Activation qualified with 4 x S2S QSOs, 19 QSOs, 5 S2S, hickjacked frequency, potential S2S QSO ruined, deaf activator, recovery of owned frequency and end of activation.
This is the summary of today’s activation.
My old telescopic fishing rod failed yesterday right after I set up in the beach for some SOTA chasing. The top small diameter end of the 3rd bottom section had a crack and all the above sections fell down on the dry sand. I was very lucky as this soft dry sand prevented any further breaking on the about 4-5 top meters of the fallen fishing rod.
I carried out a quick repair on site and managed to set-up with the full length of my fishing rod extended.
I have a recently bought new telescopic fishing rod, but I still kept using the old one after having performed on the summit the same repair I did yesterday in the beach.
Once back home after today’s activation, I brought the broken fishing rod to the appartment and I performed the same repair but in a more permanent way in the hope that it will still last for a number of activations. I know it doesn’t make much sense doing this after having bought a new one a few days ago, but I enjoy repairing things and extending their usable life as much as possible…
Well, I tied the fishing rod to the trig point cylinder and extended the 10m long endfed wire as a sloper towards the North.
As soon as I switched my FT-817 on and looked to SOTAwatch, I found Hans MI/PA3FYG/P on 40m SSB, to whom I called and we had our S2S QSO.
Then I spent some more time unsuccessfully trying to chase some other activator on 40m. While trying to chase this other activator, I copied Fabio IK2LEY/3 making S2S with that activator and I wrote Fabio’s SOTA reference down on my logbook because, as soon as they finished their S2S QSO, I asked Fabio to QSY up 5Kc for S2S QSO with me, but Fabio didn’t seem to copy me as he never showed up on the QSY frequency.
After all these unsuccessful trials, I finally got my second S2S of the day on 40m SSB. This time with Markus DL/IN3ADF/P.
At this point I decided to QSY to 30m and start CQing. Luckily, my first chaser was Fabio IK2LEY/3 from SOTA becoming my 3rd QSO and S2S of the day and right after Fabio, I was called by Paul DL6FBK/P with whom I completed my 4th qualifying QSO which also was my 4th S2S of the day.
I recall having done this some time previously but it’s something nice to qualify the summit exclusively on S2S QSOs.
I kept CQing on 10.118 and logged half a dozen of chasers until an activator from a summit in an Eastern Europe Country asked QRL? on my frequency. I kept CQing in the hope that he would understand that the frequency was in use. DF6KM/P replied in QRS to my call and I got back to him giving him signal report. But the other activator had started CQing and several chasers had arrived to the frequency called him and were making QSO on top of my struggle to make DF6KM/P copy me. He said that he couldn’t copy me due to QRM. I also had big QRM but his signal was strong and I managed to copy him well. I QRSed and repeated signal report plus SOTA ref information but the QRM was apparently too high for him and he replied that he couldn’t copy me due to QRM. He finally went QRT and I kept copying the activator who had hickjacked my frequency working his chasers.
I called him for S2S. His signals were good and I’m sure he could copy me, but he never copied me and he always copied some other chaser. Ok, maybe my QRP signal was getting there too weak and the other chasers were stronger than me. Maybe, but once their chasers dried up his signals had even improved at my side, he kept CQing and it was just me who was repeatedly replying to his calls. But he never seemed to want to copy me. He never copied me. After several CQ calls responded only by me, he went silent.
I assumed his QRT and decided to recover my hickjacked frequency by calling CQ SOTA again, I still got 5 more chasers responding to my call. They all went to my log, of course.
In my alert I had announced that I’d work on 20m cw and ssb, but I miscalculated my available time. My apologies because I ran out of time and had to go QRT without showing up on 20m.
All in all, 19 QSOs, 5 of which were S2S.
This is the log:
This is the S2S log:
Thanks dear chasers for your calls and QSOs.
73,
Guru