My first SOTA activation, and the first ever on Lookout Mountain above Glenwood Springs Colorado. Used an iC 703 into a Norcal Doublet. That is essentially a 50 foot length of speaker wire, separated 22 feet on each side and then fed using the remaining 28 feet as the balanced feed line. Works great. With 10 watts SSB I worked 7 California stations, 2 in Pennsylvania, 2 in Oregon, and one each in WA, ND, AR, MA, NY, IN, BC and QE. So AR and ND were probably the closest at about 700 miles. I guess I need to carry a 2meter radio or try 40 meters to get the close in guys. Only on the top less than 2 hrs as it started to snow.
In reply to KQ0C:Happy to have made the contact from Arkansas. You did great Ash. Congratulations on your first SOTA activation. Look for you again soon. 73 de AJ5C
In reply to KQ0C:
So was it as thrilling as you hoped? And was it harder or easier than expected? Hope to try it sometime myself. Congrats! de n5vwn
In reply to KQ0C:
As we move into summer and the sporadic E season takes off, you should start getting shorter range contacts on 20m. Sometimes the skip becomes so short, it starts just as ground wave starts tailing off. Of course another great band would be 10m.
73.