yeah, transatlantic condx have been lousy for QRP lately
Well, I’ve just returned from my winter activation of E7/BO-039 and I may report that out of 14 QSO’s I made on 14MHz CW, three were with USA chasers and they gave me pretty good reports: N4EX/439, N1GB/559, and K4DY/559. (You’ve been missed, Barry.) Of course, this was a QRP-QRO combination, which is not quite the same as QRP-QRP, but with a bit advanced field antennas and some luck, I guess the incoming EU-NA S2S event might be a success…
VY 73’s!
Zoran / E70AA
Conditions weren’t exactly brilliant on 20m ssb yesterday afternoon, from GW/NW-070 Great Orme.
However, despite working with a short antenna, I managed 40 contacts, 11 of them North America.
So, it’s not all doom and gloom.
73 Mike
Propagation for EU-NA in April - predictions from FunkAmateur suggest the best chance for East Coast US would be between 2200 and 0600 UTC on 80, 60 or 40m. For West Coast between 0300 and 0600, again on the lower bands. For 20m the best times appear to be between 1400 & 1800 UTC for East Coast and between 1500 and 1800 for west coast (but west coast is going to be very difficult at this time).
Basically the low bands, if open will provide easy to copy S2S signals, for 20m they’re going to weak signals in the most part.
It’s a challenge!
Ed.
From experience, I would say an excellent choice of summit with a clear take-off over the sea. In each of the three previous NA-EU S2S events I have chosen summits with a good take-off to the north-west, but was surprised to see that I achieved more from Hensbarrow Downs than from Mynydd Anelog, especially on SSB.
| 19/11/2016 | Mynydd Anelog | GW/NW-077 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | Call | Band | Mode | Notes |
| 14:58z | W0NMA | 18MHz | CW | Larry, KS |
| 15:03z | NE4TN | 18MHz | CW | Walt, TN |
| 15:04z | W9MRH | 18MHz | CW | Mike, IN |
| 15:13z | K2VV | 18MHz | CW | John, MO |
| 15:15z | WB0WQS | 18MHz | CW | Kelly, MO |
| 15:17z | W4JKC | 18MHz | CW | Tom, SC |
| 15:19z | W7USA | 18MHz | CW | Ray, AZ |
| 15:53z | N1EU | 18MHz | CW | Barry on Berlin Mountain W2/EH-001 |
| 15:56z | WA7JTM | 18MHz | CW | Pete on Turkey Hills South W7A/CS-045 |
| 16:36z | N2NL | 18MHz | CW | Dave, FL |
| 16:38z | WC0Y | 18MHz | CW | Ward, IN |
| 16:40z | K0BLT | 18MHz | CW | Frank, NE |
| 16:44z | WB8OGK | 18MHz | CW | Bruce on Quabbin Hill W1/CR-013 |
| 16:50z | W3CDA | 18MHz | CW | John, DE |
| 17:04z | AC2KL | 14MHz | SSB | Kevin on Cayuga County HP W2/WE-031 |
| 17:21z | K2JB | 14MHz | CW | Dean on The Pinnacle W4C/CM-101 |
| 13/05/2017 | Muncaster Fell | G/LD-059 | ||
| 12:46z | KA1R | 14MHz | CW | Matt |
| 13:04z | K5QR | 14MHz | CW | Andrew, TX |
| 13:07z | N4EX | 14MHz | CW | Rich, NC |
| 13:10z | NS1TA | 14MHz | CW | S2S with Mike on Streaked Mtn W1/AM-074 |
| 13:20z | W4HBK | 14MHz | CW | Bill, FL |
| 14:04z | N4EX | 18MHz | CW | Rich, NC |
| 18/11/2017 | Hensbarrow Downs | G/DC-008 | ||
| 13:08z | N4EX | 18MHz | CW | Rich, NC |
| 13:14z | KN2CZZ | 18MHz | CW | John, NY |
| 13:36z | WG8Y | 18MHz | CW | Mark, NC |
| 13:46z | KG3W | 18MHz | CW | Scott, PA |
| 13:51z | N1EU | 18MHz | CW | Barry on Utsayantha Mountain, W2/GC-026 |
| 14:08z | NS1TA | 14MHz | CW | Mike on Mt. Megunticook, W1/EM-001 |
| 14:33z | KI4SVM | 14MHz | SSB | Pat on Dogback Mountain, W4C/EM-066 |
| 15:14z | VE2DDZ | 14MHz | CW | Malcolm on Rougemont VE2/ML-002 |
| 15:21z | WA7JTM | 14MHz | CW | Pete on Turkey Hills South, W7A/CS-045 |
| 15:32z | KB7HH | 14MHz | CW | Jack, AZ |
| 16:25z | WA7JTM | 18MHz | CW | Pete on Turkey Hills South, W7A/CS-045 |
| 16:33z | N3RTD | 18MHz | SSB | Shane, MD |
| 16:34z | WH6LE | 18MHz | SSB | Pete on Dogback Mountain, W4C/EM-066 |
| 16:35z | VE2JCW | 18MHz | SSB | Jean, QC |
| 16:36z | N1NUG | 18MHz | SSB | Robert, CT |
| 16:40z | VE1CHW | 18MHz | SSB | Rob, NS |
20m was “the” band last Spring which seems to fit in with the predictions referred to by Ed. It might be worth a punt on 30m, but whatever the band, it will certainly be a challenge.
