Hey everyone, I’ll be in Las Vegas next weekend and I am hoping to do a first activation. I expect to be carrying my MTR-3b for 20m/30m CW and my HT for 2m FM. I’ll be out in the desert but I think within line of sight of the city, so I have some hope for cell phone reception though I won’t be surprised if there’s none.
If I throw out a call on 146.52, what’s the likelihood I’ll get anyone coming back to me? Judging by the chaser results, there’s perhaps four active chasers in W7N, all of which seem to be pretty big into CW. I have unfortunately had very bad luck when it comes to getting automatically spotted by the skimmer so I don’t feel like I can count on that for getting a spot out, and I’ve not yet had the opportunity to test the APRS gateway (though I should do that this weekend).
I have only activated one SOTA in the vicinity of Las Vegas: Shenandoah Peak W7N/CK-069 in 2015 so I cannot comment directly how you might fare calling on 146.52 MHz. However I have been through Vegas numerous times. My suggestion would be to put out a call on the Mt Potosi 146.88 - repeater (PL=100) which at 8517’ located 30 miles southwest of Vegas has great coverage to solicit simplex contacts. Another popular repeater is on a casino on 146.94 - (PL=100) which you might be able to hit if you have line of sight to downtown.
Thanks - I’ll get those programmed into the HT. It looks like there’s also one on Angel Peak which is more in the direction of where I’ll be. I’ll be a little north of the city, and I think I might not be able to see Potosi. But more options is always better.
I’m also going to do a couple activations at home this weekend and I’ll do some experiments with APRS2SOTA. I’ve signed up for it. I’ve just never bothered to try it out.
Some idiot put a repeater with an input on 146.52 in the Vegas area, so if you call on simplex, make sure it actually is.
When I was there last June, I made VHF contacts when I tried. Its a big enough city that there are a fair number of hams monitoring at any given time, assuming you’re LOS to the city. Since you have HF, you should have no problem getting the contacts you need.