After not earning a point on my first SOTA activation, I was determined not to zero out on the second. This was another SOTA via MTB outing to one of our local peaks here in the San Diego area. Mistakes were still made but I got enough QSOs this time while getting some descent bits of playtime in the dirt.
I really appreciate all the folks who share tips and suggestions via all the various “sharing” methods.
Cheers,
Bill, N6MTB
Hi Bill,
Congrats on your successful activation. When there is a contest on, it can make the contacts harder to get if you are competing with high powered stations with big antennas. But on the other hand, like one of your contacts said, the contesters were looking for every possible county and also liked getting a new ham. So use the contests to your advantage. It’s worth looking up the contest calendar to see what contests are on, they are usually only on weekends though there are some specialty events run on various days of the week. If you find out in advance what the exchange is, you’ll sound like a pro and you’ll get other callers wanting a quick contact. And you don’t have to “be in the contest” to make contacts. The only way you actually “enter” the contest is to submit a log of your contest contacts to the contest manager.
I liked the combination of MTB footage with the audio recorded by the 705. Sounded pretty good to me. I like how it merged your audio with the receiver audio.
Overall, well done, hope you are planning the next one already. I’d like to work you myself one day! It is possible with band conditions improving as they are at present while we head towards the next solar maxiumum.
When you have your 2m antenna you’ll be able to drum up simplex contacts via the repeaters, but sadly, you can’t count repeater contacts in your SOTA log.
I travelled through San Diego in 2005 on a bus tour.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA
Thanks Andrew, Some good nuggets of info there. I have done two successful activations since this one but having time to get the sharables together has been a challenge. I learn something new every time which is one of the reason I’m digging this hobby.
Cheers, 73,
Bill, N6MTB
Dude, that’s a gnarly little section of downhill. Nice job, makes me want to go ride except for the two feet of snow and single digit temps.
I hear you on the FT8. I have a friend who’s into FT8 SOTA. We did a summit where it took him 1.5 hours to get four QSOs in the time I got 30 on CW. To each his own I suppose.
We are pretty blessed to have about 355 riding days a here in SoCal. The FT8 was an interesting experiment. I will probably dabble with it some more at some point since CW is not an option for me…yet. While I have not set a goal date, I’m projecting maybe a late spring attempt at my first CW QSO.