Hello !
Recently licenced in October and having my first SOTA outing tomorrow which will also be a good way to get back into walking the hills for my self and Wife having not done much in the last year or two.
Taking a hand held and a home made antenna which seems to be portable and working OK .
I just have a question about the procedure at the end of the day? If I get some contacts and having logged the details , I can’t seem to find where I submit the info’ on the SOTA site . Is there a logbook ?
Apologies if I’ve missed something obvious.
Richard.
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Hello, welcome to SOTA and good luck tomorrow for your activation of Muncaster Fell G/LD-059.
Log your contacts in the Database, Database
Hope you have good weather and lots of contacts.
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Oh great thanks for the swift response . I had visited the database and hadn’t noticed the three little line symbol in the top corner of the page with the menu .
Not too far to drive tomorrow and it’s a nice walk we used to enjoy several years ago . I was also made aware this evening that the activation point for this fell is a little farther on than the cairn / trig point which was good advice too .
All the best .
Richard .
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Hi Richard
Welcome to the addiction that is SOTA!
Make yourself familiar with the concept of the activation zone as there isn’t such a thing as a SOTA activation point. Essentially it’s anywhere within 25m vertically of the summit. Not only does it give you some flexibility as to where to set up your station but also encourages you not to interfere with others who are on the summit - it’s usually best not to start shouting into a microphone right next to the trig point or summit shelter!
73 Richard
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Great to see another M7. There is a bit of a learning curve but you will soon pick it up. If I can help feel free to DM me.
For logging I use an Android app called Outd Log so you can export the CSV file direct and upload that.
73s Martin
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Cheers Martin!
Had an enjoyable hour or two on LD-59 earlier today the weather could not have been better either , no wind and quite mild for January . Also 2m was quite busy with several other summits in range being activated including N Wales , so a few of the channels were often occupied but I got half a dozen contacts quite early and just enjoyed the qso’s with the other stations , and I came away with a better idea of what to do next time , and some good advice from other contacts .
Whilst concentrating on logging callsigns and names , summit codes etc , a mistake I made was forgetting to log times down , which I notice you need when submitting a log, so the times would be approximate to say the least . Is that OK , or do I put that down to experience and do it right next time ?
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Yes, it’s fine.
I don’t think it matters too much. LoTW requires times to be within 30 minutes for a match. SOTA doesn’t try to match contacts at all so it should be fine.
After pretty much every activation I can think of something to do better next time, whether it’s operating, radio equipment or outdoor equipment.
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Congratulations on a successful first activation, Richard. Hopefully the first of many! Look forward to working you S2S one day.
73 - Matthew M0JSB
Thanks all, really enjoyed it .
Even when we were challenged by what I assume was the gamekeeper with the shooting party we parked near . He was quite relieved when I explained that even though I am an angler , on this occasion the fishing rod bag I was carrying contained an aerial and poles, and my rucksack had radio gear in and we were not going to poach the estate lake which you pass on route to the summit 
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Thank you ! I’ll be listening !
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Great to catch you from Seatallan (G/LD-025) this morning. It was a lovely morning in Lakeland, with little wind and not too cool. We had a good chat on 2m as I descended the hill.
Didn’t have too much luck on HF…it was the perfect day for it, and Seatallan summit is great for a dipole antenna, but propagation was poor.
Anyway, glad you found the proper summit which was certainly better than I managed on my first visit to Muncaster
I can confirm at least one time, we had a QSO at 11:48!
As I was on GW/NW-042 my call sign was MW7BIA/P
Good to catch you. It was a busy day, with lots of people out.
Martin
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Looks Great Up there ! Enjoyed the QSO on your way down too.and thanks for the info. Also got to the bottom of the problem I was having on the day by the way of good TX poor RX . It wasn;t the antenna . That new handheld that was attached to the big aerial could not hear weaker signals (less than about S3 it seemed even with squelch off) which the yaesu I switched to could even with the small whip antenna.
Richard.
Cheers for that Martin . I’ll listen out for you again !
I had a few minor issues , but lessons learned ( see my reply to M0MZB)
Rich’
Hi Richard,
…… & welcome to SOTA. It’s a great way to get out and explore new locations and, as others will say, it can become very addictive !
73, Lea
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Hi Richard, we got an S2S yesterday whilst I was on Elidir Fawr (GW/NW-005) @ 1225ish. It was my second go at activating a summit and found it an incredibly busy half hour before the cold QRT’d me.
The logging is baffling first time around but seems logical after a few edits. I’d recorded my S2S in my activation log before I realised it was a sub-set of the Chaser log. You fill it out like a Chaser in the shack then just tick the S2S box and the page extends to let you log the summit you were shivering on. Being worried I’d double dipped I found I couldn’t delete individual Activation entries, like you can on the Chaser log but thankfully, even without the S2S entries, I still got enough QSOs to bag the activation. Messy but no harm done.
Nothing quite like bumbling about for gathering experience 
Hope to log you again later in the year
73
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Welcome to the world of SOTA!
I started on a handheld 2m FM FT-270 with a dipole antenna. That was 11 years ago and I still really enjoy activating.
Hopefully catch you summit to summit one day.
73
Gerald
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You do log all QSOs in the Activation log, S2S included, but S2S must also be logged in the Chaser/S2S log…
It is simpler if you upload it all in one file and let the database sort it out, but I still enter it manually unless I have worked lots of stations and S2S’s
HTH,
73
Adrian
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Thanks for providing clarity. It does make sense to record all contacts to the summit being Activated. Additionally recording S2S as a subset of the Chase log reflects the special nature of S2S, where you are both Activator & Chaser in that contact.