It may seem that way Andy, but the majority over the last few weeks have not been organised events, rather individuals (including myself) who refuse to give up on the radio conditions and head out, in some cases at early hours, hoping to make contacts while at the same time finding (and hopefully fixing) problems in their portable equipment.
As the contest season gets into full swing, I suspect there will be less and less of the early morning activations at least - but then I could be wrong…
Well I am certainly keen to make some trans-Atlantic contacts next weekend. It will be the last outing for me for a while as I undergo surgery on 26th April.
I was up Blackhope Scar GM/SS-094 yesterday and Phil VE1WT and Rich N4EX were able to work me on 20m CW at around 13:30z. I was running the 817 into an inverted vee dipole. Next weekend I will be using the 857 to a vertical, so hopefully a few more will make my log.
Hello Pat,
I want to let you know that we will have 4 activators on a hill in Alberta (VE6/RA-100 Buffalo Hill) before dawn (1230z) on Saturday the 21st. VOACAP is predicting good propagation from 1200z to 1230z on 80m between Alberta and the Eastern US, so I was hoping that there might be some interest in S2S across NA, as well as across the Atlantic.
I think we will have activity here on 80, 40 20 and 17m
So please consider contacts this way.
We will certainly be looking for y’all on Saturday. It is also the NA SOTA Spring Activity Weekend and we SOTA activators are an indiscriminate lot - we don’t care where the S2Ss/contacts come from, we will take them all!
I’ve just received an email pointing to the possibility of having some activators from TI (Costa Rica) during this event.
That would be a great news and I hope other american associations like CX and PY2 join the event too, so we can change its name from NA<>EU to AMERICA<>EU. Or we could just rename it to TRANSATLANTIC S2S event, so our South-African collegues can join the event too… What do you think about it?
73,
Yes yes ! #MeToo !
I will be participating from EA8, so that is Spain, but it is really AF <> NA , hi
So yes, Transatlantic would be a more suitable name.
I’m leaving on Wednesday, my first activation will be be on Friday to test my setup … and on Saturday I will be on a summit (not decided which one yet), and I will stay on air as long as I can, all bands and modes that I hear signals on. Maybe also PSK and/or FT8.
Hope to hear many callers.
73 Luc, EA8/ON7DQ
I should be on a summit saturday morning for this s2s event. I will work as many s2s stations as i can hear…hopefully the propagation gods will grant me at least one EU s2s contact.
I should be on by 1400 ish.
Pretty sure 17 and 20 meters will be the only options for EU.
It seems that those linking their QRPTTF and SOTA activations together have the best idea - propagation predictions suggest the best chance of a contact will be around dusk in Europe, so after 1700/1800 UTC. Of course these are ONLY predictions.
This is UK to eastern US - 20w SSB and dipoles in rural (quiet) locations. (and this is a general prediction for the month, not specifically for Saturday).
I have added an alert for Saturday, although I have to work starting at 1400 so I must be off the summit by 1300. I hope to activate completely on S2S. I will be limited to 15W on the KX3 and will likely stick to CW.
I haven’t received my Chinese fishing pole in the mail yet. Had I, I’d probably set up a parasitic reflector for my vertical to double my signal into EU.
CW looks somewhat better (of course with 10dB gain over SSB) and 13:00 UTC should be OK into the UK from Eastern US - heres the prediction with 15W CW:
Are other activators signed up with Facebook? I was thinking a group messaging/chat would be an efficient way to coordinate s2s attempts, assuming everyone has smartphone internet connections. Thoughts?
I can be found on Facebook by searching my callsign.
VOCAP prediction for NA <-> EU from W9/IL-007 peaks at 1800z as well – 50% chance. I’m planning on being qrv an hour before that at least to work the locals.
I’ve also got a nice drop-off, so fingers crossed.
I prefer whatsapp over facebook messenger for these sorts of things because the application is so much less bulky, but it requires getting numbers and whatnot. I’ll probably just watching the spots and spend the time chasing.
