I decided we needed to get some more people interested in sota, a number of members of the Ham club I’m involved in (EMDRC) had mentioned they were interested in SOTA, and a number had even acquired some portable gear with the intent of operating portable and even activating some sota summits. With the weather getting nicer,…
The other day i had some work in Albury/Wodonga. This is a very long day, with near on 8hrs of driving, though I did manage to sneak in 45mins for lunch and a Sota activation on Huon Hill, on the edge of Wodonga. VK3/VE-237. Huon Hill has a road to the top, you enter through…
Work had me in ballarat early friday morning the other week for a number of tasks, with a busy day of meetings then conference calls and other activities, however, i had some time between the calls and needed to NOT be driving while they were underway so i decided to get in a couple of…
Work took me back to western Victoria yesterday, with an early morning meeting in Warrnambool which meant a very early morning trip form Melbourne. Having finished all my tasks by mid-day, I took the opportunity to undertake some RF survey works taking the coast road back to Melbourne, looking at some site options for some…
A lot of my Sota chasing is from the car! It’s where most of my radio activity is based.. But that creates it’s own issues. How do you write down all the summit details and chaser info while doing 110km/hr on the freeway! I’ve missed a lot of chaser points through missing the logging bit.…
I’ve spent a couple of days recently in Ararat with work, a town in Western Victoria. We had been deploying a piece of telco equipment. By coincidence, Peter vk3zpf another active sota participant was assisting me with this work, though I’m sure he will claim I was being a manager and watching with a clipboard!!…
Back when I started Sota, i was looking for a quick and easy antenna for portable use, along the way other items have been built and obtained that have made this project not as critical. The project is a simple 9:1 Unun that creates a match for a random bit of wire, it still needs…
I had to head to Portland for some work earlier in the week, and threw the gear in the back of the car in case I had time for another quick activation. The drive is near enough 5hrs from home, and the proposed summit again had a site my employers gear is based on, so…
I had some work to do in Shepparton the other day, and on the way home, took my lunch break on a summit! Mt Major is a small bump east of Shepparton, its located on land that is owned by Melbourne University. The summit has a LOT of commercial tv, fm radio, mobile network and…
Im in the middle of painting my house, and its taking a very long time, my only aspiration in life, be rich enough to pay someone else to paint for me, as such most weekends recently have been spent sanding, prepping, painting, swearing, re sanding, re painting, as i work through the house, both inside…