A couple weekends ago I went for a hike and activated 3 summits along Interstate 90 in W7W (Bandera Mountain KG-073, Pratt Mountain KG-084, and Mount Defiance KG-043 - route details here). I was happy enough that I was able to get a “combo” of 3 successful activations in one day, but what really shocked me was the combo of chasers I made contact with. I had QSOs with:
An aeronautical mobile station (W7NY/AM)
A marine mobile station (KF7NYC/MM)
An automotive mobile station (KC6FLG/M)
A summit-to-summit (K7JRO/P)
A low-power portable station running 1 watt from a park (N7MKO/P)
An international contact (to Canada, actually an operator visiting from Switzerland and also on a summit! VE7/HB9EAJ/P)
It was really one of those days where the airwaves felt alive! I’m sure others have had great “combo days” before as well - feel free to share your best one below
VE7/CL-014 (Sugarloaf) was my 2nd summit that day and you were the only S2S contact I made from this summit, probably because it already was a bit late.
For some reason, sotamaps doesn’t show the contact, but I calculated the distance, which is 187km (116.2mi). On VHF I used an FT-2D with a Chinese RH-770 clone antenna.
Squeezing four or five summits into a day isn’t all that hard here in the southern Appalachians. Miles and miles of scenic parkways and unpaved forest roads that get you within a short hike of many summits.
The most I’ve managed to hit in a day is five, all in a row around the rim of the Linville Gorge in NC (beautiful place, by the way, but roads and trails were downright clogged with hikers and campers in the fall):
W4C/EM-046 Laurel Mountain
W4C/EM-066 Dogback Mountain
W4C/EM-036 Long Arm Mountain
W4C/EM-049 Hawksbill Mountain
W4C/EM-051 Table Rock Mountain
The QSO total for the day was 55, mostly on HF CW with a few on 2 m FM.
Decent view of sunset while operating on Table Rock:
On other occasions, I have done three four-summit days in W4V and W3, the most memorable of which brought a total of 83 QSOs for the day – all 2 m FM. Of those, seven were summit-to-summit, nine were fixed chasers ranging from 100 to 228 mi distant, and many were mobiles. The unusually distant 2 m contacts (for us in the east) can be credited to bare summits with good height above surrounding terrain coupled with a bit of tropo enhancement.
VA2YZX and W4GO, wow, 5 activations in a day definitely sounds busy! I’ve got a hike planned that will hit 5 summits, but some of them are blocked from the city by higher mountains, so I don’t expect to take the time to activate each of them (I haven’t purchased an HF kit yet). Thanks for sharing your cluster of peaks.
Stephan, glad we were able to S2S! I was also using a 5W HT - in my case, an Explorer QRZ-1 with a Comet SMA-24 antenna. 116.2 miles is only slightly further than my previous distance record of 110.5 miles, which was a very similar scenario - me on a peak in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness (specifically W7W/KG-044) and the other operator on Vancouver Island (VE7/CL-020).
Personal record is 11 activations in a day although I am not particulary proud of it - this was before the many summits that didn’t follow the P150 rule were removed from the OK association. I still had a great time as chasers followed me during throughout the day
This has more on record number of activations in a single day.
activate a new summit for me (which might still result in a complete)
along a beautiful hiking route
where I discover something interesting or exciting
with a great summit (landscape or view)
with a successful activation
which includes an S2S as DX or unexpected complete
…such as recently on the Sigriswiler Rothorn (great hiking route, great view, exciting tunnel and an unexpected complete with the rarely activated FL/VO-040)
Some more great stories, thanks for sharing! I agree any day spent hiking outdoors or with friends is a successful day
I hiked to another 3 SOTA peaks this last Sunday, but this time wasn’t able to complete enough contacts to get any points. However, I was able to make another summit-to-aeronautical contact with W7NY again which was a welcome surprise!
That’s a fun thread about the record of most activations in a day. I’m working on some python scripts to query the database for filtered records (e.g. “most points in a day from VHF-only activations in the W7W association”) - hoping to share the script soon!
My best combo day was technically only a two fer, but I was in the Lakes in UK, and managed G/LD-003 (Helvellyn) and followed up with G/LD-022 (Seat Sandal), note this was during a Lake District SOTA party weekend, and as a completely happy accident four of us wound up on the same summit at the same time. Paul (M0SNA/W6PNG), Mark (M0NOM) and I think one of the HB land Paul’s
Also a ton of 2M S2s which is not something that happens often in the Sierra’s
A close second would be last year in Scotland as part of my West Highland Way SOTA jaunt where I two-fer’d Ben More (GM/SS-001) and Stobb Binnein (GM/SS-002), one of my single hardest SOTA days ever despite only being about 10 miles of walking in total. I blame the Stairway to Heaven
