Maybe a combination thereof depending in the wx.
I shall be trolling in SSB mostly on 20m with maybe 40m and 15m thrown into the mix.
Given the current propagation I doubt my 5w will make it to Europe but ya never know!
Maybe I can manage Australia/NZ.
I’ll be testing the T1 as well.
I’ll try to get onto aprs.fi via DPRS. I need to re-start my hotspot in Echigo-Yuzawa.
If you can spot yourself when up and ready to go then there will be plenty of VK’s looking for you. Knowing what frequency to look for you on is a huge help compared to scanning the band.
15 m has traditionally been the band to work JA from here but conditions are all over the place at the moment so can’t predict what will happen.
I think I may be able to spot myself on sat, not sure on sunday as I may not bring my tablet. If I can connect via DStar i will ask a friend to spot me with the QRG. Fingers crossed, hoping to work some VKs! Thanks.
Got Arnaud in my log on 15m ssb he was a very clear signal for quite a long time as I left my rig running to see who else worked him. Do not know what gear he was using JA is such a good distance for vk’s to work so I hope SOTA takes off in JA, if it’s half as popular as their JCC activity we may have plenty of activity.
cheers from Ian vk5cz . .
Yes, the propagation was quite challenging, at least when looking at various data.
Thierry, It was nice to work you on DStar, no worries with propagation there
Ian, I was super stoked to be able to work you. You were my only DX Station today, everybody else were JA contacts. I notice that if I call CQ SOTA locally I feel people are startled, wondering what it is and not calling back. So after a while I called as /P & /QRP and when people called then I explained to them that I was activating a SOTA. Today I used a FT-817 with a vertical (buddistick) and a T1 tuner. It was my first time using the T1 so I fiddled around a little bit. I was putting out 5w and the rig was powered by a powerfilm foldable solar panel.
In the end I only activated JA/NI-045 and it was a very easy summit not too far from the road, so it was perfect for me to fiddle around with the gear. In the end I had about 15 QSOs, all with JA except for the one with Ian. I had a lot of very clear signals from hokkaido. Most people gave me around 53 or 55 with a few 59. One of the biggest signals I had came from another QRP station which was funny, he also said I was 59+, lol…
Anyway, that was fun. Tomorow I am off activation Iijisan and then next w/e I am off to France!
Unfortunately nothing heard either yesterday or today from JA. I could just hear the JA beacon on 14.100 MHz yesterday afternoon and this morning the JA 28.200 MHz beacon was just above the noise. Not good propagation to VK1,2 or 3. You might try a full size vertical next time if there is room for 3 or 4 radials.
I could hear VKs very strongly on 15m today but they seemed only focused on the contest. When I called on 15m in a free spot nobody replied. It is always tough when there is a contest. I had some QSOs with China, Thailand and Japan today but none with VK despite the strong signals I could hear.
Eventually the conditions were brutal up there. Hot, humid, no wind at all and no shade. I started to get a headache and get dizzy. I think I was basically starting to get a sunstroke. I packed everything quickly and headed back down.
If you’ve ever been in a sauna, hiking today felt like I was in one. It was nuts. I am now back home slowly getting some fluids back into me. That little hike really kicked my rear-end and the summit felt like I was being baked alive. I’ll be eating some humble pie for a while after this experience.
I’ll be in F/AM soon, hopefully we can manage some QSOs with the VKs like last summer.
I did not know you were on today otherwise I would have listened. Having been to Echigo Yuzawa to ski I am keen to make a SOTA contact there. Sorry to miss you. It is very pleasant there in winter
On 17m, Takeshi JS1UEH was operating and he was just a little too weak from my mobile to make contact, but I could tell he was there. Maybe 15m would have worked better.
Hope you have good luck in F/AM. I was there last summer and worked VK on a number of occasions with 3W.
It looks like you and I like the same places! Yeah too bad for today, I just could not bear to stay any longer at the summit. JS1UEH had more of a cloud cover on tanigawadake and was higher so hopefully it was better than us. Looking forward to working you from F/AM. Next time you come to Yuzawa, I usually have a Dstar hotspot and and echolink node you can tap into while on the slopes if you use any of these 2.
Yes dehydration can be a problem on summits. My pack always has water in a bottle even if I am close to another source. It means I’ll never win a 1kg pack challenge but the extra weight is worth avoiding being parched. Usually mountain air is dry but having the high humidity would not have helped.
Yes, agreed. I had more than 4L of water but that sun was just beating me down despite a hat and sunscreen lotion. My friends told me a guy was evacuated by helicopter from the same summit the week before with a heat-stroke. I can believe it! The scary thing is that we have not seen the warmest temps yet, we usually get those in august…
