[New post] All VHF Shack Sloth
 

Post : All VHF Shack Sloth
URL : http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2016/07/vhf-shack-sloth/
Posted : July 2, 2016 at 3:56 pm
Author : Bob K0NR
Categories : Colorado, Ham Radio, Mountains, SOTA, VHF

http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/wp-con.../12/w0sota.jpg On June
21st, I worked Steve K7PX on Mount Garfield (W0C/FR-040 (
http://www.sota.org.uk/Summit/W0C/FR-040 ) ) using 2m fm to push me over 1000
points to quality for the SOTA Shack Sloth Award (
https://sota.org.uk/Joining-In/Awards ) using only VHF. This is my first
significant SOTA award, which I have been working towards for several years
now. I decided to pursue Shack Sloth using only the VHF bands, which is much
more difficult than using HF. Why? Something about mountains, Height Above
Average Terrain (HAAT (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height...verage_terrain ) ) and VHF radio
has always intrigued me.

Here's the line up of my top chased summits, with Mt Herman and Pikes Peak
taking the clear lead. Mt Herman is The Most Radio-Active Mountain in
Colorado ( http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2016/0...tive-mountain/
) and it is in my backyard. Most of those contacts were with Steve WGØAT and
Frank KØJQZ. Thanks, guys! Pikes Peak is also a clear VHF shot from my house
and many SOTA activators and tourists like to activate that summit. No
surprise, the rest of the summits are various peaks in Colorado, worked from
my house or from our cabin near Trout Creek Pass. Quite a few of these are
Summit-to-Summit contacts made when activating peaks, often during the
Colorado 14er Event ( http://www.ham14er.org ) .

http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/wp-con...ed-summits.png
Most of my thousand points were contacts made using plain old 2m fm, The
Utility Mode. A few contacts were made on 2m ssb along with some 70 cm fm and
ssb contacts. I have been encouraging folks to try 2m ssb for huge
improvements in weak-signal performance but the universal nature of 2m fm
seems to be winning out.

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