Mauna Kea has an observatory complex on the summit, so somebody must have wifi there.
I would not be surprised if the new Pikes Peak Summit House has wifi.
That is two without trying hard. I’m sure there are three more. There is a one-pointer around here with at least one residence in the AZ and another where the summit is inside a work camp (prison). That isn’t exactly a café, of course.
wunder
I would assume that the wifi is password protected.
However, according to what it’s been explained in previous post in this thread and others, things might end up accepting the use of web SDR within the chaser’s own association, region or even DXCC entity
Then I saw on SOTAwatch that Rich @N4EX was spotted on 14.063 in that very moment.
Since he was activating from a W4 summit on 20m, I mentally estimated the skip distance and thought that a webSDR in Utah, might well be copying him.
So there I went. I selected Northern Utah WebSDR - Server #2, introduced the desired frequency 14.063 and bang! there he was perfectly copied.
“Some people say the earth is flat.”
You mean…it’s NOT?
What is SDR?
The best way for me to access and change frequencies on my HT is via the software. Manual inputs of frequencies +/- and all the other little things necessary to make the bugger work seems software defined.
it’s wearing on me.
I’ve two HTs. One I’m close to programming in the field, the other is light years away, or in Japan, take your pick.
So using a PC as your receiver is SDR? What’s a a 7300?
It’s NOT about radio waves? Nice computer graphics, I say.
Yes, there’s a logical reason I blew this up!
What ever happened to simply talking on a radio? Now I get more hours programming a radio than I do with AIR TIME!!!
Hi Chris,
When I did chase Rich N4EX by copying him on that webSDR in Utah, I did it because:
1- there was nothing in the SOTA General Rules against that.
2- the internet service at my remote station QTH was OFF due to a loose RJ45 connector.
3- I would have been able to copy him with my endfed wire in the rental appartment balcony should the urban QRM be stopped as it had not few times passed in the recent past with other NA activators, making me almost sure that he would copy me upon my call with 50 watts, as several others before had done.
At the moment,
With this current situation, I don’t need to and do not currently make any use of webSDR, but I can think for others and I speak out for others not as fortunate as I am right now because I can imagine many others in about the same situation I was a few weeks ago, with no owned remote station in a low noise environment and the only chance to perhaps have a piece of wire in a balcony. Let’s try to think about the benefit of the whole SOTA community, not just about ourselves individually in a given present situation. Bear in mind that even our currently ideal and comfortable situation, might get changed at any moment.
Even mine. Let me tell you that I’ve been informed a few days ago about a cancer growing in my rectum. This fact might change everything in my life and these sort of things are things anyone can experience at any time, as you all know perfectly.
If the MT finally take some decision and modify the general rules to allow the use of webSDR located within a certain area around the chaser QTH, I would find that acceptable and I would stick to it in case I would decide to chase again that way.
As long as this doesn’t happen, anything is allowed.
I’m sure many have been long time chasing with the help of webSDR and they have never declared it.
In my case, since I had not needed it before, I only started chasing with the help of webSDR that very day I chased Rich N4EX and I wrote it on this Reflector because I wanted to open a public discussion about the matter.
After that very first chase, I’ve chased a few others and all of them are clearly identifyable in my chaser log because I noted RX via SDR at IO83 or whatever locator it was.
These are all my chases made so far with the help of webSDR:
That’s it.
I have also informed to the activators during our QSO about the fact that I was copying them through an SDR by giving them the signal report in this format 599/SDR 599/SDR.
I did this in order to try to make the use of SDR regulated and accepted by the SOTA rules. At the moment, they are accepted by omission, but their use is not regulated.
I can tell you that I found the use of web SDR a lot of fun and I took it as part of the experimentation and continuous education that we all hams in the world always like and enjoy so much.
Best 73,
Guru
Hi Guru,
There are quite a few summits where you can sit inside and have a coffee or other beverage with food. In VK3 there are 3, in VK5 there is 1. I’m sure there are more than 5. I have been to 4 in VK3 and VK5 alone. Of course these represent less than 0.2% of the summits in VK3 and VK5 so your point about the small number of opportunities for internet QSO’s is valid.
Should you make it to VK3 I’d be delighted to take you into one of these restaurants for refreshments and a snack after we have done a “proper” activation.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
Sorry…talking radio to radio, person to person, is no longer acceptable. All valid contacts need to be interfaced to a computer and/or the internet to be legitimate. Don’t you know that it’s all about technology, advancing the hobby, and not people?
