John’s voice and fist will be familiar to many of you. John started participating in SOTA after attending a presentation at a local club in 2023, achieving Shack Sloth later that year. The SOTA bug has really grabbed hold in 2024, and John has taken his chaser score from 1,500 points to 11,238. What makes this even more impressive is John’s modest station with an antenna hidden in a rain water gutter.
2024 also saw John make his debut as an activator. John and Margaret have now completed 10 activations.
It was a great honour when Robert, @GW0RQC, and I were invited to present John with his Super Sloth trophy at the Uskside Amateur Radio Club, Christmas dinner last night.
I wish John a Happy Easter, a parting phrase that John often uses unseasonably throughout the year, and ask you to join in congratulating John on his achievement.
Well done John @2W0ILQ in getting such a good Chaser score from an antenna fitted to your rain gutter. It just shows what can be done with a truly stealth antenna! If you have any photos of the installation John then please publish them on the reflector if you can, that’s assuming it can be seen with the naked eye of course. I imagine the gutters are plastic, the same as the ones on our house.
73 Phil G4OBK
PS I worked you on 10m CW on 28/02/24 from EA8/TF-012. You were the last QSO in my log. I remember that activation well as the pile was unruly at the start until I abandoned 28044 and operated somewhere else to escape some of the QRMers from another awards scheme that seem to favour that freq.
John, Sorry for the delay my eletricity power only just been restored last night after Storm Darragh wiped us out. Well done mate and congratulations, well deserved.
Don Sorry to hear the bad news Robert did tell me a few days back. I thought I would leave it for few days before enquiring. Hope you get up and running ASAP. Mind you there is not much going on at the moment so you certainly are not missing much that is for sure. In fact 0 points today for me. Yesterday I had a pleasant surprise. I went to 28365 which was supposed to be occupied by a SOTA activation only to find a non SOTA participant there from Nimibia. I gave him 5-4 and he gave me 5-1 so yes that was and achievement of 5254 miles. Its not very often opportunities like that come my way but it did yesterday.
Hope you get sorted soon. John
John, Well done on your African DX contact, I lost my HF Doublet and my 28mhz 2 ele Moxon has an intermittent fault. So I have given up thinking about antenna’s until WX is better. Gutted really I was pleased with my efforts this year which have now reduced dramatically.
