It seems there are only 21 activators who have earned a badge for working 100 DXCC entities from SOTA summits, 4 from Western USA, and 17 from Europe. One would think there should be more, given the concentration of entities in and around Europe. Am I missing something?
Elliott, K6EL
Well thereās only 68 entities in EU and a few of them are pretty rare so even in the EU 100 entities is going to be quite a challenge with what is likely to be QRP and a simple antenna from a summit.
With no evidence at all my theory:-
Getting between 50 and 70 entities is probably not that much of an effort (especially in Europe), but getting to 100 will require either the activator finding the rarer DX (who will be sat on their frequency) or the DX finding the activator (who is sat on their frequency) because they are a SOTA chaser.
A common approach for SOTA is to find a frequency , spot themselves on sotawatch and work all that come to them. I would say its less common that a sota activator checks the DX cluster to find missing DXCC entities. Especially running lower power , they may not get through.
Meanwhile, rarer DXCC entities who know they are rarer are likely to do the same thing but spotting on the DX cluster and wait for people to come to them and work the āloudestā stations. Unless they are sota chasers they are unlikely to go looking for what will probably be weaker signals.
So unless the sota activator is in a ārareā dxcc entity or sets out to deliberately chase DXCC from a summit the chances of the two meeting are lessened,
From a very rough count of SOTA associations, of which there are 215, I get a very rough estimate of between 130 and 140 DXCC entities (I got 34 associations for the mainland USA which is 1 DXCC)
DXCC summit to summit would be very impressive based on this. Wonder if there is a badge for this?
Ian
If it ever seemed likely to happen its a good bet that our badge designer will have one ready!
I donāt think anyone has chased 100 associations so S2S is probably unlikely at this point!
F4WBN has168 associations chased and either 95 or 96 DXCC entities chased. The badge I referred to is an easier one ā for entities worked as an activator, where it helps to go after contesters and Dxpeditioners who run out of takers with me using amps of 68 watts or, in one case,1,000 watts on a summit. Many of my entities were bagged during big 10 metre openings.
Elliott, K6EL
Second day of some contest like CQ WW is probably the best time to chase some more unique DX entities. I did that last year and got a few unique places who are likely never to chase SOTA summits.
For those looking to submit SOTA logs for ARRL DXCC consideration under LoTW, their single LoTW account will need to have defined multiple āStation Locationsā within that account, for each SOTA summit and TQSL needs to designate the correct location for each QSO before uploading. This process ensures correct award credit for the stationās actual geographic location.
Of course, if all contacts are made from just one SOTA summit over several activations, this is a simpler option: set up the LoTW accountās station location as being at the SOTA summit.
73 Ed.
No you donāt!
I enter my log with FLE. At the top of the file I set mysota, mypota and mygrid to the correct values for the summit. This means my correct grid is logged against all contacts in LoTW.
The secret to reaching as many chasers as possible from numerous DXCC entities as an activator is simple: be as active as possible at the summit. - I got my badge after about 1000 activations.
The other way around is significantly harderā¦ if Iāve counted correctly, Iāve reached 57 different SOTA DXCC entities as a S2Sā¦ so thereās still quite a bit to goā¦ - I couldnāt reach some of them because the chasers were simply louder than me.
73 Armin
Hi, Elliot. I am tickled, and rather surprised, that I earned this DXCC badge first in NA. 2024 was a great 10 meter band year, minus the middle third. 100+ countries were logged during my summit outings on 10 with 5 watts and various antennas. CW, RTTY and SSB contests certainly helped. I am guessing my S2S DXCC total is only between 20 and 30. 72, David N6AN
For Chaser itās very simple 
Unless you have S9 noise on 40m!
Ah, I have just realised we are talking about the āDXCC badgeā in the SOTA Awards - NOT the DXCC certificate from the ARRL (which I thought had the restriction I mentioned).
Further investigation - I was mixing up the ARRL WAS with DXCC rules, hereās some more clarity:
ARRL DXCC Award: All contacts must be made from within the same defined DXCC entity. For example, contacts made while activating various SOTA summits in another state/county/province would count towards your ARRL DXCC award, as long as all locations are within the same DXCC entity.
The rule that contacts must be from the same location is for the Worked All States (WAS) award, not the DXCC award.
Sorry for the confusion.
73 Ed.
True, but the topic was DXCC for SOTA activities.
73, Martin - PE1EEC
