Your Memorable Activations, Chases or Milestones for 2014?

On the Bands
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It’s hard to believe a year has flown by, since so many of you gave us details of your memorable Activations, Chases and Milestones for 2013.

This year the DX’ers have had a real bonanza, with the number of VK/EU and North American contatcts really taking off. There seemed to be plenty of exotic dx entering the Activators log books this year.

A Lebanon summit was finally activated and a number of South African summits too. It’s always good to get new associations into the log book.

It would be especially nice to hear some of the memorable Events/Milestones from the VK Activators/Chasers on what must have been a bumber year for them in terms of number of Activations and the DX worked.

73 HNY
Mike
2E0YYY

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Only been on here since August
Come to conclusion like quite a few one hear,s regular on the bands, we are not chasers but stalkers.
We stalk the Sotas, there’s no escape :slight_smile:

But as a newbie, its been a very interesting few months, One has become well and truly hooked enjoy chasing them up and down the bands not often you don’t hear my voice a calling and end the year with nearly 1700 points to one,s name. You wanna see ones Log book :–

Sota Sota 100 logs later,s Sota , Iota, Sota Sota

But what struck me most is the interesting collection of chasers one regular hear,s like young Mike and Manuel and couple others and the lush tones of Eva.s " Hello" belting through the noise of the bands.

End of day.
Happy new year folks.
May 2015 be plentiful in Sotas and the ionosphere be kind.

Karl

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I think your own log contains plenty of choice DX Mike.

For me working 7Q7, VU2, VK5, 3DA0 were some of the radio high points. Hitting 250unique activations and the walk to and from Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain.

Low points: not working Alaska.

HNY

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mmm… I’m already smiling while remembering my historical QSO with Ian VK5CZ for my/the first SOTA to SOTA QSO EA-VK. It will not be easily beaten by other that I could make in the future :smile:

Carrots everywhere to everybody and HNY to you all!

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Hello Mike,

Every chase is great fun and all activators I am glad to hear ~ from Ditchling Beacon down the road to further away. Everyone does a great job to make it work :sunglasses:

Highlights in 2014 were working ZS/ stations on ZS/WC-043, ZS/EC-012,ZS/GP-011 and ZS/GP-001 and being the first chaser in the log for OD/BE-003 and YU/VO-001 ~ three new SOTA countries. Thanks ++ to the good ears of Denis, Konrad, Sorin and Andy.

Thanks all and good fortune and health to all for 2015.

Night night
Mike

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10th March 2014. It was the “old days” of the previous job, before I became a rail commuter, and would sometimes do an activation on my way to work in a morning. I did a 12m activation of The Cloud G/SP-015 and worked FK8IK - New Caledonia. That was pretty special.

15th November 2014. Also on The Cloud G/SP-015. This was the VK SOTA QSO Party event, and in that morning’s activation I made 121 QSOs, including 20 S2S. 7 VKs worked, including 3 S2S.

4th-6th August 2014. A mega backpacking activation of Cadair Berwyn GW/NW-012 with my son Liam. 590 QSOs made from the summit, including 419 on the middle day.

31st May 2014. Eagle Mountain GI/MM-008 to complete the Mourne Mountains with Jimmy M0HGY.

24th May 2014. Black Mountain EI/IE-021 with Jimmy M0HGY, for both our first non-UK summit. The moment for which Jimmy studied through all three levels of the 3-tier licensing system, and for which I had patiently waited!

Them’s me highlights of the activating year 2014.

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Happy New Year to all.
I Remember the good dx contacts from my activations too and 5 summit to summit contacts to Europe during the year.
CW was the most successful mode for me and probably the most contacts were made using the 58 ft end fed wire as it went on most of the summits I had longer walks to. I worked OE9HRV DF2GN EA2CW EA2CW HB9AFI S2S. The hardest activation was Mt Jay South it was a long walk probably 6 km and I arrived quite late in the afternoon good timing for dx but it meant my decent was mostly in the dark. My knee was giving trouble on the way up so by the time I was coming down its was really bad I had to hold onto a fence to give my good leg extra support and help keep my footing. The xyl borrowed a mobile phone from another camper to ring me to see if I was coming back, I used the flash on my camera to fire off a signal to her way down below, then they could see my LED light after a while. Thankfully my knee came good after a day or so and I did not have any more trouble the rest of the year. The dx contacts that day were probably the most I had on an activation but Richmond hill stands out too with a large pile up . I took the FT 857 that day and started out on 20 watts of cw and slowly turned it back to 5 watts once I started to make lots of contacts . Well I am up early New Years day the crows are talking among themselves out side my shack window as I prepare for the New year morning activation of Mt Nadguri . 73 all I hope to see you all again during 2015 .
de Ian vk5cz …

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Hi Mikel,

Just so many carrots for me, this year, it’s difficult to pick out the highlights.

