I am so sorry everybody. I made a rookie mistake. My itinerary today was 1) Baby Black W7A/CS-040 at 1600 UTC, then 2) POTA at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument - not on a SOTA hill - at 1830 UTC, then 3) Peak 7711 W7A/CS-031 at 2200 UTC.
I wasn’t thinking about the RBN 3 hour rule and was spotted for W7A/CS-040 even though I wasn’t on that hill.
All chasers who worked me from 1610 UTC to 1710 UTC have a valid activation - WHEW!!
All chasers who worked me from 1805 UTC to 1850 UTC . . . I’m sorry . . . I was not on a SOTA summit. I was operating Parks on the Air in Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument K-0964. If I would have arrived late by 30 minutes instead of ahead by 30 minutes this wouldn’t have happened, but it did. Please accept my apology.
Matters were made worse because there was no cell service there at the Cinder Hills Overlook and so I didn’t know I was being spotted for SOTA.
If you need to reach me, you can email me using the address listed in QRZ.
Charlie - I understand how this can happen because I have had to manage alerts for 3 summits that potentially overlapped. My process for this follows:
One possible, but awkward, way to handle this type of situation is to post your “Alert” so that the 2 hours will expire at the appropriate time – this may mean that your activation starts later than your alerted time. For example, if you know that you are going to begin activating your 2nd summit at 1800z you need to post the alert for the 1st summit at 1559z (it expires at 1759z) and then you post the alert for the 2nd summit at 1900z (it will start spotting you at 1800z).
However, posting the “Alerts” this way may confuse the chasers; but the RBNhole “Spots” will be accurate for both summits.
Of course this does not solve the problem of early arrival at the 2nd summit! Not a problem for me because I am extraordinarily slow!
For sure Andy - I certainly would have done some sort of adjustment had it been on my mind. Just an oversight. Since you are on the thread, Andy, I have a question. If there are two over lapping alerts, say one set for 9:00 UTC and one set for 11:00 UTC, and the current time was 10:30 UTC which alert will be spotted assuming there wasn’t an adjustment added to the comments S+2. I think I remember reading about this in another thread on here, and recall it would spot the 11:00 UTC alert? Just curious.
Thanks for the comment on using wildcards. I never understood that until now. Certainly a more effective/efficient way of alerting for multiple summits!
It still needs a bit of consideration Joe when you enter the alerts. What I do now when I know I will be activating multiple summits and I really am unsure of the times is to enter one alert for GM/SS-??? and put numbers in to extend the RBNhole window, say S-2 S+10 and list the refs in the comment.
Of course we have had high winds, or monsoon rain or both for most weekends since mid January so I have forgotten what it’s like to activate and I am rapidly developing cabin fever
So sorry the weather has not been helpful
I generally leave the weekend activations to the young and employed, but 1 MAR I intend to attempt a DSTAR activation from a summit that overlooks San Jose. DSTAR simplex could be a challenge so I will also carry CW capability.
Good luck with your weather and thanks to the MT for the SOTA Flavours - I’ve gotten to know capabilities of my equipment that I had previously ignored - more fun
On multiple summit days I always use something like W7A/CS-TBD in the Full Summit Ref box in the ALERT.
Then in the notes I can either list the summits I expect to do that day, or just say “activating 1-3 peaks today.” Then I add S+8 as the last item in the notes. When I arrive on a peak I either self spot myself, or have someone do it for me.
