This is my first post on this forum, so I thought maybe I should introduce myself.
As an occasional SOTA operator since getting my licence back in 2019, I’m been reading the Sota Reflector for most of the last year or two. Especially enjoy the activation reports and some of the technical discussion
I’m a member of the Snowy Mountains Amateur Radio Club, and live within the VK2/SM region - so lots of summits around. I’ve only done a handful of activations, mostly HF, partly due to difficulty finding the time - but that’s not really an excuse… Most recent was VK2/SM-081 - Coolangubra Mountain. Looking forward to the next one, and to occasionally taking part in this reflector.
Welcome to the Reflector Steven! It is a pretty great community we have here. Feel free to post up questions if you have any, look for folks that may want to join you, or share some stories of your adventures.
thanks for the contact on 80m a few days ago. I looked up that summit as it’s one of many in that area I haven’t activated - any comments on access issues? ie. how close can you drive to it, is the walk/climb on a fire trail, or bush bashing, all that kind of thing. it helps to work out how long it will take to get up there!
New Trig Road is the one to use, I don’t think it exactly follows the route shown in this map though. It goes to the top of what this map calls Coolangubra Mtn (actually an adjacent peak to the north-east of VK2/SM-081) where there is a commercial communications site using a tree as a mast. I think it’s for Forests NSW operations. Access to the SOTA summit is by a slightly overgrown right turning off New Trig Rd about 100m before the aforementioned comms site. I’ve marked the approx. position of this track in red on the screenshot. It was blocked by a couple of fallen trees - but I had a friend with me who cleared them while I walked on to the summit So now you can actually drive right to the summit (subject to the SOTA rules of course) There’s a nice view from the summit, through the trees, and a good antenna support tree. Hope this answers your question - but if not please ask!
I’m not sure if this post should be in a different thread - but I’ll post it here. Subject to correction!
It would be great if you could transplant all that info to a post on the summit detail page. Not everyone will look here, but they will usually check the summit detail page for helpful hints.
You’ll also find some useful discussion on the VK SOTA form, group ozsota on groups.io. And that has provision for storing files, photos etc for reference purposes. GPX files to help people navigate on foot can be stored there too, but the store on the SOTA mapping site is a better place to save them.
So now you can actually drive right to the summit (subject to the SOTA rules of course) There’s a nice view from the summit, through the trees, and a good antenna support tree. Hope this answers your question - but if not please ask!