W5RJD's SOTA Gear List

I wanted to write about the gear I use on summits now that I’ve had a little experience with what works and what doesn’t.  I am still fine-tuning things but I’ve settled on a basic set of gear that seems to cover all the situations I have run into.  Note, I generally do drive up summits and relatively short (6 miles one way or less) hikes, and I would modify this list accordingly if I were doing longer hikes and/or overnights and backpacking style trips.

I keep most of this gear in plastic bags to keep it dry, especially if I do something stupid like let my pack fall off into a river.  Some of the more important items like the radios I double bag.  I label the outside of the bags so I know what goes in it.  This is very helpful when you are packing up so you don’t lose something that fell on the ground or under a log while you were operating.

Of course, the most important thing for any SOTA activation is being able to make contacts!  I carry both HF and UHF/VHF wherever I go.  Certain summits are better for VHF than others, and sometimes the noise is so much of a problem on one that you have to switch radios.

My primary VHF/UHF setup is a Kenwood TH-D74 HT.  This radio has built in APRS/GPS that is very easy to use and can be used for sending and receiving SOTA spots using the APRSgateway, or as a beacon for tracking, which can come in handy in remote places so that your route is mapped (assuming of course, there are APRS digipeaters that cover the area you are hiking).  I set up my Kenwood D710 in the car as a temporary fill-in digipeater, so if it’s parked at a trailhead and can hear my HT, it will repeat the beacons at higher power with a better antenna so it’s more likely the wide digipeaters will hear my transmissions. When I do this, I put a car jump start battery in the back of the car just in case the radio goes nuts and runs down the car battery.

I have several other HT's as well such as an AnyTone AT-D878UV, and may substitute the Kenwood for a less expensive radio if I expect to be going into harsher conditions.  Dropping the Kenwood on soft ground is one thing, but dropping it on granite rock is something different.

For a VHF/UHFantenna, I carry an Ed Fong DBJ-2 dual band rollup J-Pole and a couple of female BNC to male and female SMA adapters that will attach to the D74 or any other HT I might have with me that has either male or female SMA.  And there's a bonus here because the SMA male and female connect together to make a female BNC barrel connector.  The Ed Fong is lightweight and can be hoisted up a tree very easily.  Ed even ships it with a tie wrap at the end which is perfect to attach to the hoist line.

I sometimes carry a couple of antennas for the HT that work better than the stock antenna.  I have a telescoping VHF antenna with a little gain, as well as a Diamond SRH77CA.  Sometimes I leave these home if I’m not planning on doing VHF to save some weight – but I always carry the Ed Fong.  These antennas come in both male and female SMA to match to your radio.

I love my HF setup.  I used an Elecraft KX3 on my first SOTA activation and was very impressed with it, but it was slightly larger than I wanted.  The extra features of the KX3 are nice but I decided to forgo them and buy an Elecraft KX2.  This little radio is amazing.  It is only 13 ounces, up to 10 watts on the internal battery and 12 watts on an external battery, and you can do 2-3 activations on the internal battery before you even notice the voltage dropping.  A spare battery can be plugged right into the side power port so you don’t have to open the radio to replace it.  I bought the KX2 Shack in a Box with ATU, RTC, and microphone, and added the key paddle so I could use it for both SSB and CW.  The kit came with the same BNC binding posts that my antenna came with, so now I have a spare one as well. I also purchased the Side KX end panels and cover combo to give the radio extra protection when it is in my pack.  They were a little more expensive than I thought they should be, but the peace of mind of not getting the screen scratched or cracked is worth it, which is probably why they are priced where they are.  It's a little scary to install them as you have to take apart the BNC antenna input a bit, so be careful not to damage it.

For an HF Antenna, I carry a Sotabeams Bandspringer Midi endfed for 10m-60m coverage.  It actually tunes up with the KX2 ATU decently well on 80m in most setups, and tunes 60m through 10m perfectly (including 17m and 15m) with 1.2:1 or less.  So far, it’s performed well on every situation I’ve put it in.  You just have to get one end up off the ground about 10 ft or more, and then run the counterpoise along the ground.

Sometimes trees are not available and you have to use a mast.  I use a carbon fiber 6 from SotaBeams, which is a 19.6 ft mast that is very lightweight.  I carry some guying string and antenna insulators that allow me to support the end fed at the second mast segment at the top, giving me antenna support at just under 19 ft which seems to work just fine.

To help with staking down the antenna and guys, I carry a few lightweight tent stakes and an ultralight camping hammer.  The hammer adds a few ounces to the pack where I might be able to use a rock instead, but I find I sometimes use the hammer as a weight to throw up a pull line into a tree.  This makes it worth the carry weight.

To pull the antennas up into trees, I carry both a length of 550 paracord and some fishing line.  I found a little tactical pouch on Amazon that holds the spool of fishing line perfectly.  I use this pouch frequently by filling it with rocks at the summit and throwing it up into the tree.  It’s another weight I can use to raise the 550 or the fishing wire.  Frankly, I haven’t used the fishing wire that much, but I still carry it because it is lighter and could be thrown higher than the 550.

