Now the question is for me. Do I carry a heavy 100w station with me up a short route or a qrp setup up a long route?
Well that depends on what options you have. Personally I am going for the heavier QRO and short walk option as I will be descending in the dark. I would consider a longer walk, but as I only do uniques, I donāt have the benefit of having walked the route before and all the details have to gathered on the ascent. It certainly looks like conditions may favour the higher power, but you never knowā¦ and the achievement with QRP would be so much more. What a quandary!
Result of my ātest activationā today on 15m - 4 North American contacts - all 5-9 plus in 25 minutes. the first one a āsearch & pounceā by me, competing with other callers, the other three in quick succession after 20 minutes, in response to my spot on SOTAWatch.
So thanks to
Henry, N1HEN in Maine,
Luther, N4DA in Georgia,
Phillip, VE1WT in Nova Scotia, Canada,
and
Walter, NE4TN, in Tennessee
for qualifying the summit with me.
After these four however getting contacts by spotting or Search & Pounce was difficult, there were a couple of special DX stations booming in from Guadeloupe (Jule, FJ4NN) and CuraƧao (Pete PJ2/K8PGM) as well as Fahed A61FK in Abu Dhabi but all of these had so many callers, I couldnāt break through. I then checked the amp and it appeared not to be switching on to TX - I have an LED that shows green on Rx and Red on Tx. No red light - so itās possible that instead of my expected 20w, I was only running 5w output, possibly even on the first contacts.
I had just about given up and then Carlos, CT1HIX kindly gave me a call and we exchanged 5-9 / 5-5 reports - which is what I would expect with 5w output.
The amp is now down in the workshop to get looked at this evening but I think I can say, that 15m band conditions to North America are quite good at the moment!
73 Ed - looking foward to some good S2S contacts on the 19th. !
Update: The amp had blown at least one power transistor and taken out the fuse, a side effect of this, because of the way I have it wired is that the fan runs constantly, which it did during the complete activation - i.e. the amp blew itās transistor at Peissenberg not today, so ALL of the contacts made were using just the FT-817ās 5 watts!
Chris (W3CDW) and I have been discussing going to SV-018 for this eventā¦ weāll have the FT857 and probably the half-square antenna for 20m.
The site is well ādesignedā with large trees and an open grassy areaā¦ we may put up a Carolina Windom at about 70FT alsoā¦
I wonāt activate it myself as Iām trying for 100% uniques on my way to goatdomā¦ 
Iām just in-there for S2Sā¦
RJ // N2GBR
Richard, if you donāt log your activation then you keep your 100% record. You can log the S2S contacts because they are treated as a chasing log not activating log. So work any of the S2S stations you hear and just log those.
Will do!
Hi
I worked several W stations from CU last Saturday easy, inluding N4EX, AC1Z, etc, from CU/SM-006 and CU/SM-008.
On the VK/ZL <> EU party i made a S2S with VK2AOH.
So, I believe the NA <> EU S2S will be a successful event !
73 de Pedro,
if you donāt log your activation then you keep your 100% recordā¦
ā¦sort of. But only through your own selection of what data not to enter. Whether you log everything, just the S2S contacts, or nothing at all, you will still have activated the summit, and will appear as an activation in chasersā logs.
But I guess if you donāt write it down yourself, then it never happened 
I shall apply the a greater degree of pedantry to my reply.
If you donāt log your re-activation by entering an activation log on the database you will keep be able to keep a 100% unique activation record on the database should you be at such a point. The fact you may have activated the summit more times than Frank Sinatra retired does not matter as SOTA awards made by looking at the database. Although we donāt have an award specifically for 100% unique activations/chases.
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Sound great for me. It appends that I will be in Germany with my gears on the planned date.
Hope to get some S2S contacts even if I will be operating at 15W. Chassers from NA will need good ears like N4EX as
73, Denis VA2IEI
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I hope we will be able to quickly facilitate s2s contacts on 19Nov and we donāt end up struggling to push our weak summit signals through swarms of home-based chasers. After all, the point is making this primarily an s2s event so I hope home-based chasers will standby and allow an open channel for listening for weak s2s callers.
