Amateur Radio and Hillwalking

Those who want to combine amateur radio with hillwalking can get involved in the Summits On The Air (SOTA) programme.

SOTA is a bit like IOTA, with hills and mountains replacing islands. It is designed to encourage portable operation in mountainous areas, and there are awards for activators, who ascend to the summits, and chasers, who either operate from home, a local hilltop or are activators on other summits.

More than 20 countries are currently involved in the SOTA programme, including Ireland - North and South.
There are 387 eligible summits in EI (of which more than 50 have been activated) and 66 eligible summits in GI (of which 36 have been activated).

More details, including a list of eligible summits and a lot more, can be found at www.qsl.net/sotaei and at
www.sota.org.uk

With a view to encouraging more SOTA activity, an
International SOTA Weekend is to be held on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd May 2009.

It is hoped that this event will see many summit-to-summit contacts between different SOTA associations, and give
chasers the chance to work activators from several different DXCC entities.

Source: IRTS