Greetings everyone and Happy New Year to all. The Jan 2019 issue of SOTA News will be a bit short, caused by two factors: Not a lot of input, and a change in my situation. More at the end.
S5 - Slovenia: This year SOTA Slovenia celebrates the 10th anniversary of SOTA activities in Slovenia. If anyone is interested for the S510SOTA diploma (chaser or activator), please see the details at: S510SOTA - Callsign Lookup by QRZ Ham Radio
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73 de S58R - Rado
Association Manager SOTA Slovenia http://www.sota.si
PY1 - Brazil: I’m just finishing to write a website with all basic information about SOTA in Portuguese (a foreign language is also a general problem here in Brazil) where people will be able to download tutorials on how to sign up in Sotawatch, in Sotadata, etc., and how to insert the alerts and the log in the sites.
On 05/01/2019 we will do a SOTA Party and we hope to make a lot of QSOs in PY1 and PY2 and reach more and more new operators. Maybe SOTA will motivate people to talk on the air again.
73 de Douglas, PU1PAX
EA5 - Spain: Between 22/12/2018 and 30/12/2018 I’m on my Christmas holidays in Spain at the Costa Blanca, in Altea. I have activated 1 to 2 summits daily for the last days. The main goal was to activate mountains which have not been activated yet. I used a FT891 with 75 Watt and a dipole for 20 m and 40 m. The weather was warm so far with 18 degrees Celsius and sunny. In the afternoon hours, QSOs to North America at 20 m were often possible.
Acivated Summits:
22-12-2018 EA5/AT-074 Penya Talai
22-12-2018 EA5/AT-090 Castell d´Aixa
23-12-2018 EA5/AT-038 Helada Berg
24-12-2018 EA5/AT-092 Serra del Pantá
25-12-2018 EA5/AT-037 Llorensa
25-12-2018 EA5/AT-104 Tossal Gros
26-12-2018 EA5/AT-017 Bernia
VY 73 Thomas EA5/DL8DBW/p
NA W7W - NA Pacific Northwest: Greetings SOTA Friends - There’s snow on the hills - get out the skis and snowshoes and share some RF! Here is the Pacific Northwest SOTA Newsletter for January and February 2019:
You can find newsletter back issues here: Pacific Northwest SOTA Newsletters | pnwsota.org
73, Etienne-K7ATN
W0C - Colorado: There is an updated ARM available for Colorado. Minor changes… some retirements, name changes, reactivation of summits. Thanks to everybody who sent me me feedback and thanks to the MT who worked to implement the changes.
73, Matt/K0MOS
W5N - New Mexico: This may be of interest to some…
73, Fred KT5X aka WS0TA
[K6DGW Note:] Fred is somewhat cryptic about an important subject, the link is to a slide presentation on UltraLyte equipment and methods for activations. Very interesting and ingenious!
W6 - California: Oleh, KD7WP/UR5BCP forwarded an email from a composer in Los Angeles who would like permission to use a couple of postings to the SOTA Summits Database in a composition he’s working on. I believe the 2014 reference is to NG[6]MKW
" I’m a composer in LA, and I’m making a song cycle using texts I’ve found from the last 10 year of living in LA and hiking through the Angeles National Forest (I’ve been taking pictures of them on my phone when I find them). I’ve come across a few that note Summits on the Air, and was hoping to get permission to use them. One is from 2014 on Strawberry Peak, from Mike (NGMKW), and the other is from 2016 on Islip Saddle - I believe Oleh KD7WP, UR5BCP - they said they’re Ukrainian."
“Anyway, it would just be to include a little bit of what they wrote in the summit registers as a tiny interlude text. The piece is about hiking in the San Gabriels, so it seems only fitting to at least reference it. How would I go about checking with them to get permission? For most of the notes in the registers, it’s impossible to find the people, but you guys seem to be good about documenting things so I thought I’d try. Thanks for any help!”
Contact Oleh, KD7WP, [okernytskyy@yahoo.com] if you’d like to contribute information or permissions.
