September 8-9 is the NA-SOTA Weekend and is also the ARRL VHF Contest. It's a
chance to make contacts and connections between SOTA and the VHF community.
Getting four contacts on VHF from any SOTA summit should be easy this weekend - after you entertain the regular chasers on HF perhaps you'd consider moving to VHF. (You might find Péter, W7/HG1DUL, activating Mount Adams.)
Note that most SSB activity uses horizontally polarized antennas while FM uses vertical - I've still had plenty of luck on 2m SSB with a 5/8 vertical, but try tipping that whip sideways to see if it makes a difference.
Know your grid square as that's the contest exchange - hopefully they'll give you a signal report too. See http://www.arrl.org/september-vhf for more information. The Oregon and Idaho ARM have grid squares for each summit and so does sotadata.org (http://www.sotadata.org.uk/summitReport.aspx).
Standard SSB calling frequencies are:
50.125 MHz
144.200 MHz
432.100 MHz
Standard FM calling frequencies are:
52.525 MHz
Don't use 146.52 FM for contest-like activity - perhaps try 146.55 or 146.58
446.000 MHz
See these links for more information:
http://www.k0nr.com/rwitte/vhf_contest.html
<p>Sorry guys, but I had to cancel this trip on the 3rd day. Woke up Friday morning with a headache. Climbed up to 10 600ft and get back to the tent for sleep. My headache did not go away, so I took one aspirin and left LC. Such a shame to miss this great WX opportunity on this notoriously windy summit. Will try again next summer.</p>