Most Used Frequencies for Summits on the Air Activations

Harquahala Mountain is notoriously steep and requires a good off-road vehicle to make it to the top. I hopped in the jeep with Alex K7AEM for this SOTA activation. Alex frequently goes on long extended off road trips and has a lot of 4x4 experience. Since I was with Alex, I asked him to talk a little about off-roading tips. Then I answered a question that quite a number of viewers have asked - "How do you get so many contacts and what are the most common SOTA frequencies used by activators". This was a fun one. Enjoy!

 

Great job. Good amount of useful gouge in a short segment. Bonus points for the location.

Agreed on the remaining on freq for several minutes to pick up stragglers. Anyone who has seen the logs of Alerts and Spots on the Watch on a busy weekend knows you're only at the top of the heap for maybe 10 seconds. You could drop to the bottom of the page in no time. I re-spot a few times, and add comments via SOTA Goat like "QRT in 10 min" or "Also on 146.52".

An added bonus for using common watering hole freqs is increased chances for a S2S with other activators.

Lastly if I'm out of cell range and APRS, I'll ask chasers to re-spot me on the Watch.

 

If you try 146.58 in Georgia you'll be met with dead air. The vast majority of VHF SOTA contacts from from the random op listening on 146.52 who has never heard of the "adventure band." If you spot you may get a couple on .58 but I'll stick with .52.

 

Agreed 100% on all points. Thanks for adding some positive useful content to the discussion.

 

Yeah that's cool. 580 is not for everybody. And I have had mixed results as well in some areas. It's good to have a couple options though. There are a couple areas in Arizona where I will absolutely not get on 520 because of the "reception" I get from those who lurk there. I put up a poll on Twitter about this a couple weeks ago and most people don't even know about the "Adventure Frequency". Of those who did know about it, about 80% were on board with using it. But I certainly respect the 20% and their reasoning. No problem at all here, either way. And of course I recognize the poll was unscientific so, yeah, by all means 520 is a great place to get VHF contacts most of the time.

 

That's sad. I'm familiar with most of the activators in North Georgia and in the almost 2 years I've been doing this I'm aware of only one time that an activator on .52 heard someone talking to another op about "those summit guys" in a disparaging way. I think most people who monitor .52 here are excited to get any random contacts they can get.

 

That's interesting. I've only been doing SOTA for a year, but haven't yet run into any negative responses on .52. I'm aware of .58, but mainly through reading K0NR's blog and not from coming across it in the wild. I'm actually doing more of my activations on 2m FM due to the reduced station complexity and because it's frequently more fruitful than HF.

Chris

 

I love doing VHF SOTA. It's fun to see how far you can get from summits. I've reached repeaters over 100 miles away with a Diamond SRH770 antenna, and had simplex QSOs upwards of 150 miles with a 3 element beam. I had 17 2m QSOs this past Saturday from the highest point in Georgia, but I also enjoy running CW. I'm temporarily in an apartment downtown and have S7+ noise there. SOTA gives me an opportunity to get out into a low noise environment. I usually get around 40-70 CW in 2 hours or so over 20/30/40.

 

I guess I'll use 520 when I activate a peak there in Georgia next week then . I "think" I'll be doing a joint activation with Doug N4HNH sometime midweek. Still have a couple things to iron out before then.

 

Seems to me that the most used frequencies for SOTA activation is most always wherever a net is occurring. Was in a net yesterday and one lone voice screaming CQ SOTA continued for 20 minutes. 14.300 during intercon is another one I hear Pota all the time.

 

Hmmm ... most hams would just move on without such pettiness.

 

Yup. I haven't yet purchased a beam, but I've gotten as far as 65 miles on a j-pole I hung way up in a tree. Lately I've been using a 1/2 wave whip I got turned onto by K0NR, which has worked as well as the j-pole, to the extent I may use it instead of the j-pole going forward.

Chris

 

He may not have heard the net. Propagation is a funny beast sometimes.

I try to avoid frequencies I know routinely host nets even if that frequency appears to be quiet (such as 14.300), but I wouldn't expect anyone to have a full list of all the possible nets.

Chris

 

Not sure how to respond here other than to say there are two sides to every coin. I whole heartedly agree that interference can be a real problem on the bands. Whether it be your example above, or a 5 watt station trying to hold the frequency for a few minutes. I guess that's why we have to try hard not pass judgement and do our best to keep it positive. "This is the way"

 

Ha! Yep, I had that. "Good luck with your contest or whatever" in a snarky tone. I'm also in a medium city surrounded by rural areas. There's lots of Amateur Radio here but not many SOTA goats.