Hey everyone! My name is James. New here and super stoked to get into SOTA. Just wanted to see if there were any links or guidelines I should read first to get familiar with the platform? Also where to post a heads up for chasers to look out for when I go for a summit. Plan on doing a Whitney trip in January. Thanks in advance looking forward to joining the community.
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Welcome, look here to start
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Welcome to SOTA community !
I’ve found the there are lots of great people and help on this forum.
Enjoy and hopefully we’ll get to work while you’re on a summit!
Tim - G5OLD
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Hi James,
Welcome on board 
Announcements are so called alert. You can post them on Sotawatch or sotl.as.
When on the summit post a spot on the same page with exact frequency, callsign and summit reference so that chasers will find you.
If you already have a single-sign-on account (everything except the Reflector) you are setup to do so.
Main rules: respect Others on the summits that enjoy the mountain.
Acrivate in the 25 vertical meters activation zone from the summit tip.
1 qso to put something in the database. 4 qso for Points.
Most important: Have fun and safety First
73 Joe
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Welcome, James:
If you have your gear all sorted, and aren’t otherwise whooping it up New Year’s Eve, there’s kind of a unique opportunity coming up: If you are on a summit at say, 2330Z (not local) on 31 Dec, you can work it for credit. Hang around a half hour on the same summit, then do it all over again for 2025. If this seems all a bit bizarre, the main takeaway is that there will be lots of folks on summits doing the same thing - a great way to get your feet wet!
Wow thanks everyone for the quick and helpful responses. Merry Christmas!
I’ve gone through all of the rules, where to starts and such. Been watching a few YouTube videos as well. Just need to get down to the details and check out the process of alerting and actually posting after an activation.
Sounds like SOTA watch is the spot 
Double points? I actually have a tradition of doing new years hikes.
I think (don’t quote me), for you, this would actually be an afternoon, Dec 31 gig.
Clock is on UTC I presume?
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Nothing else in ham radio.
Btw I would stop the whole time zone nonsense but that’s another topic that will not yield anything - hi
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…hi James, welcome to the fraternity. Enjoy your activation’s and have fun 
Lots of information on this site and YouTube of activator’s operating.
cheers Geoff vk3sq
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Oh yes and depending on personal preferences of course I can recommend to start right away with digital logging.
Just save time and Trouble in transcribing from paper to digital.
73 Joe
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Hi James,
From your license, it looks like you are in Southern California. We have an active community here in SoCal, with lots of chasers and activators. You may find our groups.io useful:
SoCalSota@groups.io | Home
There is a message board email list, announcements, occasional information about road closures etc. We also have a monthly zoom meeting for the group, which can be a useful way to get local information. We are also hoping to have at least one (possibly two) winter campouts.
Welcome to SOTA, and hope to hear you on the air soon.
73,
Mike K6STR
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Nice I got my account setup. How does this work though if I don’t have any cell service on the summit 
A few options when out of coverage. Check out:
-
SOTAmat: https://sotamat.com/
Spot by generating an FT8 audio spot message from your phone to transmit via your radio to the SOTAmat FT8 gateways / PSKreporter nodes -
RBNhole / RBNgate. If you’re a CW operator then a correctly formatted alert will cause RBNhole listeners to automatically spot you once you start to call CQ
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Commercial satellite messengers such as InReach or Zoleo. Details about half way down this page: Summits on the Air
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Ask a friend. Prearrange your start time and frequency and get someone to listen out for you and spot. Most chasers will do this if asked.
I personally use option 3 as I carry an inreach for work. SOTAmat monitors are not that widespread in ZL so can be hit and miss here, but reportedly the service is very reliable in the US.
Hell yeah! Added in instagram and requested access to the group now
I also have an InReach Mini 2 and will be bringing it on the trip. Will definitely check out how that works
Hello and welcome.
If you have no reception when arriving at the top, I would suggest sotamat. It’s a bit tricky to setup. You have to go to the website, sign up, and edit your profile to predefine your sota regions and the frequencies you want to operate on. What you want to start with is called 1 way command (you send an ft8 command but you have no response, no confirmation ). When your profile is complete, download the app and synchronise it.
When you are ready to operate on the summit, tune on a predefined frequency you want to operate on, check if it’s clear. Then set your radio on ft8 freq ssb usb, you open the app and select your summit and the frequency you will operate. Key the radio and play the ft8 message with the phone speaker in front of your radio’s microphone. When it’s done, go back to your activating frequency and start cq.
There is good guides on the sotamat website web but can be a bit overwhelming so hope these few lines help.
Your phone and your Garmin will do the job 99% but it’s always nice to have a reliable backup in the bag.
Enjoy sota
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I also don’t mind manually entering this in after the fact. But some of these technology use cases sound fun to try out.
Can someone explain to me the difference of a Spot and an Alert on SOTA Watch?
An alert is just a notice ahead of time of the estimated time I will be attempting to activate a summit with the frequency and time?
While a spot is a live notice of current attempts to activate?
Correct.
People read alerts to plan their chases - to make sure they’re going to be available at the radio when you’re on a summit. Or to schedule their own activations to maximise the chance of a summit-to-summit with you.
People read spots to see who’s on air now.
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