SOTA Workshop 2025 Postscript – Save the Date for 2026

[Allen Graves]

Hello Valley Hams,

Thanks to everyone who participated in the SOTA Workshop 2025!

A special thanks to our guest speakers — K4QS, N0QLR, W4GO, and N4LXP — for sharing their insights on the early days of SOTA in Virginia, activating Iceland, the 2024 10m Challenge, and Starlink. Your contributions were greatly appreciated.

We had 32 participants, and a small herd of happy SOTA dogs.

Many folks activated summits after the workshop, and the afternoon QSOs were numerous — summit-to-summit on VHF, HF, and CW. A big thank you to all the chasers, whether on summits or at home, who made these contacts possible! A few of us even managed some contacts on 223.5 FM, just to give the 220 MHz band a little attention. DX was good too, with several logs showing contacts with Slovenia, Wales, Sweden, and France, to name a few.

Please save the date: October 24, 2026, for next year’s Workshop. The location is still to be determined. I really like Lake Arrowhead, though the anticipated mid-morning breeze did materialize and sent people out into the warm sunshine.

We’re open to suggestions for next year. If you know of a pavilion location between Winchester and Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley with good cellular internet and a fireplace, those are the basic criteria.

73,
Allen, AG4VA