Eric June (KU6J) was a key participant and contributor to the SOTA world. As the W6 Northern Sierra (NS) Regional Manager, Eric knew his territory through being an all weather activator of peaks in and around Lake Tahoe and beyond. Eric felt passionate about SOTA and to that end he created regional awards to promote the enjoyment of SOTA in his stunningly beautiful part of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. However, the most significant and lasting contribution he made is the auto spotting software for CW SOTA activators. The utility was groundbreaking and has served many across the globe exceptionally well. It represents a selfless contribution in terms of hours, days, weeks spent developing and testing the software all to make our passion more enjoyable and efficient for us.

Our recent trek up Eric’s mountain (W6/NS-204) was an easy commitment for this team to undertake. Eric was first to activate this peak, is in his backyard and represents the intersection of skiing, hiking and the wilderness all of which he loved so much.

Eric’s peak is up at about 7,500 ft and snow has come early this year to the Sierras. While only about a mile and a bit long, the trail runs out half way in and the last three hundred feet or so of vertical ascent is through trees and over fallen timber. All very picturesque but treading carefully is a must.

Given Eric’s CW contribution, Rick (WB0USI) and Woody (K1LB) as our CW operators deploy their stations and are up on 20m/40m respectively quickly.

We probably netted around 200 contacts between us on 20/40m using CW and SSB.