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10-10-10 Event-Happy B-day WØC-SOTA
21 April 2021 | by 
WG0AT/Steve
May 1st, 2010 – WGØAT/Steve sent a CQ from Mount Herman in Colorado and thus inaugurated the birth of Summits On The Air (SOTA) in WØ land with 33 CW contacts around the world.
Fast forward to today, Steve is still sending CQs from Mount Herman (WØC/FR-Ø63), and other peaks, almost on a daily basis but he also inspired countless hams (incl. yours truly) to join a growing bunch of people who love the outdoors and combine their hiking activities with their radio hobby.
Some statistics… during the last 10+ years the Colorado Association (WØC) grew from:
- 219 initial (seed) summits to a total of 1797 qualifying summits
- a handful of Activators to ~180
- a few chasers to almost 200
These highly motivated men and women of all ages activated more than 7,400 summits, generated more than 40,000 points and 15 Mountain Goats (MG) – many of them double or even six-fold (thanks KXØR/George).
WØC Chasers worked over 90,000 stations around the world, generated almost 500,000 points and 33 Shack-Sloths.
To celebrate our 10th Anniversary1, WØC-SOTA is organizing a 10-10-10 Event2 with a challenge for Activators and Chasers alike.
Activator challenge: Activate 10 (or more) 10K (or higher) summits (in WØC) within 10 days.
Chaser challenge: Chase Activators on 10 different (or more) qualifying WØC summits (10K or higher) within the 10 days.
Event Date: We will kick-off the event in conjunction with the Colorado 14er event on August 7th, 2021 and conclude on August 16th.
Everybody is invited to participate. Plan your vacations and business-trips to Colorado accordingly. Block off these days in your calendar. Get in shape… repair your antennas and radios. It’s a once in a decade event 😉
There will be a ranking of all participants who meet the challenge. Photographer and new SOTA enthusiast Dan Oldfield (NØOLD) is generously donating a personalized and autographed print from his Colorful Colorado collection to each of the top 3 in both challenges.
More details will be announced as soon as they are hashed out on the WØC-SOTA Website (you can subscribe to get the latest updates) and the NA-SOTA group.
For the org. team
KØMOS/Matt
1 It’s actually the 11th Anniversary but the COVID-19 Pandemic and historic Wildfires in Colorado interfered in 2020.
2 All SOTA rules apply
5 Responses to “10-10-10 Event-Happy B-day WØC-SOTA”
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I’ll be very pleased to take part in this challenge, propagation conditions permitting, and chase as many summits as I can from my QTH in Northern Spain.
Thank you for so many activations and QSOs so far.
Activators, please, have a well performing antenna and work 20m CW whenever possible, as that will be my best chance to chase you from Spain. 15m may work well for me too, but it’s less likely.
Good luck and success in your celebration.
73,
Guru
Wonderful event and thanks for the article. But ARRL has done it again. This love of acronyms has gone too far. The world is full of acronyms and they run past us by the hundreds leaving a question mark to the unfamiliar reader. There was not one mention of what SOTA means. Why not introduce SOTA with “Summits on the Air” and then use SOTA thereafter to make the article more reader friendly? I don’t mind researching to find what SOTA means but why? One mention of what it means will save hundreds perhaps thousands of readers unnecessary wasted time looking it up.
You are correct Wayne, my bad. Promise to do better next time.
Matt, you don’t have to apologise, look at the the very top of your article:
“May 1st, 2010 – WGØAT/Steve sent a CQ from Mount Herman in Colorado and thus inaugurated the birth of Summits On The Air (SOTA) in WØ land with 33 CW contacts around the world.”
73’s from Switzerland
Edi
Hi Edi, I updated the article after reading Wayne’s suggestions 🙂
All good…
73, Matt/KØMOS