Hello,
I just wanted to say thank you to all chasers and to the Sota community helping me reaching my first goal.
I just passed my licence one month ago and what was motivating me was really doing sota activations. I then tried to learn CW as fast as possible to do my first summit.
Here I am, sunday afternoon, the kids are sleeping I jump in the car drive 20 minutes and run to the summit.
Obviously I forgot my rope to secure my mast, BUT I had ducktape so here I go, sketchy setup (first one outside my garden) but not that bad, my shoelaces to secure the other end of my EFHW to a tree and a deep breath because I was really stressed.
Trying to find a spot on 20m but there’s a contest going on so not a single space for me and my 5W QMX. Luckily I added a small trap to my antenna to add the 30m band the night before.
Launching my first CQ and F5JKK and F4WBN responded almost instantly nicely reducing the speed for me to get it (superstars from what I found out later).
It was pretty cold and windy so I made a lot of keying mistakes but it looks like almost everyone got me.
Thank you all chasers for being so patient with me on my first time, the community is great honnestly, I don’t have access to a club but I find a lot of help in SOTA Reflector and other ham groups (qrplabs community is also great).
Quick questions:
I had some really really weak signals and varying, I spent like 2 minutes figuring out the callsign thanks to another person stepping in with really good signal and helping me get it. How long do you try usually, I felt it was maybe too much for the other chasers waiting, but I also felt bad for the person trying to contact me… ?
Do you have any simple tips for beginners like me ? (except writing a checklist of things to take )
If I know there are a lot of people waiting, I try for about 30 seconds, but no more than that. I also try to take the loud chasers first and save the faint signals for quieter moments. Otherwise, the strong signals will obliterate the rest anyway and complicate the process, so it’s better to get rid of them first.
Hi Antoine, Congratulations on getting your license, and welcome to the SOTA Community, it sounds like you are already addicted, I am sorry to say there is no vaccine for that addiction, just go for it 73 Tony
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