For the VHF Contest this year the Arizona SOTA group had 22 operators on 15 different SOTA summits on Sunday morning. Most of the summits activated were in the Phoenix Metro area, but a few were more remote, like South of Tucson, and near Yuma.

We all got on the air at roughly the same time on Sunday Morning. I operated as a QRP portable from a SOTA summit North of Phoenix. My first contact was at 14:52, and my last contact was at 19:57 UTC, so 5 hours and 5 minutes on the air. To be on by that time I started hiking at 1 2:15 UTC, in the dark with my flashlight, with a 40 pound backpack, and a bundle of antennas on top of that.

I managed to make 155 contacts with 28 multipliers on five bands with my QRP/5 watts or less station.

The activity was spectacular on all of the bands up thru 1296, with some big pileups on almost every band at times. Between the SOTA operators, the Rovers, and the home contesters it was pretty much complete chaos for the whole five hours I operated.

My best DX was DM22 on 2M SSB (155 miles), but my best contact was into DM42 on 1296 MHZ, over 120 miles on one watt!

I never worked or heard anything out of state on any band, and all contacts were on SSB or FM.

Anyhow, a great time was had by all, and the Arizona SOTA ops had a great time.

Thanks to all for working us!

73

Pete

WA7JTM/QRP Portable DM33