Holiday in Tenerife

GW0PLP, G0FEX and GM0AXY all heard clearly here. Shame you couldn’t here us :frowning:

Still calling…

He isn’t going to be heard on 14.319 there are stations close in on both sides audible in the UK

Yèeeeeeeeeessssss!

Thanks EA7HW!

Now to employ Operation Code FMF…

What’s that? Ice cold beer with vodka martini chasers in an air-conditioned bar with dancing girls? Or an ice-cream by the hotel pool?

:grin:

I think this was required prior to the visit to the bar or pool, but who cares, that’s this evening’s entertainment. :wink:

Ooh, you sybarite - I never progressed past a “half and a half”!

Brian

Amateur!

Well nobody pays me for it!

Brian

Finally managed to qualify Rojar EA8/TF-019 after hours struggling for QSOs. Here is my log of the QSOs made (times are in UTC).

0909 EA2DT 14-ssb
1039 EA7GTJ 14-ssb
1258 EA7HW 14-ssb
1333 EA8/M1EYP/M 145-fm

I heard plenty of chasers calling me and I have been give to give reports to these chasers, but none of them could actually hear me.

Jimmy M0HGY

More than 1 hour per QSO. There’s perseverance!

Well done Jimmy.

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You could have learned enough CW in 4.5hours to be able to QSO @ 5wpm !

Points for perseverance though.

It was 144MHz FM when you worked me Jimmy, when I was nearly back at the car. Sure that’s just a typo! Not the most satisfying way to conclude an activation, but at least it’s an unexpected bonus SOTA Complete for me!

Important lesson learned today. Signals from G were huge on 20m CW just before sunrise. On the other activation we plan this holiday, Jimmy will begin on 20m SSB. Once he’s qualified, he can go and fiddle with his VHF nonsense while I secure my own qualification on the generally superior mode of CW!

This will probably give me more chance of getting QSOs than Jimmy experienced once that sun starts rising anyway! Those QSO times he quoted don’t even tell the whole story - he was QRV and calling CQ before 0720z. Can’t fault his determination… Good job I remembered my sunhat and shades this time - I forgot to take them up EA8/TF-002 last year due to starting before light!

Anyway, that’s the allocated “full day out SOTAing” pass gone. We were hoping to cash that in later in the holiday - but failing to be back for breakfast had us both agreeing not to push our luck with the Station Manager.

We’ll do one more early morning activation - but alter strategy as above to make sure we don’t again eat into the day - we’re only allowed to do that once on family holidays!

Our sincere thanks to the many people who tried valiantly to make HF SSB contact with Jimmy. Frustratingly, you were all good signals here on the 'Reef, but you couldn’t hear Jim. Mind you the alkaline batteries were very quick to deteriorate. We thought it might be easier just to buy some out here rather then try and get the rechargeables through airport security, but performance was poor. Two full sets of 8 totally expended for 3 contacts!!!

At least Jim had the bright idea of putting the first set back in after the second set failed. That worked, they had somehow “rallied” and afforded sufficient juice to work EA7HW.

The swim in the hotel pool in the 30 degree Canarian sunshine and the poolside Cerveza Grandes were very welcome indeed upon our return.

An outrage! Bonus completes… hrrrmph.I wonder if I can get Mrs. FMF through an MM6 course before we journey to EA8 later this year?

I’ll expect the report on the air-conditioned bar etc. later.

Took me a lot longer than that back in 1970, when my brain was young and pliable.

I like the respectable amount of time before resorting to Operation Code FMF. I think I’d have been desperate to get off the hill and back to base for a beer. Congratulations on qualification of the summit and displaying patience way beyond the call of duty. Enjoy the rest of your time out there… and you will be pleased to know we are due a pasting over the next few days.

73, Gerald G4OIG

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Thanks for the nice comments Gerald. Your analysis is partly true; Jimmy did make every effort to obtain a 4th “proper” contact before OCFMF was deployed.

However, much of that time gap is accounted for by me packing up and descending to the signpost Jimmy told me to get to before calling him on VHF. This was considerably outside the AZ, I’d say about 100m lower. He also continued calling CQ while I got myself to the agreed point.

The other one has my priority today; I type this from a water park where I have just been frightening myself stupid on white knuckle water slides. Scarier than NW-006? Not quite!

Jimmy is having a more sensible day hanging round the hotel pool and bar with Marianne. Looking like Monday for the other activation.

Presumably Liam is now strong enough to force your arm up your back! Let’s hope there is enough left of you to carry out another activation… and let’s hope you have much better conditions. Seems like I am living inside a Faraday cage at the moment with just one contact on 20m CW today. It can’t last… or can it? :frowning:

I’m sorry you found Tryfan scary!

For me the only summit in NW that was a bit scary on first acquaintance was Crib Goch - fortunately it isn’t a SOTA summit, setting up a station on that crowded little sloping rock platform would be problematic, to say the least!

Brian

Oh, that is good news - so a MM6 callsign can be legitimately used in EA? This presumably means that I can activate throughout Europe (at least) on my M6BWA?? We will look at the holiday brochures tonight.

Congrats Jimmy - I admire your tenacity and well remember the extra hour + that we spent in June 2015 on GI/AH011 Cross Slieve trying to get the 4th 2m FM contact - without success. At least, on that occasion I had taken the precaution of qualifying on 40m (which in those days gave some chance of contacts). Unfortunately, just a month later, on GW/MW-016 Pen y Garn-goch I hadn’t realised that I was going to be completely stuck on 3 2m and 3 70cm (the same 3 people, of course) and M0JLA had taken his aerial down. As I had activated the hill before I couldn’t be bothered to ask Rod to walk down the hill for the vital 4th so it really was a pointless exercise as far as I was concerned (but the views on the way down were good). It just shows how much we activators are so dependent on those chasers out there - without them it really does ALL become pointless!! Thank you all very much. Good luck Jimmy on your next activation.

Viki M6BWA

After I wrote that Vicki I sat there looking at it thinking I should have got Mrs. FMF licenced last time and I could have had plenty of EA8/LA completes. I wondered why I only thought of it now. Then remembered she wouldn’t be able to operate overseas. Which was why I didn’t do it last year!