SOTA Sloth Award

There are numerous awards available in the Summits on the Air (SOTA) program. There are awards for activators and chasers alike, and just about any way you want to slice and dice the data, there is probably an award for it. There are certificates and trophies and you can pick the increments (in steps of 100) on the certificates. There are however two benchmark awards, the SOTA Sloth Award for working summits totalling 1,000 points and the SOTA Goat award for activating summits totalling 1,000 points. The "Goat" is obviously much tougher but both qualify you for a very nice glass trophy depicted below.

Today I qualified for the SOTA Sloth award, working W6UB on 40m from Black Balsam Knob in North Carolina to put me over the 1,000 point level. It has been a lot of fun to get to this point and honestly the program is quite addicting. A synonym for the award is SOTAholic, which is very appropriate. Since peaks can be worked once each day for points there is no worrying if you need it or not and you always have something to work.

The SOTA community are usually well versed not only in QRP operation, but also in hiking and backpacking. There is a Yahoo group (nasota) that has many knowledgeable members on the best way to get to the top of the mountain and put out a good signal. So if you are inclined toward such things, you would enjoy the program.

So I suppose my slothfulness has be officially certified and I can no longer deny it. I can't wait go get the award.

More information on SOTA can be found at http://www.sota.org.uk/