Start nagging your authorities for 60 metres - the “Rock Band” is ideal for SOTA!
Brian
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40m was superb last night, I was hearing all sorts of stuff!
PV8ADI was overloading my RX from nearly 5000 miles away.
I remember a few years ago I was an operator at a special event station, all of a sudden the bands went dead (SID). After a few hours, the bands started to carry traffic again. For fun, I hooked up my RockMite20 to a small vertical and sent out CQ during the evening, I was amazed to work N1WPU in Maine. The bands seemed to be enhanced, supporting higher frequencies than normal during the recovery.
I’ve found that Voacap is pessimistic.
73, Colin
They’re not “my” authorities Brian (I’m as English as you are - I just live in Germany). In any case any approach to BNetza would need to come through the national soceity DARC and they should already be working on 60m along with getting 4m and extending 6m.
73 Ed.
A British expatriate then 
Too much wire on 80m. I can just about get 60m on Snowdon.
Some people seem to have overcome the wire issue!
In fact 80m is only just trailing 20m for the number of QSOs from NW-001!
In comparison to the HF condx of the late 70s, the bands have been absolutely carp (or maybe roach or squid) for a few decades 
I used to work VKs and ZL on 10 metres on a daily basis, had a weekly (10m) stateside sked on a Sunday afternoon, which was more reliable than my current Virgin broadband, and almost on a daily basis checked in with "No Bad News, Del Popwell, on 21342 khz.
Those were proper HF conditions where you could work the world on a piece of wet string and many of us did!
Sorry, must stop wallowing in nostalgia.
73
Glad to hear it actually. Some G3’s I know very well have told me the same. It will be interesting if it happens again if more people enter the hobby as a consequence.
Yes that is a strangely high number of 80m QSO’s. GX0OOO must have been up there a few times 
It was a squeeze to get 60m strung out up there last year. I suppose if I went closer to the edge at the back of the pillar stack you would get a full 80m dipole out. I haven’t tried activating from there yet. I activated near the corner in the steps up to the pillar post.
I think we are diving into to doldrums pretty quickly now !
5.335 MHz @ 20:26 UTC
Jonathan
Feeling a little bored this morning and seeing the brilliant sunshine, this whetted my appetite for an activation and so I jumped into the car and made my way to my local summit G/SP-013 Gun. The plan was just for a bit of 2m VHF FM and nothing else. Nevertheless, I lugged the A-99 up to the summit along with my 8 metre fishing pole and X-200 colinear. At 1050, I was QRV and noticed a spot for 2E1IHZ up on G/WB-005 an easy s2s from Gun. My CQ on 2m produced a run of 30 chasers including a s2s with Stewart G0LGS/p on G/CE-001 working with his Handheld Other SOTA regulats included Dave M6RUG, Matt G8XYJ and Steve G4TCU also on a handy, somewhere in the West Midlands. Things then went a bit quiet, and so my last call 2m was with, Pete M1CNL.
At this point, I was on the verge of chucking the towel in, however, looking at the A-99 lying on the ground, I though to myself, blow it and chucked it into the hawthorn tree.
Over the years, I’ve learned that the day before a big contest is always a good time to try and work some exotic DX. Many of the big stations take the opportunity to test their set-up and it can be worth having a listen around the bands. Ten Metres was utter pants and 20m wasn’t exactly popping, but I self spotted anyway. Ninteen stations were logged on 20m, the best of it being Jean VE2JCW, Mac VE9ZY and Kevin AC2KL.
My last shout before going QRT, was on the 15m band. Taking a look up and down found some of the contest stations warming up and so I nicked J8/WW2DX on St, Vincent Island, FM1HN on Martinique, P40AH on Aruba and finally, what I suspect is a rare SOTA DXCC (from Europe at least) Obaid DU1/A61DJ in the Philippines with an armchair copy 5/5 5/7 report. After this, it was like someone had hit a kill switch and the band died.
Thanks to Allan GW4VPX, activating GW/NW-021 for a s2s on the 40m band, It’s always a challenge working the 40m band using the A-99, nevertheless, signal reports were exchanged and the contact completed!
To sum up, the higher HF frequencies are still hard work, however, a bit of patience and you’ll find yourself rewarded.
Thanks to all the callers for a pleasant days radio…
73 Mike
2E0YYY
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This from Southgate News:
Big sunspot gets bigger
The sun’s headlong plunge into solar minimum has been interrupted by the surprise emergence of a big sunspot.
