Neil, Paul, Tony, Compton, John, Gerard, Col, Ed, Mike, Don, Rod and Ian for your kind words.
I can confirm, having completed 360 SOTA activations over 2.5 years and finally achieving SOTA Mountain Goat, there is no known cure for the SOTA bug!
I have walked approximately 1011 km (631 miles) for 360 activations and 1000 points. That’s an average of 1.01 km per activator point. The longest single walk was 32 km with Al VK1RX from Brayshaws Hut to Sentry Box Mountain VK1/AC-010 and return. We walked for 11 hours with a 30 minute activation, started before sunrise and arrived back at the car after sunset.