Lanzarote trip

All my logs for my recent EA8 trip have finally been uploaded to the database. If you arent sure you made the contact then you can view my logs if you are logged in and check. There may be some who dont appear as on more than one occasion I was working a particular station with 2 or even 3 other stations thinking I was talking to them.

I appologise for my very qrp signal, this was due to a few different reasons.

  1. I borrowed a 4aH lipo battery off GW0DSP but I couldn`t get it to hold any charge, so I ended up taking a 1.5aH NiMh pack from my aldi hedge clipper. Due to the lack of battery power I was running the ft817 at 2.5W.
  2. I ordered a 10 section 4m travel pole to support the antenna. Despite being posted from Burton (30 miles away) on Wednesday, it didn`t arrive before I left on Monday. This meant that on most summits my antenna was very low - either my friend would hold the dipole centre at head height until he got tired, or I would use a cairn or similar to support it.
  3. Big SSB contests on both weekends I was there :frowning:

Many thanks to all the chasers who did work me, the gold star goes to Mike GW0DSP who bagged all 12 summits with others getting most of them such as G0RQL,G6ODU,G0TRB,HA7UG,EC2DM etc…
I made 428 contacts comprising 333 on 20m & 95 on 10m.
Chasers collecting continents for awards will be pleased to know EA8 should normally count as Africa.

Biggest disappointment was only 16 contacts on LA-002 due to the massive QRM from the commercial transmitters up there.
Biggest thrill was the superb ridge walk on Fuertaventura between FU-001 & FU-004, check it out on google earth.

I acivated all summits on Lanzarote with the exception of LA-009 Timanfaya. This lies inside the Islands most important and iconic National Park. It is 8 euro to enter the park and you are forbidden to leave the waymarked path. This path goes nowhere near the summit. I have read that the temperature of the ground at the summit can exceed 100C so I can`t imagine this summit will ever get activated.

A casual glance at the map combined with traveling around the Island leaves me to believe there may be at least another 6 P150 summits, no doubt these may be identified and incorporated into the ARM at a future date. A big thanks to EA8AY and others for the hard work in setting up the association.

I would advise anybody who is thinking of activating in EA8 to take either walking boots or very tough shoes. I took the latter but didnt always wear them - this eventually cost me a pair of trainers and 3 pairs of socks. Also, I know its common sense, but you can never carry too much water (even though I hit the tail end of the worst weather for over 40 years).

Ive made a short movie from video clips, stills & sound bites if anyone is interested in the terrain. I will appologise for the poor quality in advance as I only took my small cheap aldi travel cam. Video is here :- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8p8H2eQW4 Ill post a few pics on flikr probably tomorrow when I get organised.
73.

In reply to G1INK:

Thanks Steve for the detailed report and the pictures.
This gives us an impression about SOTA in EA8.

73 de Franz ON9CBQ

In reply to G1INK:
Cheers Steve,enjoyed reading report & watching video.Thanks for 9 uniques(10 contacts) 2 on 28Mhz. I didnt know You were only using 2.5 watts from ft-817. 73s
Bob G6ODU

In reply to G6ODU:

Hi Bob - tnx for the contacts. When I activated Monte Corona I made 84 contacts & the 1.5aH battery was still going - it was the chasers that dried up. Having said that, the voltage was so low at the end of the activation that I guess my 2.5W was more like 1W.
Just shows what a privileged geomagnetic position like EA8 can do for a signal.
73.

In reply to G1INK:

Hi Steve I have added your video to SOTA Television along with your write up and a list of the summits activated. Hopefully I read it right. Let me know if I messed up.

There are also two new (old) videos from Christian OE5HCE that are worth a watch.

Great to work you and some disappointing occasions when you faded out with QSB or were lost in QRM. Worst of all when I heard you on 10m and then nothing. Later easily worked another EA8 portable with his 817 on the same band (non-SOTA). It is hell working when I know there are new ones to work, but maybe that is just me.

Regards Steve GW7AAV

In reply to G1INK:

Thanks for the detailed report & video Steve :slight_smile:

The video did have me a little worried for a moment though, as the clip of one of our QSO’s appeared to be from a different summit to that which I had logged. Thank goodness it was just the way the video had been edited!

On checking your activator log, the summits & dates tally with my log, & the only differences are in the minutes of the logged qso time, which are one or two minutes different. I put that down to the different ways of logging the time of a qso (start time / time of exchange of details/ end time). I don’t see that as a problem.

My QSO with you that appears in the video was from when you were activating EA8/FU-001 during the major SSB contest. I knew you were only running 2.5 Watts to a very basic antenna but your signal was holding up well on 20m with high powered contest stations overlapping both sides of your signal.

Both me & Mike G4BLH monitored one of your self-spotted 28MHz freuquencies from one of the summits that weekend, but sadly neither Mike nor myself could hear you as the band was not open well enough to the UK at the time.

Congratulations to all the chasers & activators who worked you from several EA8 summits, especially last weekend druing the contest!

Thanks for the 2 new summits Steve, & I hope to work you again very soon.

Best 73,

Mark G0VOF

Good report Steve - thanks for the one 10m Contact (work got in the way of getting more).

Looking on Google Earth the Pin for EA8/LA-009 appears to be a significant distance from what would appear to be the true summit.

In reply to G0LGS:

Stewart,
It’s a problem for many associations. In which case you should report your concerns to the EA8 AM, Luis EA8AY. (ea8ay AT arrl.net)

AM’s can then research, refine and revise their summit data. When happy, the database, ARM and everything else can be updated. With a total of 44667 summits in the database there is a lot of scope for errors to creep in. It’s an ongoing challenge to check and refine existing data and support the creation of new associations. In March alone approaches were made to start 3 more associations. April is 2 days old and I’d expect another expression of interest to turn up by the time of the Blackpool Rally! I’m fairly confident that we’ll have in excess of 50000 summits in SOTA by the end of the year.

Steve,
Well done. I saw the first spot and remembered you mentioning you were out to EA8 a few weeks back. When I saw spots for another summit I wondered if you’d have enough time to have a bash at all of the LA region summits. You success is more impressive considering you were running real QRP with not the best antenna setup. More importantly your success on 10m spurred me on to getting an antenna sorted for that band. I’m also pleased my SMS spot system worked so well for you. The real work of course is done by having well designed, specified and regulated GSM/UMTS system over so much of the world that allows for effortless roaming between countries. That make my contribution of a few hundred lines of code I wrote pale away.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to G1INK:
Hi Steve Another cracking report and the cheap camcorder didn`t do a bad job.So is it Portugal next Hi.73 Geoff G6MZX