Growing SOTA activity in the Iberian-American countries

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Dear all, let me inform you that after checking the SOTA database today, I’ve found that on April 21st, the day of the last Trans-Atlantic S2S event, 2 SOTA activations were carried out from Central and South American countries and I have the feel that we didn’t know about them.

Allan, TI/K3ALL activated the 8 pointer summit of Cerro Barbacoas (TI/SJ-037) managing to log 4 QSOs on 40m SSB, all of them with chasers in Costa Rica (TI).

Fabio PY2RMZ and Billy-Heinz PY2LCD activated the 8 pointer summit of Pedra Grande (PY2/SE-002) managing Fabio to log 20 QSOs on 10m SSB with chasers from Argentina, Brazil, USA, Chile and Bolivia. Billy-Heinz logged just 2 QSOs with Brazilian chasers on 20m-SSB.

No S2S in any of these activations, but it’s a good start though.

It’s also worth highlighting a pioneer SOTA activation, already mentionned in the SOTA news May 2018, as it was the 1st in the XE2 association of Aguascalientes, Mexico, carried out by José XE2N from the summit XE2/AG-008. Just 1 QSO on 2m FM was logged with the chaser XE2AT.

Other SOTA activations took place in PY2 in April, like the one carried out by João Carlos PY2GTA/P from the 6 pointer summit PY2/SE-012, which was the 1st SOTA activation from Brazil, in which he logged a total of 17 QSOs on the bands/modes of 15 & 20m-DATA, 40 & 20m-SSB and 2m-FM, and also another activation carried out by PY2LCD from the summit PY2/SE-011, in which he didn’t log the minimum 4 QSOs required to claim the corresponding activator points :-(. In the first one, he logged 3 QSOs with Spain, Germany and USA on 15m-SSB.

We start to see some activators and chasers from the Iberian-American countries and it’s a joy that the interest and participation in SOTA are little by little growing.

We would love seeing in the SOTA Reflector the activation reports with the activators experiences and anecdotes, as well as the pictures of those summits and the landscapes that can be enjoyed from there and the portable stations that the activators set up to carry them out.

Best 73,

Guru

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Hi Guru.

Just to note that we have interest from PY for more associations. There is a lot of work to be done yet, but eventually we will bring more on line.

We also have an active team in LU. You can expect LUD, Buenos Aires, very soon, making a small start for Argentina.

Simon, G4TJC - Summits Team

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Guru,

if I recall correctly, there were 2 activations alerted for PY summits on the day of the NA <> EU S2S event. However, I do not recall seeing any spots otherwise I would have been looking for them on frequency and would have made a note on my logsheet.

As previously suggested, the next event in late September or October needs to be titled Trans-Atlantic S2S event to reflect the widening participation.

73, Gerald G4OIG

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Hi Gerald,
I don’t remember having seen alerts from PY for the S2S event, but, according to the information now available in the databse, we can see what it probably was a joint activation of the summit Pedra Grande PY2/SE-002 on that April 21st by Fabio @PY2RMZ and Billy-Heinz @PY2LCD.

I fully agree!

Cheers,

Guru

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I hope they will make good use of the alerts/spots facilities, or they may not get the promised pile-ups!

On a similar note ZB2GI was spotted on Friday. I don’t recall ZB2 getting spotted before. How did it go, I wonder?

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I was working a few EA and CT stations on 50MHz in the e-openings. Then ZB2GI came up also I worked 53/53 bothways and he said he was on “The top of the Rock” we completed the QSO and I left him working a few more. I thought that it was nice to work ZB2 as well as EA and CT, only then did the penny drop to check SOTA. So I put the spot up but he faded out shortly after. I e-mailed to verify he was OK for an activated summit and got this reply.

“The area I was operating from is within the SOTA area it is also in the nature reserve and qualifies for FF.
5watts here into a 3 element Yagi.”

My XYL is complaining I am going round now like a dog with two tails !

I had left the 50MHz antenna on the mast from the UKAC on Thursday so was just monitoring for e’s on Friday. 50MHz comes down in the next day or so to be replaced by 70MHz for UKAC on next Thursday.

I was running about 70W into a 6 ele G4CQM at 5m AGL.

I did hint to ZB2GI it would be nice to see an activation report on the database. There is only one activation entry.

No doubt Andy MM0FMF can check how many chasers have ZB2/GI-001 in their logs.

73 de

Andrew G4VFL

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ZB2GI worked 14 stations in his SOTA log, 8 of which are or were SOTA participants at some time but they haven’t logged yet.