W6 - California: The next Bay Area SOTA meetup is on Sunday Jan 27 at 9:30am, at Adelita’s Taqueria in San Jose. More info at the link below
Hope to see you all there!
Jeff aa6xa
W3 - Maryland/PA: Bruce, W2SE, reported that Gary, K3TCU, reached 20,000 Chaser points on 28 Dec.
W5N - New Mexico: John, K1JD dropped me an email with a medical status report - "I’ve been OOC for SOTA activating since late September when I felt something “let go” behind my right knee, not during a hike but 3 days later. A MRI revealed a tibia stress fracture and torn meniscus. Since then, the stress fracture seems to have resolved itself with limited activity and use of crutches. Arthroscopic surgery on Nov 20th took 20% of the meniscus (much better than the usual 40-50% according to the surgeon) and cleaned up surrounding cartilage. Been walking the dog again including several “SOTA simulation” walks with 700 feet of elevation. Can’t say everything is perfect, but certainly better than it was. Looking forward to resuming SOTA hiking soon. Happy New Year to all.
73,
John K1JD
Santa Fe, NM
W0C - Colorado: James, KI0KN, reported: “A quick note of apology and laughter both to all my chasers yesterday. I am pretty new to SOTA, started in 2016 and have had a really slow start in having time to get out on the hills, but am starting to have my gear figured out and now can “grab and go” a little easier.”
"Yesterday, I activated W0C/FR-058. It was a perfect day here in Colorado. I started on 20 Meter SSB and racked up a quick 20 or so contacts. Once that pile was thinned down, I decided to try CW again (my last 3 activations all had something go wrong that prevented me from even trying CW).
I had already setup my clipboard and attached my beloved N0SA paddles to it (I’ve used this paddle many other places, but this was it’s first SOTA outing!) prior to the SSB contacts. When I went to switch over, I looked down and saw that only one lever or the paddle was there!! A quick panicked look around and I found the other lever sitting on top of the snow behind me. Unfortunately, the black plastic spacer that sits between the lever and base was missing. I managed to get the level back into the base “sort of”. It did work, but the return did not so I had to manually return the “dits” back to “off” by pressing the other direction. To make matters more fun, I had 2 sets of headphones with me, both cheap Chinese special earbud types. As I started my contacts, one of the earbuds (the one that the sidetone is in) got really intermittent and started cutting out. I quickly pulled the other set out to find that BOTH buds were dead. Of course, the entire SSB activation no one was on the summit but by the time i got to CW, there were 3 other groups up there all chatting and wanting to see what I was doing. I tried using the rig speaker but it was so distracting listening to all of them I missed a lot."
“So, I slowed my speed to 15 wpm because that was on the high side of what I could send with a broken paddle, and then all the broken headphones and noise from people, I was a total CW disaster!! Nonetheless, I managed to eek out an S2S with K5DEZ and a handful of other contacts with folks! So, although disastrous, my first CW activation ended up being a success (sort of)!! Thanks to all of you who put up with, and probably were confused by, what I sent and asked to be repeated over and over!”
“Many, many thanks to those of you that either worked me or tried to work me on CW yesterday. Your patience is incredible!!! 
I learn a little bit each time I go up another mountain, and this time, i’ll be purchasing some better quality earbuds! Hope to catch you on the next one, with better speed and a better fist :)”
From Skip, K6DGW: I’ve been gathering the North American SOTA News now for several years and offered to handle the planet-wide news on an interim basis last year when Mark, G0VOF, became ill. That will all be coming to an end. I’ve had a number of adventures in my life, unfortunately, they didn’t tell me that injuries from those in my 20’s would revisit me much later in life. The current medical plan will involve significant physical therapy and I’ve decided to simplify my life to accommodate it. I’ve enjoyed all of the connections this job has given me. My activations will be on hold, but I will still be able to chase, as long as I don’t sit too long at a time since the directive is “Move, Move, Move some more.”
My thanks to all and Happy 2019
73
Fred [“Skip”] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
SOTA News Dude
