The whole SOTA is right up my street, but sadly health precludes me from attempting anything more than a gentle incline, never mind anything resembling a summit?
Brooding on the subject I came up with a possible alternative for those in the same boat and would like some feedback on whether its do-able or a waste of time?
How about LOTA…Lakes On The Air?
SOTA’s attraction is the use of higher ground to get your signal out, with the attraction being the higher peaks & hills. By ‘activating’ lakes & lochs, the difficult part is those lakes surrounded by higher hills are more technically challenging?
Some nice open aspect lake in a local park could equate with the lowest LOTA grade of hill, while some obscure Tarn in the peak district would require some work to work a number of stations from.
From experience I have seen some beautiful lochs that can be accessed relatively easily from the road and parking places, but may be surrounded by anything from nice rolling hills to the jagged peaks of the Cuillins!
Im askng this in all seriousness, even a short stroll could mean the use of an oxygen bottle for some of us, so SOTA is a dream. This way we could also enjoy some outdoor radio in the same vein as SOTA.
You could also try WOTA - Wainwrights On The Air or Summitsbase which covers SOTA’s, WOTA’s, HuMPS etc
Both offer another opportunity to operate from lower hills.
WOTA (www.wota.org.uk) and Summitsbase (www.summits.org.uk) both offer a lot more lower summits and WOTA added the 116 Outlying Fells to the 214 Wainwrights this year - many of these are nice family walk / easy summits.
Many of those summits are also SOTA’s.
There are some SOTA’s on the Lkes too that are not too difficult. Dent, Binsey and Watch Hill are just three that come to mind.
Hope that helps.
Like the idea of Lakes too. Could prove interesting with the affects that water can have.
Maybe I wasnt clear enough…ANY sort of hill can prove a barrier, put it this way. Even a gentle meander, indoors in a shopping centre can leave me breathless and tired out?
The russian site looks great (once I managed to find it in english) but it seems more interested in the lakes themselves for protection, rather than the radio led view that SOTA is famous for?
Ideally I think Im looking for like minded operators who, for whatever reason, cant DO hillwalking even in its mildest form?
But my ideas on the technical problems shuold still provide enough interest to make things fun…hey, even wheelchairs could get involved at this level?
So is anyone interested in lending a hand?
Im totally new to the SOTA thing and would appreciate the help, hopefully some good could come from my nooby request.
If you are not fit enough to activate for whatever reason then you can still take an active part by chasing other activators. As explained, there is a list of summits which are accessible by those with limited mobility, some are drive on in fact, though you cannot operate from within a car.
If you still are unable to activate and chasing is not your cup of tea then sadly SOTA is not for you.
In reply to MM0FMF:
Oh I mean to do some chasing and ever since my ‘lucky white heather’ day, I have refused to give in on anything without a damn good fight mate.
In case you hadnt read my first post, I know I cant climb, hence my thread to start with.
