My strategy for this specific summit: Activate during a SOTA multiple activation weekend first thing in the morning on day 2. I activated twice near the hiking path a few metres below the summit, out of sight of the hotel.
73 Jens HB9EKO
I have built up a list of Private land holders phone numbers whom I call a couple days before I visit the summit on their land. Things I do to prevent getting in trouble and losing access is : Never go to summits during fire ban season or our summer. Always ask farmers about the Lambing cycle for their sheep nothing worse than have all these young lambs following you because their mothers have run off. Give them a bottle of nice wine most visits must have given 10 dozen wines away since I started. Even though some summits in vk5 have a gazetted unmade roadway to the summit some farmers still denie access sometimes, so I don’t push my luck. Land ownership might change so you need to deal with the new owners or they may not give access, lost two summits for that reason. The summits in Conservation Areas are usually ok but sometimes they are closed for reasons so it pays to check Parks website before heading off to find a closed sign when you get there. Ring up don’t Rock up and leave the place as you found it usually works for me.
vk5cz …
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My experiences both pre & post my discovering SOTA have been generally positive, both with game keepers and once in Scotland activating Little Wyvis (GM/NS–050) quite delightful.
On my way down I met the farmer who was struggling to coral 3 or 4 largish calves into another field. I offered to help, which he accepted and we soon got them moved. He was quite chatty and offered me a lift down in his pick up. (the road almost reaches the summit). Never the one to look a gift horse in the mouth I accepted. I obviously told him what I was doing and then discovered he was interested in all sorts of stuff: He’d built his own house from trees he’d grown, he was feeding wild eagles and hoped to remove all the spruce off his land and replace them with native trees. . I got a free tour of his house and garden!! And an offer to run me up the hill next time I was passing. !!
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I have to say that every farmer or landowner that I’ve ever had interactions with has been very pleasant. Many of them also enjoy a friendly chat.
My parents brought me up on the philosophy of “treat others how you would like to be treated yourself”.
As a landowner myself, I would be a little uncomfortable with people showing up unannounced & setting up in my field. Especially if I wasn’t a radio amateur & didn’t know/understand what they were doing. Hence my reluctance to just pitch up unannounced.
I think most landowners are fairly accommodating if you are respectful, reasonable with your request & get their permission first.
I have been approached by several people over the years asking if they can “borrow” my field for various purposes. I have never said no to anyone yet.
Some of the requests I have received have been a little surprising & unexpected:-
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I have allowed several metal detector enthusiasts to go in there, albeit that I set very strict & clearly defined boundaries for them as I didn’t want them digging up the radials for my 80m 1/4 wave vertical or my buried feeder cables!!!
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I let someone to use it for a firework display & large fire for a private bonfire night party. It was actually an incredibly good night. I got a free firework display, a load of cake from the buffet to take home with me & a bottle of vodka out of it. As a bonus, they also burnt all of my rubbish on the bonfire!
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I have given a key to the local amateur radio club for their field days with a condition that they are “secondary users” & must contact me in advance to ensure that there won’t be any clashes with other activities. They have also said that they will assist with erecting antennas if I ever need it (I’ve got a bit of an antenna farm going on there).
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I’ve also got an agreement with another local land owner for them to put their horses in the field in return for occasional help with maintenance. The horses make great lawn mowers (which means that I don’t have to spend hours driving round on a lawnmower). It is also handy to have free tractor & driver hire on speed dial if I need something ripped out of the ground with the hydraulic lift or if I manage to get my vehicle stuck in the field!!!
My point is that I think most landowners would be fairly accommodating once they understand what’s going on, but I personally would want people to ask me first, rather than just showing up out of the blue.
There lies the problem!
In an ideal world I would always favour asking the landowner. As you rightly point out this is very difficult to work out. I wouldn’t have a clue where to start with this.
In the States, land ownership and property rights is serious. I got kicked off a guys land last summer for attempting a SOTA hike. Pretty sure he was armed and after trying to explain SOTA a couple of times decided it wasn’t worth it.
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I only had issues once during my SOTA career.
Being warned by remarks on www.hb9sota.ch, I stayed out of the webcam view when activating HB/BE-048.
73 Jens HB9EKO
Despite reading this thread and updates several times before, I still get caught by reading the title as either
- activating with land owners, ie. taking them up to the summit with you
- activating experience with lawnmowers.
I think one other person read it as Landrovers. Or pretended to…
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
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Andrew, thanks for fixing my typo in ‘activating’.
‘Land owner’ and ‘landowner’ are both acceptable forms. But since you brought it to my attention the more I look at ‘landowner’ the more it looks like lan-downer.
Hi Andy,
I am trying to work out what a lan-downer is, perhaps a defunct DHCP server?
Or a duplicate ip address somewhere.
Idunno.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
Mast base under front wheel?
73
Ron
Ian sends me to do the negotiations with land owners. I’ve only been turned down once - by a farmer’s wife who wouldn’t let us through because the husband wasn’t there. I’ve net a lot of strange and interesting characters…including a farmer with a gun, one in a kilt and one naked!
Esther
GI0AZA
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Hmmm. Never met a naked person while activating a SOTA summit. I did encounter one while walking a section of the Offa’s Dyke Path, though he was wearing a backpack. Does that count?
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In the old days, a drawing pin through the coax would have that effect.
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This was likely the Naked Rambler, Steven Gough, we also met him in the Scottish Borders after he had been released from Edinburgh Prison a few days previously in 2012:
73 Phil
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Or someone who really doesn’t like local area networks? Silly? But then there are loads of people who irrationally fear 5G.
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Never mind 5G - 5.5 & 6G are now being planned!
73 Ed.
Most people with 4G phones don’t actually have 4G yet but 3.9G. My phone hardware supports Wifi Calling and VoLTE but the software is disabled if you buy the cheap unlocked version from the Amazon’s of the world. I 'd need to buy an expensive network locked version to get these useful features. So my phone says 4G for the data connection but when you make a call it has to drop the 4G connection and switch to 3G to make thee call then switch back to 4G. Bah!
So I don’t want 5G ot 5.5G, I’d just like the 4G features to be enabled on the network and phone so I can fully use them 
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Just to muddy the waters more Telekom (T-Mobile if you prefer), will close down 3G services at the end of July in German regional areas, so that the 3G frequencies can be used for 5G (or so they say - it may be an equipment or mast space issue I suspect). Anyone with a 3G phone in these areas will no longer get a “broadband” connection, the 3G phone will drop back to 2G Edge communications (OK for email but not a lot more than that). The assumption is that the majority of people have 4G phones now. My Windows tablet only has 3G data capabilities, so in one hit, it is no longer a simple portable device for working away from home - I will have to run it on WiFi and have my 4G phone run as a WiFi hotspot to give it Internet access.
And how long before 4G and 2G are closed down ?
73 Ed.
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