Was driving The Bradshaw Trail and decided to do a SOTA. Was great and a bit challenging. I need to learn how to spot using CW. My KX2 will store CW strings I think.
Beautiful country and epic views. Top is just a knife edge of boulders really. Took some imagination to get an end fed up on 40m without a mast. You can hit a few linked repeater systems from there in emergency- namely DARN 14 on Toro Peak and Cactus on Chuckwalla. Cell service is spotty at the top. No trail.
If you have an alert up before hand, you will be spotted once you start sending CQ and your call. If a skimmer can hear you.
If you didnt alert, then you won’t be spotted unless someone spots you or you can spot yourself from your summit…APRS or if you have cell coverage…text or online.
It is automatic when an RBN scanner decodes your CQ and posts it to RBN database. The RBNhole software compares spotted callsigns with SOTA alerts and matches them within the time tolerances published for rbnhole. Then if your CQ logged automatically by RBN matches the alert, it posts a corresponding spot. No humanoid interaction needed.
