This week, Surfin' takes you out the door and up the hill to make contacts for awards.

Summits on the Air (SOTA) encourages you to take your radio experience to a higher level.

Summits on the Air (SOTA) is an award for radio hams and shortwave listeners that encourages portable radio operation from higher elevations. There are SOTA awards for folks who ascend and operate from the summits and SOTA awards for folks operating from home, a local hilltop or are on other summits.

Diana Eng, KC2UHB, recently wrote about her experience ascending Mt Carmel in Connecticut with SOTA activists Tom Tumino, N2YTF, and Dave Clausen, W2VV. Her story appeared on the Make Magazine blog, Makezine and it is an excellent read. And for an excellent view, Diana mentions that there is a nice collection of SOTA photos on flickr -- 2944 photos to be exact -- that show the ham radio operators, their equipment and summits that they have ascended.

Another excellent read is Make Magazine, which bills itself as "the first magazine devoted entirely to do-it-yourself (DIY) technology projects." I subscribed to Make after receiving a sample of issue #1 at the TAPR Dayton Hamvention dinner four years ago and I have not missed an issue. Even though Make seldom covers radio projects, as a long time do-it-yourselfer, its excellent articles motivate me to DIY more often and I highly recommend it for all DIY hams.

Thank you Mike Staines, WM1KE, for alerting me to KC2UHB's story.

Until next time, keep on surfin'!

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, plans to activate the summit of Compounce Mountain real soon now. To contact Stan, send him e-mail or add comments to his blog. By the way, every installment of Surfin' is indexed here, so go look it up.

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