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21 Apr 2018 NA<>EU S2S event Pt 2

#41

Beautiful wx on my little 1pt hill in southern Illinois but cdx were bad – very noisy and lots of QSB that frequently made it difficult to complete QSOs. I was on the hill a little later than planned, but there were still several EU ops working. Sadly, I heard their chasers but wasn’t able to hear/work any of them. I was on the hill for about 2 hours or so.

I did have more S2Ss than I have had on all activations up till now. I also called to another summit for the first time, which was quite fun.

At some point it dawned on me how fascinating this all was: around the world a bunch of fine people were sitting on the tops of mountains with little radio stations trying their best to contact each other. I am still new enough to this all to be able to view that from a non-ham perspective (I think!) and I think it’s pretty damn cool.

73,
Joe

#42

Hi Barry, here at my rural location in Central Europe, the noise floor is back down to S2 from S6 to S7 yesterday both here at home and when out portable (portable is often S1).

Perhaps it’ll take a little longer to happen for you as you are behind time wise?

73 Ed.

#43

Nothing but noise (up to S5 at times) for me and a few others. Ian (VE6IXD) got 1 S2S using my 2 wire inverted V dipole yagi at the last moment. Had a nice predawn walk and the coffee tasted better than normal afterwards.

Malen
VE6VID

#44

Indeed!

#45

Hi Ed,
We like your optimistic predictions even when they turn out to be, well, too optimistic :smiley:
Today, the 20m band was much quieter than yesterday, but I still couldn’t hear any transatlantic traffic. Maybe it’s because I was out on the hill too early. As we can see from all these reports, the only truly successful participant in the NA<>EU event was Robert, DK2RO, who did his transatlantic business after 17:00Z. It looks like staying on the hill overnight was the key for success in this little game of ours.
Cheers,
Zoran / E70AA

#46

based on his posting, I believe Robert had one EU-NA s2s at 1659Z

many participants had one or more EU-NA s2s qso’s at various hours, both early and late

there were MANY truly successful participants in the event

73, Barry N1EU

#47

Being a follower of Dr. Zadeh and Comp’s fuzzy theory, I hope I can be excused for the noticed imprecision :blush:
73’s!
Zoran / E70AA

#48

As for number of TransAtlantic S2S, Roman DL3TU was the winner on the East side of the Atlantic Ocean with 2 S2S, one with VE2DDZ at 16h58 and the other with KQ2RP at 17h39, both on 20m CW, but Barry N1EU was the winner of the West side and the absolute winner with 5 S2S QSO across the Pond with GW8CXK, HB9BIN, DL4FO, CT1DBS, and LZ1GJ.
It looks like propagation West to East behaved different to East to West.
Barry N1EU found 17m in pretty good shape and 20m providing good contacts earlier than what we found in EU.
Roman experience matches well with what I had noticed and pointed in this thread the few days before,
1- 20m CW would provide the best chances and
2- best time would be from ±17h until sunset.

Congrats Roman @DL3TU and mainly Barry @N1EU :clap: :clap: :trophy:

73,

Guru

#49

Tnx to all for the qso’s!
I had a good time on 40m to 15m, both ssb and cw, from two different summits.
And to all those I had a S2S with, remember that you actually worked AFRICA ! hi

I listened on all spotted frequencies for NA, but couldn’t hear any of them …

And yes, that is me sitting in the near freezing cold on Pico de las Nieves EA8/GC-001
Temp was 5°C, but windchill was -1°C. Pic taken by Tino EA8CLF

IMG_8864
IMG_8864.JPG4608×3456 1.82 MB

73, Luc EA8/ON7DQ (note that I don’t use /P , the call is already long enough, and it is not a rule in Spain to use it)

#50

Well - thanks, but let us give credit where it is due: Barry, N1EU, managed to log five transatlantic S2S QSOs.
Or - as he wrote earlier:

there were MANY truly successful participants in the event.

From propagation point of view I still agree with you: Propagation to NA on 20m peaked at around 17:00 UTC. A little experiment with RBN stations in NA during the week supported this approach. Propagation on 17m was almost non-existent. Of course propagation can change from day to day, especially after an impact as we have seen on April 19th.

73, Roman - DL3TU

#51

He was the “winner” in the EU–> NA direction only. Doesn’t the NA --> EU direction count?

73, Barry N1EU

#52

No. It’s much easier that way! :rofl: Going EU->NA is uphill and so harder!

#53

fwiw, not my experience. Propagation to EU on 20m seemed steady 1330-1700Z (didn’t seem to be improving) and propagation on 17m was much better at times than 20m.

Sorry Guru, this really doesn’t make sense to me - I’m making contacts with EU stations that are just above my noise floor and at the same time, EU stations must be hearing me just above their noise floor as well. So how is the band open earlier for me than EU??? If that were the case, I would be hearing more EU stations than were hearing me and I’d be calling and calling and not being heard. That wasn’t the case.

73, Barry N1EU

#54

Hi Robert,
Is it a manufactured or a homemade beam? If the latter, are there any additional details available and where? I guess we all could benefit from building such things for the next TransAtlantic event.
TU & 73’s!
Zoran / E70AA

#55

Things were different the other way (maybe really because it is uphill :wink:
Within the time frame I was on, signal levels were changing rapidly:

rbn

And please don’t forget: The southern part of EU often enjoys openings of 17m and 15m while we only hear Rx noise.

73, Roman

#56

Sure it does. I’m so sorry for my mistake, Barry. I did read your after event post and thought WOW! when read all the S2S QSOs you had made,

but I must be getting old :older_man: and by the time I wrote my post saying Roman was winner, I had forgotten your outstanding achievement. Please, excuse me.
Let me edit that previous post and correct my error saying that Roman is the winner on the East side of the Pond and you are the winner of the West side as well as the absolute winner. :clap: :trophy: :clap:
Congratulation, Barry.
73,

Guru

#57

everyone who got out on a summit yesterday was a winner :grinning:

#58

I’d even say everyone playing SOTA is a winner, either chasing or activating, because it’s so much fun…
Cheers,

Guru

#59

It would be very interesting to investigate this possible propagation difference between the two sides of the Atlantic. This reminds me what a JA ham told me some years ago, after a QSO we had on 80m, about their experience in JA with signals from EU getting to JA better or easier than the other way around.
We may have something similar between the 2 sides of the Atlantic and it’s something to investigate. Perhaps it’s already been investigated and there are several technical articles about that, but I’ve never heard/read of such.
Has anyone any information about this?
73,

Guru

#60

Ahem… I worked Kevin AC2KL on 20m SSB and Barry N1EU on 20m CW. No worry, we are all winners as Barry says. Full report to follow tomorrow when I have checked and edited it.

73, Gerald GW8CXK/P (aka G4OIG)