Summits on the Air (SOTA) is an award scheme for radio amateurs and shortwave listeners that encourages portable operation in mountainous areas. SOTA has been carefully designed to make participation possible for everyone - 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).I am not positioned well to be a SOTA activator as I live in Florida. However, the Dowdell Knob summit W4G/CE-004 is not too far from relatives in Columbus, Georgia. I will attempt to activate W4G/CE-004 Saturday October 11th. Since it is my first activation I am sure I have lots to learn. Access to the summit is easy from the looks of it. So It will not entail a long hike. I hope the skills I have learned from RaDAR will come in handy.
My start time is 13:00 UTC or 9 AM Georgia time. Likely frequencies are 14.061-cw,14.285-ssb,7.031-cw,7.285-ssb. I will start out on 40 and move on to 20 later. I may operate into the afternoon.
SOTA has a spotting page at http://www.sotawatch.org/spots.php There are many chasers in SOTA. Checkout the SOTA site for details on activators and chasers. See http://www.sota.org.uk/ I also enjoy contacts with the many friends from The RaDAR community and the Panama City ARC. So give it a shot. All contacts welcome!
The summit is in F. D. Roosevelt State Park. In fact FDR is right there at the lookout on Dowdell Knob enjoying the view.
