Hiking up Maple Mountain (VE7/CV-028) for the first time today and will attempt an activation.
I’m quite new to SOTA with this being my 5th activation.
Going to attempt to get the required 4 QSOs with FT8 and/or FT4 and then possible move to FM and SSB.
Should be on the air at around 530pm local time.
Any tips much appreciated!
Posting an alert is critical. Also, if you happen to start before 5 pm, chasers will call you again after that time for new points on the new day, assuming your 5 pm is ØØØØ UTC.
Elliott, K6EL
Thanks Elliot, I definitely will spot!
Ah yes I didn’t think about the UTC rollover but makes sense. I’ll do my best to get up there in time and start before 5 but no promises 
Spotting is big, of course, but I was referring to doing an alert in advance. To make it show up as an activation today, I would say 2359 UTC instead of 0030. Do you want me to do the alert right now??
EL
I’m glad you clarified! Thank you for the offer but I just added an alert myself. I wanted to get familiar with the process.
Thank you for the heads up!
You are probably 1/2 way up the mountain now, but another tip is to do other bands in addition to 20. There are a bunch of us local chasers who would love a shot at working you, but we are way too close for 20. If you did 40m SSB we would have a very good chance of chasing you. Thanks - hope you have a great activation.
73,
WU7H
Was a great day. Sunny and clear but not too hot.
Made it to the top in about 2 hours. Was able to get 9 contacts on 20m FT8 in about 30 minutes.
Was a good experiment to see if I could do an activation all digital. I need to lighten the load for sure. My laptop is old and bulky and not ideal for hiking.
Overall lots of fun. Thanks to all who chased!
