Foundations of Amateur Radio

Last week I went on an adventure and came home with an experience. I've been wanting to go out and play radio for a while. Work has been spectacularly unhelpful in making time available to achieve this, not to mention the 17 million other things vying for my undivided attention.

Last week the planets aligned and my outing came to pass.

I'd set my sights on doing a SOTA activation. If you're not familiar with that, SOTA is an acronym for Summits On The Air and the aim is to get to the top of a mountain and make contacts from there. I've previously been under the tutelage and presence of some very experienced SOTA hams and during a conference in Canberra last year I managed to activate several summits with others.

I even managed to survive walking up one peak on my own, using my hand-held to make some contacts. I use the word survive in less than ironic terms because I relied on Google Maps to navigate me up to the peak and for reasons best known to Google, it walked me up the side of the peak that didn't actually have a track, even though the map was adamant that I should follow the path. Many, many hours later, not properly dressed, not enough food, weather coming in, batteries running low, I managed to get back down safely and hobbled to a taxi who brought me back to my hotel. It was memorable, but not for the right reasons and it didn't involve HF communications and at the moment I'm struggling to recall if I actually logged those contacts. That will be a job for another day.

Anyway, as I said, the planets aligned and I had a day to myself, access to the car, a charged radio battery pack, a working antenna and a map that worked. Mind you, I spent an hour fighting technology. First to register on the SOTA web-site, then to activate the software on my phone, then to get Google Maps to actually navigate me to the peak and for it to download the off-line maps, so I could navigate whilst out of mobile phone range. Lesson learned, plan to do the technology before the day.

So, I set off an hour later than planned, but I was finally on my way. Google Maps again let me down by navigating a different route than I wanted, since I had the choice of more or less dirt road and I wanted less. Google picked the other one, even though I pointed it at the one I wanted. Another lesson learned, make sure that you add markers to your route before Google Maps starts you on your way, since there is no changing it once you're driving.

After an hour and a bit I arrived at the top of the peak. If you're interested, it was Mount Dale, or SOTA peak VK6/SW-036, but before you go looking for my log, stick around, there's more to the story.

So, I set-up my antenna, a multi-tap Outbacker and set it to 40m. I appeared to have mobile phone coverage, so I added my spot to the SOTA-watch website and started calling CQ. I managed my first contact within 8 minutes of my advertised time start time, so I was pretty chuffed.

For the next few hours on 40m and 15m I managed contacts with 23 stations. The biggest distance I managed was 5353 km, or 1071 km per Watt. Not bad for a vertical antenna mounted to my car.

I did some experiments along the way with turning my car around, getting better and worse signals, but overall it was great.

I had a little play with 2m, but didn't manage anything other than talking on the local repeater, which is located 24 kilometres away and about 250 meters lower down. One friend suggested that there was a satellite pass coming over later in the day, but by the time I'd been there for four hours I was cooked. It wasn't spectacularly hot or anything, but it was time to go. No satellite this time, but something to add to my list of things to check.

I came home and basked in the enjoyment of having gone out and made contacts, more than I'd managed for most of the year. Very satisfied.

The next morning I found an email from the SOTA manager in VK6 who asked me about my operating environment. After some back and forth it was determined that I should have read the rules before going on my trip. If I had I'd have known that I couldn't operate from within my car, nor could I operate with anything attached to the car. In later discussions one person said that the guideline they used was that if someone drove the car away, would they still be able to operate their station. It seems even shade from the car is frowned upon. So, another lesson learned, read the manual before going outside.

In my discussions it emerged that my trek did qualify for WWFF, or World Wide Flora and Fauna where the rules are different. Of course I've not yet read those rules either, but you know, radio. I should point out that the local Flora and Fauna group is called VKFF.

So.

I swallowed my pride, sent an email to the SOTA email list and posted on the SOTA group to tell my contacts that I wasn't able to submit my contacts as valid SOTA contacts, but that I would be cherishing their contact in my log.

I've not yet sent off my log to the local WWFF coordinator, work has managed to stymie that effort, but I have the log and I'll send it off when I have a spare hour to enter the contacts into a computer and format them as required.

So, from a lessons learned perspective I managed to get to the top, set-up my radio and make contacts. That's a great outcome. I have been out when that didn't happen.

I also learned that Google Maps, something which I use almost daily, is still trying to kill me, it's just being more subtle about it than I would like. I'm sure that there's a reddit writing prompt in there somewhere. Perhaps I'll write it in my munificent spare time.

I should read the rules for both SOTA and WWFF and I need to figure out how I'm going to be portable with my radio bolted into my car. I really don't fancy pulling it out and I'm not in any financial position to go out and purchase another radio, though if you're feeling inclined, you're welcome to make a donation to my benevolent fund - the Donate button is on the podcast website.

On a more serious note, I did receive an email while I was on the top of Mount Dale from a listener who was freaking out that they were listening to me on last week's podcast and saw my callsign on the SOTA cluster, so I replied by telling Brian, AF7MD, that I was still on the mountain. He hasn't replied yet. I hope he's OK.

I did get lots of other emails from well wishers for my First Solo SOTA effort, so thank you for your messages of support. Sorry I let the side down by making an invalid activation as my first effort.

So, I think the message should be that SOTA can be fun, it can be rewarding and you can make contacts with 5 Watts, but you need to read the rules and prepare the day before you plan your outing.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB, not quite a goat yet.