Welcome to the October 2026 edition of “W6 SOTA Dispatch”, a digest of what’s new in W6 SOTA.
In the past month, we’ve published three news articles on the W6 SOTA Website along with some other items at W6SOTA.org.
W6 Updates
Below are some of the news, updates, and other changes on the W6SOTA.org website.
Rick, KN6CQX, achieves Mountain Goat
Rick started SOTA in 2020 and recently achieved Mountain Goat, making him goat #51 in W6. Congrats Rick!Jeff, KC6X Achieves Mountain Goat
Brian, AB6D convinced Jeff to get a ham license in 2021 and then took Jeff to his favorite SOTA summits. Jeff has activated 316 peaks, 161 one of them unique. Congrats Jeff.N1CLC Makes His 1000th Activation and 5X Goat
In his ninth year of doing SOTA, Chris’s default mode of “attack” has worked well for him. He’s activated 265 unique summits in 9 associations and 34 regions, logging over 20,000 contacts from a summit.
Cerro Noroeste SOTA Fest
The August campout at Cerro Noroeste drew more than 45 attendees. With ample peaks to climb, the trip was a great success. We thank Mike K6STR and Lorene W6LOR for organizing the event. On Saturday evening a Quansheng modification station was set up. Everyone yielded to our two girls (ages 11 and 10) who bravely did the hardware mod themselves. The highlight of the weekend was Huston KK6WT and Jon NT6E doing 7 drive-up summits before arriving at camp.
SOTA operators get a chance to activate Camarillo Hills, a private park
Last September we were invited by Ron K6CPR to go to the Petersen Ranch, which includes summit W6/SC-375. Several Hams were able to make their first SOTA contact. Craig K6KH, an AMSAT ambassador, had a satellite station setup for others to use.
SoCal Is Using MeshCore To Amp Up The Fun Since our July Dispatch we have had several new authors contributing to Trip Reports. Keith KE6TH reported on his trek to "the big bastard" Mount Tom, W6/SS-019. This was a 17 mi RT hike, with 6900 ft ascent, done as a backpacking trip.
MeshCore, which uses LoRa on 900 Mhz, has exploded in use over the past couple of years. More importantly it’s taken off in a big way in SoCal and the SoCal SOTA operators are taking advantage of it.
We’ve updated “Getting Started With SOTA” under Resources.
This is an excellent place to point new SOTA activators and chasers to.
The W6 Trip Reports have grown from 196 reports to 219. We think these can be especially helpful to visitors and others who are trying to knock out some W6 Summits, as well as locals wanting to know if it’s a road or trail.
New to the SOTA scene is Mason K6AFN, who has taken up the hobby with a passion. He will chase you from the roof of his downtown apartment, or tackle any SoCal summit. Mason had company visiting, and took him to Mt Baldy W6/CT-003 Mount San Antonio. His friend did not enjoy the Devil's backbone -- perhaps a different peak would have been in order.
Mason also hiked to W6/CT-169 Bee Benchmark with AJ W6CMY. After posting their Trip Report, 3 other activators did this hike within the following few days. This summit is currently engulfed in flames due to the Bouquet Fire that started on Oct 3.
Login and create your trip report(s) today!.
Need help creating yours? Just use the contact form under the about menu item and we’ll help you out.We’ve recently installed a few application updates to the W6 Web site and improved the user experience on the Trip Reports submission page. For one, when creating a trip report, the category is auto-set for you and we decluttered the screen a bit. See Release Notes page for all the changes and let us know if you encounter any problems by using the contact form under the “About” menu at the top..
Be a publisher:
Do you have a news article or announcement that you think would be appropriate for the W6SOTA.org website? We’d love to hear about it. Some examples are:
Your MtnGoat journey with photos
Your SOTA travel adventures
Recent hardware builds or other gear reviews
Upcoming SOTA challenges and other events.
Use the contact form HERE to let us know so that we can help you publish.
We are hoping to grow the knowledge about W6 summits for others to use when they travel here. Consider creating a “Trip Report” (find out why HERE). You’ll need to have a login to add a trip report. If you don’t an account, register HERE. We strive to approve new account requests in under 24 hours.
Do you know a SOTA operator that isn’t subscribed to NorCalSOTA or SoCalSOTA mailing lists? Have them subscribe and join the conversation.
A huge thankyou to Carol, KE6SRN for authoring some of our news, adding Trip Reports, and playing editor for the Digest. You rock!!!