Do we really want to do this and still be called Amateur Radio Operators?
Seriously…can’t we just talk?
Hmmmm - this brings up some interesting possibilities. I get to visit family and friends in Germany about every 2 years. As a chaser over there, I have several unqualified mountain hunter associations where I have only one summit. So now I can use the internet to “get on the air” and catch another summit in those associations. INTERESTING.
Someone made the comment that SDR is only a radio with a very long speaker wire and VFO line. Add the MIC or KEY wires to that, what’s the difference, a long connection can work both ways.
I’ll be in DL-land in a week. I’ll try to chase EI, GM, I, LA, OM, SP and UT while over there to get them qualified. But now the pressure is off. If I don’t catch summits while in DL-Land, I can just use a remote radio to chase them. COOL!
Vy73 – Mike – KD5KC.
Soon to be DL/KD5KC, and who knows where else I might pop up.
Yep, that’s what I said! As for adding a mike and key, that too has been done. Frequently. In fact one of the participants in this thread has done it to get over the problems of an upper floor apartment. You can even rent access to a remote rig in the USA and perhaps elsewhere. It is not against our rules, and perhaps strangely, there seems to be little appetite to ban a full remote rig, just a remote receiver, isn’t that odd?
The one thing relevant to SOTA that you cannot do is activate by using a remote rig, the rules already won’t permit it, though they were drawn up before it was a serious possibility. So if you think it is cool, go for it before the purists catch on and agitate to ban it, and before the MT places any restrictions on it!
The strong anti-remote sentiment is widespread among participants, and the handful that do occasionally incorporate use of a remote receiver do so “ethically” it would seem. Those claiming to be about to regularly use remote TX/RX seem to have their tongues very firmly in their cheeks!
I’ve no interest in working a SOTA activator using a remote, even though I have high noise levels here at home. It seems most feel this way. I’d say this was all a non-problem. It is a potential problem in people’s minds, but little more than that.
Relax - and do SOTA!
Remote receiver (i.e. Web SDR) and remote transceiver are very, very, different.
Remote transceivers are not freely available. You can not just log in wherever you like. One can build or hire a remote station, same as one could build, borrow or hire and operate personally some station anywhere in the world. Also, one must comply with local regulations to operate it.
I do no object being chased by DL/KD5KC. It is irrelevant (although interesting to know) if the operator is in DL, sitting by the radio, or somewhere else, connected by Internet (or by a long wire, or leased telephone line, whatever). As far as I am concerned, in this case I am being chased by a DL station.
However, being chased by someone who is logged into a Web SDR receiver close to me, spoils partially the fun for me. As an activator, operator and builder, I like to know that my signal traveled all the way to the other station (and viceversa), not to the closest Web SDR receiver (or repeater).
73 Fric
OK. Well, it doesn’t matter to me. As long as the rules apply to ALL the same way, what difference does it make?
SOTA is about having FUN. FUN means different things to different people. I feel like it is kind of like owning a Gun in Texas. Nearly everyone has one. There are a few old grouches who are against it. OK - then don’t have one. But as long as I stay within the laws (rules), you have no say in what I do.
SDR? Whatever! Probably not me, but that is my choice. What right do I have to demand that of others? As long as I am afforded the opportunity as everyone else, it is fair.
Vy73 – Mike – KD5KC.
Soon to be DL/KD5KC for a month.
Pete - I’m going to send you my reply via FT8. I hope your clock is accurate, and your radio is stable enough! Ready? 
This thread is really interesting. I never realized that people were using web SDR for SOTA chasing! I just assumed everyone used it for slacking off at work when you’d rather be out playing radio!
No chance of my radio being stable…or myself for that matter…my clock has always been a little off.
FT what? Must be an old Yaesu radio…I likely owned one.
Pete
WA7JTM
I knoiw the feeling…
I’ll wager that the number of people doing it is only a small fraction of the overall chaser group, but it’s an emotive topic
And if that is what they need to or want to do, so what? It’s still amateur radio. You guys need to get out onto a summit I reckon, that’ll clear your head and make you all happy again!
My (maybe extreme?) point of view: My hobby is Amateur Radio - not Wireless Radio!
73, Alfred, OE5AKM
Indeed. There were only 2, out of 43 who responded to my earlier poll, saying that they logged QSOs completed with the use of WebSDR.
