Yes!
It should be electric. But I was rushing as a I needed a shower and Mrs. FMF was saying the Duck Soup was nearly ready.
If it wasn’t for the secondhand one I used for 2m CW portable in the wilds of South Lanarkshire in the early 90’s I probably wouldn’t have passed the Morse test, got my A licence, discovered the joys of QRP CW (on HF as well as on 2m), and got into SOTA in 2017. So I’m a bit nostalgic about the '290.
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-Have a S2S QSO with Oceania and Asia, the only continents missing;
-activate some Unique more, as I tend to come back to my favourite summits;
-develop some bushcraft/survival skills and enjoy the nature more (often I am too focused on the activation and I don’t even look at the scenery);
-experiment more, develop my manual skills and go deeper into the technical part;
-most of all: keep having fun.
Happy New year all!
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LEO sats from a summit seems like a nice idea
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CHASING
Keep on chasing with a watchful eye on the 10m band for the 2024 SOTA Challenge and DXCC ATNOs.
ACTIVATING
Go to Mainland Europe and once I clear border control enjoy the free movement between SOTA countries. Get the 100 points easier than in UK there that I need to get my 5th Goat and then consider whether I want to carry on activating or become a couch potato shack sloth.
73 Phil G4OBK
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I am going to roll over my 2022 goals one more time.
- Enjoy every summit,
- Enjoy every QSO,
- Try to be polite to everyone I meet.
If I am enjoying SOTA and am eager to get out and activate, the points will look after themselves.
Kevin
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The Ten Meter Challenge will be my main focus in 2024…however…
Operate more SSB…a mode I rarely have used in the past…especially on 10 Meters for the Challenge.
Work lots of Europe SOTA ops in 2024, especially on 10 Meters.
Activate over 80 summits in 2024.
Activate a number of summits I have not activated yet.
Bottom Line: Have fun…stay fit…stay safe…go where no JTM has gone before!
Pete
WA7JTM
W7A
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I like the idea of new year’s resolutions! Here are my SOTA ones for 2024
- finally achieve my quest for Mountain Goat with only unique summits
- activate summits in Greece
- go after “007” summits - I think this is a really fun SOTA “badge”
- get a 10M QSO on every summit I activate
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I got my license early in November this year, bought a nice portable HF radio, and built some antennas for SOTA, together with 4 activations. Now that I start to understand how it works, I wish that in 2024 I could:
- Find a new motivation for mountaineering.
- Activate at least five 3000-meter summits (most have never been activated in my region).
- Learn CW
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It’s always interesting to see other activator’s goals for the year.
Here are mine:
- Reaching qualification as an activator for the 2nd level (Enziane level) of the HB9 Alpine Summit Diploma, which was started on May 13, 2023 (See: Reglement Alpine-Summits-Diplome – HB9SOTA) . I guess the bar is set too high for me to reach Edelweiss level.
- Participating in the 2024 10m Challenge.
- Enjoying radio operation AND the hikes on new and familiar summits.
I am making my return to the SOTA community starting tomorrow. Just getting out is the goal, life gets busy!
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Hi,
Contact the unique sota that I miss to get about fifteen complete regions and reach 130 regions 100 percent.
73’s all and HNY.
Chris - F4WBN
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My ambitions are very modest. After checking the excellent SOTA database I see I have activated 38 unique summits since starting SOTA in November 2020.
This works out at about 12 new summits a year so if I can keep this rate up I might make 50 summits by the end of 2024. 
I will also of course be doing a little 10m work this year.
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Hello,
I don’t usually make plans for the year.
If I recall how it was on 2023,
- I enjoyed every single activation, near home or far away
- I visited some new mountains and saw nice scenarios
- I met friendly SOTA people at Friedrichshafen
- I had epic QRP qso with simple antennas
- I enjoyed single or joint activation with friends
- I tested new antennas and kept learning the art of RF
Do I need to plan anything for 2024? Just keep on enjoying the simple things and get surprised with the unexpected good times.
73 and Happy new year all.
Ignacio
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Someone once joked that my activator score of 1790 achieved in 2022 is lower than the score of 2104 achieved in 2018, so I did not try hard.
I decided to try if something more could be done.
I achieved it - the result of year 2023 = 2645 points (331 activations) is higher than the one from 2022 but also higher than the one from 2018.
Is this the ceiling? … probably not…
However, when I still work and activate summits every weekend and during a large part of my holiday vacations, the time I have for my family is more and more limited.
My wife supports me very much in my SOTA hobby, however I decided to modify my time schedule.
To modify not completely change, as that would be disrespectful to the milestones I have achieved and which give me so much happiness.
Anyway my SOTA would now be more coherent to my age of 63 
So, the goal number one for year 2024 is: more time to family 
Goal number two: to meet personally as many new SOTA people as possible
Goals number three, four, etc … as before to have a fun with radio on the summits 
Happy New Year SOTA Friends 
73, Jarek
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My ambitions for SOTA in 2024 include:
1 Keep on going up hills and trying to keep some level of fitness whilst enjoying myself.
2 Continue using 2m fm and promoting the use of 70cm as I move round the country (but I get jolly annoyed when I QSY to 433.475 and find that someone else is using ‘my’ frequency!!
3 Get as many s2s contacts as possible (they have been almost non-existent in the last few months - has everyone else been hibernating??
4 Talk to 5 NEW (to me) activators as I have apparently spoken to 495 different activators (or rather, different callsigns) and I’d like to reach 500. BTW I don’t chase from home so all my chases are S2S.
5 Reach 4000 unique chasers - I’m on 3976 at the moment.
and LAST but certainly not LEAST
6 Go out tomorrow (the first day of 2024 so I’m spoilt for choice of summits with a winter bonus) and go up a local 2 pointer Gwaunceste GW/MW-010, and talk to at least four people on 2m fm (or 70cm fm) which will give me 3 more VHF/UHF fm Winter Bonus points - which is all I need to reach my goal of 1000 fm Winter Bonus points The only reason I’m not there already is that I visited this SAME hill on 10 December 2011 and could only get one 2m fm contact and the other three contacts were on 2m ssb (courtesy of MW0JLA). Yes, I did type December 2011 and it has taken just over 12 years - and what a lot of fun we have had on the way! Thank you SOTA, the MT and the 3976 different people who have talked to me!.
Viki M6BWA
PS See No 63 for an update on No 6 - yippee!
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30000 QSOs SOTA!!!
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Viki,
(at the risk of steering this Thread off course)
Looking at the database we had a S2S on 19 Feb 2023 when I was on G/DC-001 and you were on GW/SW-006. We used both 2m and 70cm FM. S2S distance was 133 Km.
It would be nice to try again for a longer distance especially on 70cm. Looking at the map I don’t think there is much north of GW/SW-006 without going up to the Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon area but then the Brecon Beacons* might be in the way.
I can go south and west, perhaps to Watch Croft G/DC-007 which has clear views north over the water into Pembrokeshire or even into the western Brecon Beacons where the distance could be over 200 Km.
Of course a CW or Digital QSO on 70cm would be something to cherish - but one step at a time.
John
- Bannau Brycheiniog
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Not a cat in hells chance of that with MW6BWA/P 
73,
Rod
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- Continue to activate unique summits.
- Focus more on S2S while I’m activating.
- Chase as much as possible.
- Renew my passport so I will be ready to pursue some completes in VE2 when that travel opportunity presents itself.
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