73, Gerald G4OIG
I vote for October or November when the F2 will be best to EU. Not much chance of EU to AZ s2s contacts before that.
Dang the weather and full speed ahead.
Pete
WA7JTM
Arizona
As you rightly point out Gerald, Great Orme has an amazing take-of and in the good times a few years ago, it would produce plenty of DX and DXCCs. You would run out of batteries way before running out of Chasers from this one.
I did take a look at the other bands while I was there and if my experience is anything to go by, I don’t see much hope above 17m at the moment. Having said all this, it’s a brave man who predicts propagation four weeks away.
As part of Guru’s TEP experiment, I spent 20 minutes calling CQ on 10m, with not a single contact to show for it. There was some activity on 15m, but for the most part, hardly worth wasting the precious battery, chasing weak signals.
So, 20m will probably be the honey hole on the 21st April, however, there has been the odd smattering of Es around on 10m, (sadly, not yesterday) and as we all know, that could be a game changer
73 Mike
Well Pete, the general feeling has been that November is too late in the year which creates problems in terms of the weather for some. September has been put forward as an alternative, but maybe we can compromise with a date in October. Plenty of time to decide.
In the meantime, I will probably be rolling out the secondary callsign at this end and activating one of the summits more local to me on 21st April rather than travelling to a Unique further afield. Still no notification of my impending surgery, so I will be continuing with SOTA until I hear - next month could still be out if I get the call.
73, Gerald G4OIG
20m is no doubt the band for contacts between EU and NA right now.
In today’s activation, I managed 25 QSOs in the log, 13 of which were DX with North-America and 1 was my very 1st S2S QSO with George KX0R.
This is the log:
Count me in for the 21st of April.
73,
Guru
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we may well have some “company” on April 21st:
Several contests from various parts of the world but luckily no one “big” contest and nowadays finding a weekend without a contest is nigh on impossible.
Let’s hope there’s some space left in the “contest free” parts of the bands (where these are implemented / respected).
73 Ed.
Hi Gerald,
as we are just 8 days away from this event, I’m surprised that more people have not yet alerted.
Time to “rattle the cage” guys, For UK/Europe, this is an afternoon activation - no getting up at “oh is it really that early O’clock” to get to the summit.
73 Ed.
Definitely take your time. 1200Z is still too early for us on this side of the pond. 
That being said, I will try and be on the air by 1300Z.
73 Barry N1EU
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We’ll be in EA8 Ed. Taking part from a Lanzarote summit sounds appealing, but our SOTA activations from there are likely to be early morning affairs - I still like being married…
That said, Marianne has suggested she would like to go for a walk if Jimmy identifies a suitable route that is to her taste. If that just happened to be on the Saturday afternoon, then who knows…?
My problem is that the summit I have chosen is a good 2 hours drive away, so my return time is controlled. Perhaps I’ll look at a closer alternative and go a bit later in the day.
Ed.
I’d love to, but unfortunately it clashes with some event in London 
There’s an event almost every weekend and the result is a degree of blasé acceptance by activators. There’s no real need to make a big effort for Weekend X because there’s Weekend Y next week and Weekend Z the following week.
Do I make an effort to go out at some less than comfortable time irrespective of the WX? Or do I wait till the WX is good the week after and do that event? When there’s nothing special about an event because it’s become the norm, there’s no need to make an extra effort.
As it happens, I’ll be out for this one but the alert can wait till nearer the time.
YMMV… and probably does.
Well, what I can tell you is that there will be 30+ activators attending the W4 campout next weekend so there should be plenty of activations in our corner of NA. I know many of our group are holding off on decisions on summits till we get to the campground and finalize joint-activations and summit scheduling for multiple activations of the same summit in a day. I hope the conditions will allow for some NA<>EU activity.
73, pat - KI4SVM
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I’m going to a big family party that day, but I may be lucky enough to sneak away early, there is a very suitable summit nearby. In that case, I may have to activate in a suit. I hope this counts for extra points 
I won’t know if I can activate until that day, so there won’t be any alerts for me.
Caffeine, large amounts required for me. I will be home from work by 0500z,then head out my 0900z for my proposed activation time.
edit: It looks like possibly 3-6 stations from VE6 land.
Malen
VE6VID
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12 UTC would be 8AM for you? That’s a perfectly descent time to open the door to the tent and watch the sunrise 
Just remember to rig the antenna before going to sleep.
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