Your SOTA Goals for 2025!

People
61

My ambitions for 2025
1 Keep on going up hills and trying to keep some level of fitness whilst enjoying myself. Most importantly STAY UPRIGHT!

2 Continue using 2m fm and promoting the use of 70cm as I move round the country BUT I am getting more general (and mast) interference on 70cm all the time which can make it more of a challenge/impossible. When does a 70cm filter come??

3 Get as many s2s contacts as possible, currently 4935 chasers points and they are all s2s. Also a few that havenā€™t yet been logged but I do hope to reach 5000 chasing pts this year.

4 Reach 400 unique summits chased - currently 378 but hampered by only using VHF/UHF and from summits. So we really have to stay in a different area for me to rack up more uniques. Have some GW and GM bookings already in the pipeline.

5 Reach 4500 unique chasers - Iā€™m on 4196 at present and I want to keep on introducing new people to the delights/struggles of SOTA chasing and to talking to new people.

Iā€™ll need help with all of these ambitions so please keep listening and also replying!! It took 30 very cold minutes to get my 4th contact from GW/MW-010 yesterday.
73 Viki

5 Likes
62

Evening/night activations can be very tough; from experience most active chasers chase from 8am to 4-6pm. At midnight most are asleep :slight_smile:

Some mitigation strategies:

  • Search and pounce: works very well if you have the luxury of time - after all you only need 4 contacts if you are after the points.
  • Try more bands (e.g. 80m for local contacts or 10m if open to catch chasers in the middle of their day).
  • Try POTA spots if your summit is elligible; this gives you access to more chasers
63

As a chaser :slight_smile:

Keep banging them out :rofl:

Smash the 50K chaser. hmm not long before i do that LOL

Get me first Sota on 4m band

Work as many as i can on 10m long as the band holds out at solar peak now one has a better 10 -2m system in place with decent beams.

2E0FEH

1 Like
64

I clearly underestimated the activation. I was on the summit an hour before even starting to unpack my radio gear. I thought because of New Yearā€™s Eve, many chasers would be around radios. I should have tried activating as soon as I arrived, at least to get the 2024 points. Now I have plenty of time to get 2025 points, this summit being only a few minutes drive from my house.

Yes on 40m it was definitively possible, I heard many people when scrolling the band, but I lost too much time before realising it was too late.

Good idea. Iā€™ve never been interested in POTA since I find it a bit dull plus there were very few potaā€™s in my region. However, it seems like they added a lot of parks recently, covering many SOTA summits. I will sign-up to POTA then.

All this, plus the digirig. Itā€™s quite light, I should always take it with me to be honest. FT8 will almost always give the 4 contacts, even when band condition is crap. Also useful in case of microphone / heaset failure.

2 Likes
65

My goals for 2025:

  1. Do more activations with the family; it is getting easier as the children get older :slight_smile:
  2. Convince my children to take their license and help them pass the exam
  3. Do some activations in Dolomites (flights are booked already!) with maybe some Via Ferrata?
  4. Do a winter overnighter activation (I have a plan already, just need to wait for a free week-end with decent weather).
  5. Do a few more overnighters throughout the year
  6. Play with LoRa APRS and Meshtastic from summits
  7. Try more harsh weather activations (I tend to wait for good weather!)
  8. Take more pictures and become a better photographer
  9. Reach 2x Mountain Goat
  10. Meet fellow SOTA activators - if you read this and come by the SP6 area, drop me a message!

I am looking forward to reading this in 12 monthsā€™ time!

3 Likes
66

Goals for 2025:-

Get at least 101 Activator points which will give me at least 500 total & become a demi-Goat!
Get at least 1200 Chaser points to get to 9000 points (Super Sloth in ā€˜26?:crossed_fingers:).

Get few more unique Activator peaks & possible completions.

Most of all, enjoy whatever hills I may do.
Happy New Year one & all.
John G0MHF

67

Get to 4000 chaser points - currently 3312 points
Get to 200 activation points - currently 141 total points since 2021ā€¦
Get more of GW/NW done - 57 left to go

Cheers
M0VAZ
John

2 Likes
68

Have you looked at RUMlogNG?

69

Get out at least once.

Health/ work well make this enough of a trial. I wont be out until it is warmer.

I have done very little chasing, I should do some of that.

1 Like