The club has a few SOTA “pros” in Larry N0SA and Jim KK0U. Their SOTA reports have been quite an inspiration to me to give SOTA activity a try. For the past three years KK0U has led the charge in having SLQS members fan out and activate our great state’s peaks on February 1st. That’s the date when the Missouri SOTA Association was born, twelve years ago.

Once again KK0U rallied the troops for a 2025 day to put W0M on the SOTA map. Our plan: Jim KK0U would activate Bell Mountain W0M/SF-005. I would activate Taum Sauk Mountain W0M/SF-001. Geoff KC8FDU would activate Knob Lick Mountain W0M/SF-030 (his first SOTA!) Mike AD0YM would activate Little Pilot Knob W0M/SF-023. And we knew of several SLQS members who’d be chasing us: Mark KB5YZY, Herbert AF4JF, Tony KT0AA, Gib KE0PRK, Ron KO0Z, Steve K0UY.

This was not my first visit to Taum Sauk. It may be a modest “mountain peak,” but it’s what we have to work with in Missouri! I checked the SOTA Goat app on my phone to verify I was within the Activation Zone… and I was! Just 11 feet shy of the summit, which soars to a dizzying altitude of 1,793 feet. (My brother Jon asked me later if I suffered much from altitude sickness. What a guy!)

After my ascent from the base camp parking lot to the activation site picnic table I was tempted to break out the oxygen. A sip of coffee and a stick of string cheese would have to do. I set up my gear (Elecraft KX3, Modern Morse Nameless v0 paddles, and my three-band linked dipole for 20/30/40.

Once I was all set up for HF it was time to start sending CQ. I started on 40m and self-spotted as a SOTA, a POTA, and a WWFF (World-Wide Flora & Fauna) activator. In no time the POTA and SOTA chasers were making for a fun pileup. I worked about twenty 40m stations — including several fellow SLQS members. Next I switched to 20m and wow there were a lot of chasers calling! I tried to be efficient as possible, while alternating between working the easy strong signals and digging for the weak ones (likely fellow QRPers!).Then I heard a faint “DL…” Germany! Our ham friends in Germany — with antennas a bit more impressive than my lowly 20m dipole — were hearing me as they followed my WWFF spot. I think I managed two DL contacts that day. “TU ES 44”

My hands were cold due to the breeze, so I was grateful to learn both Jim KK0U and Geoff KC8FDU were on their respective summits. We were hoping to make some S2S 2m and 70cm FM contacts . I was lucky in that my location was situated between theirs, so I was able to log them both. Unfortunately they weren’t able to hear each other. Memo for next year: we need to bring better VHF/UHF antennas!

Next up: sideband. I grabbed my microphone with plans to get an SSB S2S (summit-to-summit) contact with Geoff. While waiting for him to appear I found and worked an SSB SOTA station in British Columbia. Five watts SSB! Always fun 🙂 And there was Geoff — also in the SSB log. Excellent!

With those goals accomplished it was time to return to CW — this time on 30m. After a dozen or so I returned to 20m and kept at it. By now I was starting to make even more than my usual mistakes due to my cold and stiff fingers. I experimented with typing with one hand and warming the other in my coat pocket. But any ground gained was quickly lost when it was time to pick up the paddles and send. Ah well!

By the way, I’m very impressed with the Ham2K Portable Logger (aka “PoLo”) app. I find it to be very “smooth” while logging. I was using it in “Cadillac mode” on an iPad tablet with external Bluetooth keyboard. Regardless of platform, if you happen to have a network connection you’ve got a powerful spotting and chasing device with PoLo. With one click I was able to self-spot on POTA, SOTA, and WWFF.

After about three hours I was happy to see that I’d logged 100 CW contacts, plus three FM and two SSB QSOs in the log for the day. Got S2S/P2P contacts with KK0U, KC8FDU, and AD0YM. I’d stayed a bit longer than I’d planned and sure had a great time. Thanks to everyone who joined us in celebrating Missouri’s entry into the world of Summits On The Air!

One final thought: let me pass along KC8FDU’s blog entry telling how things went from his vantage point at Knob Lick.