Dear Mariusz,
I have several times being chased by you and itās always been a joy when I could hear you and complete the QSO with your QRP signal. Thanks for all your calls and QSOs.
If you really stop chasing for ever, I will miss you very much.
From the reading of your post, I have the feel that youāve got fed up of so much time and effort devoted to SOTA chasing and itās something totally understandable after having reached the numbers youāve got.
Working QRP is hard and itās hard to be overtaken by everybody in a pile-up and have the chance to chase an activator only at the very end if you are lucky and you can be copied.
I can feel the frustration in your Soul and I think you really need to take a break and have a good rest.
Do have a pause, and I hope/wish youāll come back one day not too late with a different approach and a new goal when you feel yourself ready to have fun again with SOTA chasing.
Just for your information, let me tell you about the way I do SOTA chasing.
With work, wife, 3 kids, a partly disabled 81 years old mother and a dog, plus a recent QTH change, I have very little time for my hobby and all I want is chasing some activator whenever possible. I donāt care for the points. If I hear an activator, I call him for a QSO because I know how much the activator will appreciate that. If I see heās not on Sotawatch, I rise a Spot for him, no matter if he/she requested it or not. I know itās very helpful for the activator and highly appreciated most of the times if not always. Many days I donāt chase a single activator. Some days I chase 1. If Iām lucky, I may chase 2 or 3 if Iām very lucky. If I chase more than that, Iām in heaven
If I chase one activator and itās a DX, I feel happy and if I do chase such DX on QRP with my wire endfed in the appartment balcony, then I start dancing and jumping in joy like a little boy.
Those are my challenges and believe me, I do enjoy SOTA chasing as much as activating, which Iām not unfortunately doing at all over the last 4 months.
Before finishing off, let me tell you that if you come over some time, Iāll be pleased to show you how āeasyā it is when most of the Central European activators work in the early morning on 40m adding dozens of Central European chasers to their logs, while we, EA and CT in the Iberian peninsula, far away about 1500-2000 Km from those areas and living in the West of Europe, where the Sun rises 1 or 2 hours later than in Central Europe, can hear absolutely nothing because propagation conditions are not yet set. By the time conditions start to build up, they have worked all chaser on 40m and switch to 20m where we still canāt copy them and they finally go QRT with their logs fully populated, their batteries empty and their bodies cold from long being in the summit since the early morning. And we didnāt even have a chance to call them.
30m is often the good band for us but thatās not an option for the phone-only activators and some times, not even the CW operators visit 30m.
But you wrote it: activator is king and he/she does what he/she can/wants during an activation. All we can do is chase them when possible and say thank you for the activation and the fun.
So, do not believe your life is too hard and otherās is easier.
We all have our own difficulties and nobody else can seize, judge or underestimate them.
Regarding the urban noise, thatās something we all suffer one way or other.
Since I moved to the appartment where Iām living in now, I have been changing several things on the endfed wire antenna configuration, the grounding the elevation, the distance away of the building, the slopeā¦ and also the rigās power supply. All these changes have given me very good results, but Iāve been changing several things over the nearly 6 months Iāve been living in this appartment.
Donāt give up. If you donāt change anything, nothing will change. Thatās for sure.
Well, I wish you a good rest and Iāll be looking forward to hearing you soon again on the bands.
73,
Guru