P204
SOTA – Summits On The Air
Commenced in the UK by John G3WGV in 2002, SOTA is an award scheme for radio amateurs that encourages portable operation in mountainous areas.
This page features extracts from the official SOTA website: https://www.sota.org.uk/
SOTA has been carefully designed to make participation possible for all Radio Amateurs and Shortwave Listeners – this is not just for mountaineers! There are awards for activators (those who ascend to the summits) and chasers (who either operate from home, a local hilltop or are even Activators on other summits).
SOTA is fully operational in nearly a hundred countries across the world. Each country has its own Association which defines the recognised SOTA summits within that Association. Each summit earns the activators and chasers a score which is related to the height of the summit. Certificates are available for various scores, leading to the prestigious “Mountain Goat” and “Shack Sloth” trophies. An Honour Roll for Activators and Chasers is maintained at the SOTA online database.
Summits on the Air is an amateur radio awards scheme. To participate in this scheme you do not become a “member”, there are no dues to be paid or membership cards to be issued. You can join in straight away! Just go to SOTAwatch to see what is happening right now in SOTA. To post to SOTA facilities you will need to register an account. Then you will be able to add alerts and spots on SOTAwatch (which will likely help a lot, if you plan to activate) and upload your chases or activations to the SOTA database. There is no charge for registering. The SOTA Reflector uses a separate user account system; so to join in with discussions there simply click on the “Sign Up” button. We recommend that you save a copy of your passwords in a safe place – every week we have to help people who have forgotten their passwords!
You can then Chase or Activate when you feel like it – SOTA is global, activations can take place throughout the 24 hours of the day. Once you transfer your log to the database there is a permanent record and you can check your entries against those of the stations that you contacted, and keep track of your progress towards awards.
SOTA in Australia
Paul VK5PAS has dedicated a comprehensive page on SOTA activity within Australia:
https://www.vk5pas.com/summits-on-the-air-sota.html
Further reading about SOTA:
The Summerland Amateur Radio Club in NSW has an excellent page about SOTA:
A satirical look at SOTA (Sink holes On The Air)
This Is Amateur Radio 