Ham Radio SOTA

A number of Ham Radio friends from Mesa are staying in Show Low or nearby. Sue and Chuck are very active in SOTA - Summits on the Air (https://www.sota.org.uk/).

Amateur radio operators participate in a number of different events and/or contests that help them test their equipment, challenge them to operate in adverse conditions, and encourage them to be comfortable with the radio. SOTA encourages radio operators to set up portable radios and "activate" various summits by making contacts with other radio operators near and far. The activator gets points for activating the summit, and the contacts get points for being "hunters" or "chasers".

We arranged to meet up with Sue and Chuck on Porter Mountain. This particular summit has an advantage of being "drive in" -- instead of needing to drive to a spot and then walk up the rest of the way, we could drive to the location where they would set up their radios and not have to carry equipment very far.

The process of getting set up required setting up the radio and its power supply (friend Tom had brought his radio and batteries to provide power).... 

... and setting up one or more antennas tuned to the bands that they would be contacting (1/4 wave of the frequency that they would be transmitting on. By tuning the antenna to the frequency, all the transmit energy can go into the air as radio waves rather than being wasted as heat.).

Chuck initially measured the length of the antenna.

Cherie was holding the other end of the antenna and tape measure.

Then a radial of the same (or slightly less) length needed to be put out -- Jeanne is pulling out the wire...

... once it was measured out, the hamster (my chosen designation as I am not a licensed ham radio operator) held onto it at the right length until the end support was brought out.

This was a raised radial, needing to be 3'+ off the ground, so Jeanne is checking the height. You may be able to see two very thin red legs that are tied together at the top to hold the radial out at this length and at the correct height off the ground.

Pictures of the view -- out toward Show Low

View of the *big* antennas on the top of Porter Mountain - cellular, microwave towers, relays, maybe local TV or radio, utilities - police, fire; maybe businesses.

Nick and Chuck screwing the antenna into the tripod base (the radial was attached to the base -- in the foreground of the picture you may be able to see the two red lightweight supports that are holding the end of the radial out and up)

The "hamster" staying mostly in the shade and out of the way.

A "cheat sheet" on the appropriate calls for the operators to make when activating. They would tune to a particular frequency and listen for activity on it. If it sounded clear, they would check up and down three clicks. Once they found what sounded like a clear frequency, one operator would start by asking "Is this frequency in use?" two times (with a pause between to listen). Then the operator would broadcast, "CQ SOTA, CQ Summits on the Air. This is <operator's call sign> calling from Porter Mountain in Arizona. This is <operator's call sign> calling CQ and Listening." They would then listen for responses from "chasers". (translations of the code: CQ = "Calling all stations", CQ SOTA = "Calling all stations participating in Summits on the Air")

On the first frequency that the group activated, there were immediately a number of responses from SOTA chasers. Since there were a number of folks (activators) on our end listening, they would all try to listen carefully and get the call sign of the chaser (sometimes they could easily hear the call sign, sometimes they could hear part of the call sign -- sometimes they could hear the whole call sign, but transcribing it to paper would not get it quite correct). Once they had a good call sign, the operator would then say, "<chaser's call sign>  <operator's call sign> You are <signal report (letting the responder know how strong their signal was)> on Porter Mountain. QSL?" (QSL? = "Do you understand?")

The chaser would respond with "<operator's call sign> <chaser's call sign> You are <signal report> in <chaser's location>".

The "signal report" is usually two numbers -- 1-5 scale for "readability" and 1-9 scale for signal strength. I think that some radios have a gauge that you can read this information, but it seems like often the signal report is just the operator's impression of the signal, and most of the time it is "5-9". 

Note that the communication starts with the call sign of the person that you're talking to, and then your call sign. Like, on the telephone, I might say, "Barbara? This is Patti." and I might add a signal report, "I hear you very clearly and loudly."

Since there were a number of people in our group who were doing activation on SOTA for the first time, once the first operator had made a contact, they would ask the chaser if they were willing to speak with a second operator. Since the "chasers" understand that others are learning, they were all willing to communicate with the 5 or 6 folks that we had in the group!

The folks under the shade around the radio...

... a picture of the radio operators from the other side.

As the contacts were made, one of the folks in the group made notes so the contacts could later be recorded online. Porter Mountain has a specific designation (I think it is W7A/AE-043). You can see that the call signs of the chasers are listed (usually the activation log would be for just one operator/activator, but since there was a group, the additional column written to the left indicated who the operator was). The time of the contact in UTC, the strength of the transmission as reported by the chaser, the strength as judged by the operator of the chaser's signal, the mode and megahertz of the frequency. You may notice in the notes on the right, that the group contacted a person in Colorado, another SOTA operator who had activated another summit (in California), someone in Nevada, a person in Slovenia (eastern Europe), and someone in the state of Georgia (on this recording sheet).

At the end -- all of the operators around the antenna

It was fun being out with friends and getting to see the process of activating a summit -- also interesting to see how many chasers wanted to make contacts!