The management team of the Summits on the Air (SOTA) programme have just announced their new SOTA Challenge for 2026 and it's for operating SSB & CW on the 2m and 70cms bands.
Their last challenge was for the year 2024 and that was for the 28 MHz (10m) band. See previous post HERE.
SOTA is a very popular awards programme and it most of the activity on the HF bands. Any SOTA activity on the VHF bands tends to be on FM on 145 MHz so it would be nice to see more activity on SSB & CW on 144 MHz & 432 MHz.
Here is an excerpt from the SOTA posting...
2m/70cm SSB/CW
Many activators and chasers will have access to equipment already for these bands and modes - whether the old faithful FT-817 and FT-857s or newer options like the 2m option for the KX3, the timely CW modification to the cheap and cheerful Quansheng handhelds or the ubiquitous 2m transverter kits available on various auction sites for relatively low cost.
Many antenna options are available, whether lightweight Yagis, Hentennas, Oblongs, Quads, Flowerpots or J-poles (Slim or otherwise). Many propagation modes are available.
This should provide an interesting and challenging year for each individual participating, where the activators and chasers will have their work cut out to make QSOs under different conditions and via different means.
Scoring format: - Given that SSB and CW are considered useful as DX modes on these bands, points will be awarded based on distance, number of summits activated and unique callsigns logged in an activation.
Activators: - Your score will be 1pt/km for each QSO with a unique callsign (per summit) activated within the year, multiplied by the number of unique summits activated.
Chasers: Your score will be 1pt/km for each QSO with a unique callsign (per summit) chased within the year, multiplied by the number of unique summits chased.
Dates: 1 January 0000 UTC to 31 December 2359 UTC 2026
***
Over the last few years, there has been an exodus from modes like SSB and CW to data modes like FT8. Hopefully this programme will encourage people to check the SSB portions of the VHF bands more often.
Keep an eye on the dx-cluster for SOTA activity... https://sotawatch.sota.org.uk/en/
If there is any activity near you then give them a call as they may need to make a certain number of contacts for it to be a valid activation of a summit.
More info here... https://reflector.sota.org.uk/t/2026-sota-challenge/39799
SOTA website... https://www.sota.org.uk/
