A couple of days ago, I was in Madeira for a brief holiday, and found some time to activate three summits (travelling with non-ham people meant limited summit time, especially on the windy ones ;)). It’s a nice place with well maintained hiking trails, and quite warm even in December – I’ll definitely return some day. Pro tip: get a rental car with a big engine; those roads are steep!
I would like to thank the helpful chaser gentlemen who alerted me to DX and S2S that were calling me and that I might otherwise have missed in the pileup. On one activation, I started by chasing an S2S instead of self-spotting, and after the S2S QSO, Mike G6TUH immediately directed me to an empty QRG, so all I had to do was QSY and wait for him to spot me. It was like a SOTA butler service! 
As a first for me, I was able to work stations from the US (N1GB and AC1Z) on 20 m SSB with 10 W + AlexLoop, something that hasn’t happened to me yet on SOTA activations in HB9/OE/DL. The first S2S with Tom OE9TKH, who has joined me on many activations before, topped it off.
Anyway, it’s nice to know some chasers find the time to stay on frequency even after they have finished their QSO, and help out where needed. Thanks again!
73, Manuel HB9DQM
