Last summer I hiked up a portable repeater for a bike race to a peak which happens to be a SOTA, then went up again to retrieve the repeater a few days later after the bike race was done.
While on the summit, I made a few contacts through the repeater that I just hiked up using my HT which was 5 feet away from the repeater (I was still on the summit). So it was essentially the repeater was my radio but I was using a “wireless mic” 5MHz below my actual transmitter to access my radio that I hiked up to the site. Does this count?
What if I plugged a microphone into my portable repeater instead, then would it count? What if I turned off internal repeat but it stayed full duplex? (full duplex but no repeated audio)
Why did you not just use a hand held simplex on the summit to make some contacts. That would have been acceptable in my view. Good work helping out the bike race btw.
Regards
Ian vk5cz …
@VK5CZ Was not in SOTA mode, and also too busy, also only brought my Motorola which didn’t have a simplex programmed in it. I don’t really care either way, it was just hypothetical since I did not log the repeater contacts anyway and it may have only been 3. I’ll have to do it next time I volunteer for that race
The Rules ban the use of a Repeater. The MT has given you an answer.
If you had used the repeater in simplex mode with its own microphone you would have been OK.
Sure, it’s a moderately fine line between what you did and what would have been acceptable. The reason for firm rules is that someone will start to stretch any elasticity until it becomes inane. Then a new boundary gets drawn and again someone stretches the rules.
As Ian said it’s so much simpler to put a simplex channel in your HH memory before you go up the hill.
@VK3AFW Copy and no worries, you don’t have to apologize to me. I have definitely been there seen that when the rules keep getting stretched a bit more each time.
I need to get into more SOTA’s, last time I was active with the Ham14er in 2015 when I was 16, so it’s been almost 10 years. Climbed plenty of mountains since, just haven’t bothered to operate or activate.
Hope you come back and join us more often. We have a good bunch of activators in Colorado, and you might enjoy participating more, since you can climb whatever you want. I noticed after the fact that you just did Meridian Hill - not a peak for everyone!
@KX0R Yes, thank you for your detailed website post on how to get there. I had been eying that mountain from Denver for some time as it looks very interesting with it’s very long flat top. I really enjoy the route up.
I considered trying the 14er event. The biggest summit in my area is known around SOTA as Mordor Mountain. It is 7,192-ft ASL. I asked the 14ers a couple of times, if I climb it twice in one day will it be a 14er? I never got an answer. I’d like to see if we could pull off a S2S on VHF-CW.
