Summits On The Air (SOTA) is an awards program from the Radio ham community who enjoy either getting out into the mountains, or chatting to those who enjoy getting out into the mountains.

SOTA – the short explanation

You get activators (who climb summits) and chasers (who chat to them from the shack).  To activate a summit an activator must be within 25m (vertical) of the summit and make 4 QSOs on any band.  This then gets the points for the activator.  Each chaser making contact gets the points for a single QSO, but can only activate the summit once per day.  An activator can only activate the summit once a year.  The points for a summit are based on the height above sea-level.

If you are a member of SARL you can download the January 2016 version of the Radio ZS magazine and read my article about SOTA.  Radio ZS is available for download from the Radio ZS downloads page.

For more information go to the official sites sota and sotadata

SOTA is contagious and should have a warning from the surgeon general!