Also, can we perhaps allow additional 3rd party s2s callers on the same frequency? For example, I call and work MM0FMF on his freq. Could we allow another EU activator to call me right after on the same frequency (with the understanding that the freq eventually reverts to MM0FMF)? Alternately, perhaps we can designate a few s2s calling frequencies (just for this event), and activators can all call each other on that frequency as they hear each other but use different frequencies to work home-based chasers. Iām just thinking out loud, to try and maximize the s2s possibilities.
73, Barry N1EU
I can see what youāre aiming for Barry. Iām not sure how it would work when there may be skip zone problems hearing others. Perhaps a procedure would be for people to call CQ S2S for some periods with the emphasis of working S2S QSOs part of the time and other (just as welcome) non-S2S QSOs the rest. Maybe a bit like MS where people call on specific time windows.
Off the top of my head, people with 1,3,5,7,9 in their call would only work S2S QSOs in the odd periods and anyone else outwith that. So 0-5mins past the hour (an even period) and 5-10mins an odd period etc. Youād know Iād be calling CQ S2S for 0-5mins past the hour because the 0 in my call is even and any QSO 5-10mins past then back CQ S2S 10-15mins past. Maybe too complex?
Or simple establish yourself a working frequency and regular switch from CQ SOTA to CQ DX SOTA and back.
There were loads of S2S including DX QSOs in the recent VK event without any such elaborate planning. Even for me on 5 watts. So I think all will be fine.
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I agree with Tom, lets not over complicate this.
Ed.
I think āCQ S2Sā should be an accepted capability with all home-based chasers respecting it and standing by. Perhaps thatās all thatās needed.
Iām honestly not trying to over-complicate this. But I remember SO many times of trying to make an s2s through a crowd of chasers, many of whom I know were hearing me and not yielding. Plus many activators are going to be in very cold summit conditions and might only be able to activate for a short window of time. I hate for them having to wait 15 minutes for a chaser swarm to die down.
Iāll shut up now and apologies if I pushed the issue too hard.
Barry N1EU
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Hi Barry,
The usual procedure is if the āswarmā of chasers donāt follow your requests, close down and fire up on a different frequency or even band. Unfortunate for those ādoing the right thingā but I think itās sometimes the only way to control the pile-up.
Ed.
I like the āCQ s2sā idea for activatorsā¦when I am not calling āCQ s2sā from my summit I can tune around looking for stations who are calling CQ s2s.
I plan on trying to work all stations on summits in EU and NAā¦but obviously looking for the EU very hard.
Pete
WA7JTM
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I like the idea as well Pete. Calling CQ S2S a couple of times might be followed by CQDX indicating fixed stations are then being sought. Calls for contacts with fixed stations in the same continent could be just CQ SOTAā¦
I suggest we try something along these lines for this event and discuss the success or otherwise afterwards. I wouldnāt want anything more complex, especially a system based on time periods. For those that keep one eye on the spots while operating, it could be hard to keep the other eye on the time.
Gerald G4OIG
Depends if you can walk and chew gum at the same time. Not everyone can it seems
For me, Iām hopefully going to be in a good place to work both EU and NA as I will be in EA8. Barry, the predicted propagation for EA8 to NY area for 0dBd antennas and 5W CW TX suggesting 17m and 21m look best during the event window.
For EU stations, same conditions. Again 17m may be best for me.
Maybe, for just once, I maybe in the best place at the right time!
Hi Pete,
I dont think we should exclude chasers, simply work the S2S contacts when they come along. In my experience good chasers highlight there is an S2S station calling and the group wait until that S2S contact is made - then itās back to Bedlam!
I will try to work all chasers (DX or not) as well as S2S as best I can.
My preference will be to operate on 21MHz (15m) but it seems most people are looking at 14MHz, 20m, so it may be a bit lonely on 15 metres!
73 Ed DD5LP.