At our August 2024 meeting, SPARC members enjoyed presentations on SOTA (Summits on the Air) and POTA (Parks on the Air). Walter “Savi” Savinovich, W1SAV led with his talk on the joys and challenges of operating from parks. A video of Savi’s presentation is embedded below and is available on his YouTube Channel. Next, David Hodge, N6AN explained how he tackles SOTA activations and showed off photos from local peaks. David is a past president of the Pasadena Radio Club and a well-known competitive DXer.
We concluded the evening with a door prize drawing. Two attendees went home with multi-purpose Teraoka tape donated by Carol KE6SRN. And in honor of David N6AN, our third prize was Contact Sport, a book about the 2014 World Radiosport Team Championship, in which David participated. (There’s a picture of him on page 45.)
On August 17, SPARC will hold its very own SOTA POTA Fest. We’ll be activating Flint Peak for SOTA and Rio de Los Angeles Park for POTA. If you’d like to participate, join our Groups.io mailing list.
Click here to download Savi’s slides.
Links from Savi’s presentation:
Mapping Contacts | Global DX Map w/ Propagation
POTA main page | POTA spotting page | POTA scheduling page
Field equipment: Chameleon Antennas | Yaesu Radios | Elecraft Radios
Savi’s home logging program: Amateur Contact Log | Mobile logging software: HAMRS
Savi’s dashboard of Log Analytics (built with Tableau Public)
Savi’s Blog | Savi’s YouTube Channel | Email: w1sav [at] arrl [dot] net
More SOTA/POTA inspiration:
“Radio and Rides” blog by SPARC member Carol K6SRN
Article on POTA by Jenna Canillas, WW0MAN for the Rio Hondo ARC June 2022 newsletter