You need something to record contacts.  I have a logging program in my iPhone called Hamlog that works reasonably well and creates a CSV file you can massage into uploading to the SOTA Data site, but I find there’s nothing like having a pen and notebook to write stuff down.  It’s too easy to fat finger a call sign on the iPhone, so I don't often use the app.  My notepad of choice is the Rite-in-the-Rain small notebook, with the notepad cover kit and an extra pen that slides into the outside pouch of the case.  Yes they are expensive, and yes you can use a cheap notepad and pens.  But I’ve used these on summits when it’s raining and it actually does write in the rain!  I would have lost all my contacts at one summit were it not for the rainproof paper.

I am very active in Scouting so I am programmed to always carry the ten essentials with me anyplace I go.  The most important essential is water.  I carry 32 ounces on most summits, and double it to 64 ounces on any hike more than 8 miles round trip or when it is hot out.  On a multi day trip I'd also add a water purification system.

For the rest, I carry a headlight, some basic first aid, a decent compass, waterproof matches, sunscreen, inspect repellant wipes, snacks, a simple bandana for wiping hands or to use as a first aid cloth, and a little toilet paper and some disinfectant wipes for those times you just can't hold it in the woods.  I always carry a hat and a waterproof jacket - although I admit I sometimes leave them in the car when I shouldn't have.  I also leave a spare shirt, underwear, socks, and jeans in the car no matter where I go - there have been some times where they have come in handy.  Looking at this photo, I realize I don't have "shelter" so I will be adding at least a space blanket or survival bivvy to the kit.  I carry one in the car, but that's not going to help me on the trail.

Instead of a pocket knife, I carry a multitool with a sharp knife.  I like the Leatherman Wave a lot but I’m considering buying a Leatherman MUT because it has better wire cutters and a crimper, plus a small hammer that might be able to replace my other hammer.  Still pondering this one a bit since I own a couple of Waves.  A multi tool adds more weight than a basic pocket knife, but the extra tools are really nice to have when you need them.

There are a few accessories I’ve learned are nice to have with you.  They do add a little weight, but they are all worth having when you need it.  I think one of the most important items is some extra (charged) batteries, both for the HT and the HF radio. I put them in plastic bags and then double bag them to protect them from water.  On long hikes I may carry additional spare batteries for the HT if I'm using APRS tracking, but I find the KX2 does just fine for 8 hours of operating with just the one spare and the one in the radio.

I carry a Sotabeams 2m band pass filter and a male SMA barrelconnector so I can connect it to any SMA HT regardless of it's connector.  This thing has made VHF usable at some of the summits where there has been major interference.  It’s very light, and I’ve used it twice so far, so it will stay in the pack for when I need it.

In the front of my pack is a small lightweight backpacking tarp and an inflating seat cushion.  Sometimes you have to operate on the ground.  The tarp helps to protect your stuff from getting wet, and the seat cushion is very useful to give you a pad to sit on.  I use the cushion a lot on wet park benches and when I’m sitting on rocks or logs.  Makes for a more comfortable activation.  Both are very lightweight and pack down into almost no space.

With the Ed Font roll up antenna, I purchased a couple of 6 foot extensions of RG-174 cables.  I can attach these to either the dual band roll up or the BNC on the Sotabeams HF end fed if I need to separate the antenna farther away from the operating position than I’d like, and it gives me 12 ft of extension.  There is some loss in this coax, but I’ve worked New Zealand on HF with a couple of these in place so it doesn’t seem to be much of a problem.  Ed Fong sells this very cheaply and I purchased two segments with the roll up for $5 each.  His cable has a BNC male at one end and a BNC female at the other end, so you can just extend with another length without needing a barrel connector.  I carry around one male barrel so I can turn this into a cable with male BNC at both ends when I need to, but I usually find the male/female configuration works with this setup the best.  I also have the female barrel I can make from the rollup HT adapters if I need to, so I've got all the BNC's covered.

I carry a bag of some spare parts, such as the spare BNC binding post adapter, some extra spare plastic guy insulators and small small tie wraps.  So far I haven’t used much of it but it isn't much weight to have some extra stuff.

I really like the Nifty mini-manuals for reference when you just can't remember how to get to the noise blanker or operate the APRS.  They are very concise, well formatted, and contain all the radio operating info I would likely need to look up. I usually carry one for both the HT and the KX2.

And finally, Peter was using this Gorilla Grip seat cushion that actually makes a better table than a seat.  It’s just the right size for the KX2 and a notepad.  I purchased one for my kit.  Unfortunately it was too big to fit in my original pack so I had to upgrade to a slightly larger pack.  So now I’m trying really hard to not fill it with other stuff.

My pack weighs around 9-11 pounds currently depending on what of this I carry (the water is the big variable).  Most of this stuff, except the water, radios and batteries, is very lightweight, and it all seems to work really well for summit activations.

As I experiment with more gear, I'll update this in the future with new things I find I need.