Bush Walking and Amatuer Radio

[VK2TWR]

Hi There fellow bush lovers i recently got involved with a worldwide club called SOTA short for Summits On the Air.
Its and organization that commenced three years ago in great Britain what it entails is taking yourself out onto Summits and Activating the Summits by making 4 radio contacts. to qualify the summit.
The activators are the folks who get all the exercise.We have had SOTA in Australia for just over 12 months it started in Victoria and has been running in NSW since June.
We use extremely Light radio equipment My all mode radio weighs under 2 kilos batteries lipo 5 ampere batteries under a kilo multi band wire dipole 800grams antenna ,squid pole and sundry other essential items all up my pack is under 8 kilos that's my lunch and water as well.
We put out Alerts through our website Sotawath2 if you Google that you will find us to have a look.
The operators at home are called Chasers they receive the same points for the contact they have made with you,you only receive the points once
Most times when doing and activation it is not uncommon to have 18-20 odd contacts it is a very friendly group and we are of course getting out and enjoying the bush and mountains at the same time there are 98 Summits that meet the formula Sota to qualify A Summit must have 250 metres of elevation fall all around
I will let you now more about it if anyone is interested.
I started with Sota on the 26th October and I have activated 23 Summits and having a great time
Nice to catch up with you all
Cheer's VK2TWR

[David M]

I would like to be informed of such activities. I am also interested in going to remote sites and listening to natural radio phenomenon. E.g. see http://www.auroralchorus.com/natradio.htm and http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/mcgreevy/