Ham Operator

By: K. Mason Smawley

I recently spent a few days in Douglas Arizona area romping around in the hills with a ham radio and SOTA. What's SOTA you ask? Its an international amateur radio activity called “Summits on the Air”. Where amateur radio operators, Hams for short, scamper up summits and using their transceivers talk to each other. Again your probably thinking, why in the world would anyone want to hike in these hills? Yeah tell me about it, the terrain is not much fun. But its the points that count, points we get for either climbing the summit and transmitting or sitting at home and trying to contact the person on the summit. We both get points. The cool thing about Douglas is most of the summits that are registered in the SOTA system have never been worked by a ham before, and that's what drew me to Douglas. I only climb and operate on summits that have never been worked before, so its called a “First Time Activation”.

I started my Douglas trip by contacting “The Douglas Visitors Center” and spoke to Dave. We talked about the recent bicycle event held here in Douglas, my SOTA adventures, and the possibility of future inter-agency team work for construction of mountain bike trails. The secret is out and Douglas has so much to offer to the outdoors minded individual.

This is from the SOTA website, “New to SOTA? 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).

See the Summits on the Air 'joining in' section of the website for lots of information, advice, rules, guidelines and our FAQs.

SOTA is fully operational in nearly a hundred countries across the world. Each country has its own Association which defines the recognized 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 Honor Roll for Activators and Chasers is maintained at the SOTA online database.

SOTA is designed to be compatible with other mountain users. Please see our 'environmental statement' Summits on the Air for details.”