HOTA Seasons – history on the air

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The HOTA 2023 season marked the very beginning of the entire initiative. In July 2023, Michał SQ9CAP, while walking his dog in the forest, came across one of the mining heaps. A short climb to the top and a moment of reflection were enough for the idea to emerge: take a radio and try making contacts from heaps. This is how the HOTA concept was born.

At that time, there was no special event callsign and no dedicated equipment. The setup was simple: a Baofeng, later an Alinco DR-138, and a faithful companion on every activation – the dog Gacuś. The entire activity was limited to three heaps: Murcki, Kostuchna and Skalny, and operated exclusively on the 2 m FM band.

Throughout the whole season, only five activations took place. Contacts were made mainly with stations from Poland, with two stations from the Czech Republic also logged. Despite Michał’s enthusiasm, something was missing, and in October the activations were paused while ideas began to form on how to make the project more visible and engaging.