Finishing with 533 VK contacts in my log for 2014, every one worked from a summit, 56 of them s2s, (so many with Andrew VK1NAM) is something I’m so grateful to the VK Activators/Chasers for. Thanks Guys, it really made the very early freezing cold mornings, all worth while.

Qualifying G/SP-004 Shining Tor, G/CE-002 Walton Hill, G/TW-005 Normanby Top, G/SP-013 Gun and G/SP-017 Billinge Hill, all with four VK contacts is something very special. Both Dave G4ASA and Bill G4WSB have since qualified G summits with 4 VK’s…

April 5th. Working all States on the VK mainland, VK1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 from G/SP-013 Gun. Trust me, this is not easy!

April 26th. GW/NW-061, Y Golfa, 5 VK summit to summits completed.

7 September, working 24 VK contacts from G/SP-004 Shining Tor.

Working the first s2s with Lebanon and also working, I think, the first G s2s with South Africa.

Working almost 900 North American Chasers.

Memorable DXCC’s…Mirny Base Antartica, PNG, ZL, plus loads of other rare DX.

Finally, one of the few Awards I’ve claimed. “Platinum Mountain Hunter” the hardest way.

All Summit to Summit all SSB.

Many thanks to all the Chasers and activators for a fantasic 2014.

73 Mike
2E0YYY

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Most memorable? It’s a coin-flip between G/SE-011 Wilmington Hill on 26/4 and F/NO-123 Mont Gasard on 15/5. On the former I spent an hour and a half (or more) calling, and managed to get exactly 3 QSOs. On the latter I got set up, and discovered I’d left my microphone at home. I did at least manage 6 CW QSOs, but it took almost as long.

Most enjoyable? Activating Cliffe Hill and Detling Beacon on 26/9, and finally getting some S2S QSOs in the log…

73, Rick 5Z4/M0LEP

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Mike, turn your clock from UTC to 2014! All the rest, beautiful at least… so that way is SOTA fever!
73 and see u again on 2015 summits

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LOL! Year now changed…

73 Mike
2E0YYY

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There’s still another one to change Mickey. HNY.

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I really should take more water with it :wink:

73 Mike
2E0YYY

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Nah, water is the most corrosive of substances, given long enough and enough heat, it’ll even dissolve gold!

My stand-out was the Sugar Loaf, GW/SW-011, I’d been looking at that hill since I was a toddler in the Lower Paleozoic, it was great to finally set foot on it!

Brian

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2014 was a great first year for me as I am new to the SOTA hobby, right now as a Chaser but hope to be active from a summit or 2 myself in 2015.

In 2014 I worked 34 SOTA activations accumulating 115 points, all on 10m SSB. I worked a total of 6 countries, Balearic Islands:1, Wales:1, Germany:2, Spain:5, U.S.A.:8 & U.K.: 17

12 of my 17 U.K. contacts were with my good friend Mike 2E0YYY/P. 9 of those 12 contacts were from the Gun. I personally would like to thank Mike for being so active from summits, especially on 10m SSB.

I look forward to working many more SOTA in 2015 and I would also like to remind Op’s that are active on 10m SSB to please try and stay between 28.3 & 28.5 as the U.S. Technician Class License can only operate in between those frequencies. Thank you !

Brian-N2BTD

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Always nice to get a new one in the log, Brian.

73 HNY
Mike 2E0YYY

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Brian, well done on getting all your points on one band, especially 10m which, IIRC, is SOTA’s least worked HF band. 10m is the band that can drive a man nuts, brilliant when it’s open…On the other hand…

Looking forward to your first Activation.

73 Mike
2E0YYY

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Most memorable activation was with KD0MQO in Arkansas on Kennedy Mountain, Frank’s first time to be chased! Seeing the look on his face once the chasers had found his 20 m SSB signal was fantastic!

John N0EVH

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Best moment - working VK2DAG with 2.5W of CW from Longmynd on 12m. My first VK from a summit.

Least good moment - scampering off Mynydd Llangorse in a hailstorm whilst fervently hoping that the lightning didn’t have my number! :o)

Happy New Year to all, looking forward to more contacts and adventures in 2015

Adrian
G4AZS

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Most memorable? A toss up between Australia Day with plenty of DX worked, the VK1 SOTA party, doing 2 10-pointers in a day requiring 24km of walking (and my head examined), or, for sheer frustration, the US trip and W4C/EM-058 in particular. I’ve only just repaired the dipole after that, but it worked a treat on the UTC rollover party yesterday with almost 250 S2S points :smile: The scars will last longer.

Non-SOTA, activating the Meiji Forest Takao Quasi-National Park in Japan for WWFF purposes was also up there, even though I only managed 2 QSOs, both on 550nm.

Cheers,
Andrew
VK3ARR