Wide enough to swallow Earth with room to spare, AR2529 doubled in size over the weekend.
The behemoth is now being photographed by amateur astronomers around the world and closely monitored by NASA spacecraft.
Visit Spaceweather.com for more information.
Ed.
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No surprise at all, you often get major sunspots breaking the monotony at this stage of the cycle, and the current one, number 2529, is just visible to the naked eye through welding glass or crossed polaroids. Furthermore brightening of the inner corona suggests that another group should be appearing soon which might take the SFI above its present level in the mid hundred teens. There is still some tunnel to traverse before we reach minimum!
Brian
Rather unsurprisingly, I found myself in Llandudno, yesterday afternoon and took the opportunity to visit GW/NW-070 Great Orme. The summit was bitterly cold with a stiff wind blowing directly into my face, nevertheless, I bungeed the A-99 to the fence and took a look at the bands. Due to the high wind, I was unable to get the A-99 any higher than 10 feet and I knew this was going to handicap the A-99s performance.
It was not particularly good news on the bands above 17m and working with a short antenna, was not helping matters. A self spot on 20m (no computer generated spots for the much tougher SSB mode) produced a run of 21 contacts the best of it Phillip VE1WT, who was in and out of the dreadful QSB.
As the calls dried up on 20m, I took a look at the 17m band. This looked a tad more promising with a mixture of EU and North America making my log. The first DX was SOTA regular Walt NE4TN, from TN and then from right out of nowhere, Allen K6YRA from Los Angeles CA. Weak at first, but on his final over, he came up to a stonking 5/9! Mark WG8Y from NC made the trip as did my final North American contact of the day and indeed final call of the day on the 17m band, Kenneth WA2FBN from NY State. A last look at 20m produced just 5 calls, the final one of them, a ground wave contact with Rob G0HRT
Despite the wicked take-off from Great Orme and the A-99, albiet vertically challenged, HF conditions still left a lot to be desired. Making the West coast of North America was not something I had envisaged and that one contact made the journey worthwhile.
Just 39 contacts for the activation…Hard work 
26 contacts on 20m
13 contacts 0n 17m
Thanks to all the callers.
Mike 2E0YYY
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Hi Mike,
You may be interested in the VK9 alerts. There seems to be a bit of life left in this sunspot cycle.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
HI Ron,
Many thanks for the heads up… 20m band conditions were pretty poor from GW/NW-070 Great Orme, LP this morning. Once again, nothing heard from ZL. I was even struggling to hear Ernie VK3DET, who was using 400 Watts and a beam
73 Mike
2E0YYY
As I was saying to Rod M0JLA/P just now on G/LD-052 on 5 MHz, condtions were a bit like the curates egg yesterday…good occasionally on some HF bands, but poor and noisy on others with QRN most of the time making signals unreadable.
Here is a Soundcloud transcript of my best SOTA Chaser QSO for some weeks. This was yesterday at 1621z on 18 MHz SSB with Steve (the GOAT) callsign WG0AT on W0C/FR-063 Mount Herman at 2757m. A case of being on the air at the right time and on the right band for SOTA DX. This was one of several QSOs made by Steve who was demonstrating SOTA for the first time yesterday to Eric W0RLY
Thank’s to Steve for making and sharing the recording
73 Phil
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I’ve just watched the Space weather report on Hamnation. It doesn’t look like HF conditions are going to improve in the next week. SFI is still going down.
Ed.
Hearing VK3TJK “BOOMING” in (S9+ on the meter) Long path on 20 metres at the moment 05:51 UTC. He’s commenting that Long Path started improving since yesterday.
Ed.
Update - at 0615 UTC Tim is down to 5_5 - he’s still working into EU with his beam but I think this defnes the current very strong window (which we need for the QRP operations) via Long Path is 0545 - 0615 UTC.
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Hi Ed,
Thanks for the call onto Gun G/SP-013 this morning, big signal from you! Generally poor 20m conditions. Plenty of QSB, no VK’s heard and no DX worked
73 Mike
2E0YYY
What’s the condition of the path up Gun currently Mike?
You’re welcome Mike.
Was considering going out tomorrow when we had a nice sunny morning this morning. It’s changed again - black sky, winds and constant rain. Is this really summer ???
Ed.
I listened and called from Sydney, VK2, following the alert . Nothing heard.
Compton