On Friday September 5, 2025, Jon NT6E activated Table Mountain W6/CT-067. Operating from 18:40 to 20:52 UTC, Jon made 61 contacts, including 11 S2S. In addition, during this time more than a dozen ham operators drove to Table Mountain to witness the event. As this was only Jon’s third activation, the last being in 2022, you might ask why such a pileup on the air, and why so many visitors? The answer is that Jon is known and loved by all SoCalSota activators - as a chaser who seems to always be available to answer your CQ SOTA call. Not only has this contributed to the requisite four contacts for the activator, but he has also contributed by being a relay between summit operators who are otherwise unable to communicate, assisting in emergency calls, and even providing hardware advice. Jon is visually impaired, explaining why he has not been hiking peaks for the past eight years. His Table Mountain visit was made possible by two brothers, Huston KK6WT and Ralph KK6MT. These two picked Jon up at his house in Torrance, gathered not only radios and radio gear, but also made sure there were tables, chairs, overhead shelter, food, and drink.
SOTA Chaser 100k award, 25 Sep 2024
Some facts concerning Jon’s chaser career:
● He has worked 22,931 activators
● At the time of the Table Mountain event, Jon had 120,577 Chaser points
● He has been chasing since December 2017
Jon is a successful Chaser not only because of his availability and love of all things ham radio, but also because of his amazing home station. He has two UHF/VHF rigs, used for FM, connected to two separate antennas with different radiation patterns. This is not just for redundancy, but also to allow selection of the system with better propagation at any given time. His roof also holds several HF antennas. Combined with the ability to communicate using SSB or CW in any band, this yields an effective communication station.
Many have told their stories of interacting with Jon
on the SOTA+
YouTube video. For example, Ralph KK6MT shared that Jon “is always chasing me and my brother Huston. He is always there for us. Houston was using a Baofeng HT, for 2m/FM on summits, but couldn’t hear Jon when he was chasing. That happened a couple of times, then Jon sent Huston a brand-new HT. The next time we were on a summit we grabbed the radio Jon sent us, and voila – we could hear Jon! We just love Jon and being here and meeting everyone today has been a joy.”
Thank you, Huston and Ralph, for making this event happen and thank you Jon for being the steady chaser you are. We also thank all our W6 SOTA chasers for making this, the W6 association, a great support community. Many hams are calling for this to be an annual event.
Photos by Mark, KD7DTS.
Top row: Mike K6MII (previously KO6BGB), Paul K6PVZ, Jon NT6E, Martin AJ6CL, Keith W6KME, Huston KK6WT. Bottom row: Mark KD7DTS, Ralph KK6MT, Bill N6MTB.
Top row: David N6AN, Ben AG6N (our silk screen genius), Huston KK6WT,
Bill N6MTB, Mike K6STR, Ron K6CPR, Sheri K6SBB. Bottom: Lorene W6LOR,
Kel (Ben's XYL), Ralph KK6MT, Mike K6MII, and Mark KD7DTS.