I haven’t received any european Sota activator lately here at my station and i do follow on weekends by the spots on Sotawatch.
But… even if propagation isn’t the best over here i am still confident that i could hear some Europeans from a summit. As we all know,reception is totally different on the mountains.
I do actually hear a lot of Europe on 20 and 15m from my station but the weaker signals are lost in the noise.
From what i’ve heard,there will be at least one other activator other than me in VE2 land.
Maybe more ?
The most important factor will be the weather on that morning. Hoping for a clear day.
Usually november is rainy and cold so i am crossing my fingers.
I’ll be operating SSB phone on 20m and maybe also 15m if i get the quad band EFHW antenna in time.
I have not yet decided on wich summit but i will try to be ready and on the air as early as i can on that morning.
Hi Eric,
I worked Phillip VE1WT when I was up on DL/BE-093 on the 1st. of November. Running 5 watts SSB to a J-Pole on 15 metres. Reports were 5-9+ for Phillip and 5-5 for my signal being received in Nova Scotia, Canada So it’s do-able at the right time of day ~ 1400UTC and with some luck. For the S2S event, I’ll have 20 watts which may help a little. The last couple of days 17m and 15m have been better than 20m but we all know propagation changes, so what will be the “best” band to be on, on the 19th. is hard to say and it’s better to plan to be on more than one band if possible.
As you say, lets hope the weather is “OK” - we’ve have the first snow of this winter here today in Southern Bavaria.
OH/JS-066 will join to the Parties offering one (1) excellent SOTA point for the all participants. And thank you already beforehand for especially active organizer of Europe, Ed DD5LP!
That’s great to hear Saku! OH-NA is a very tough SOTA path. I believe you will already be past sunset at 1400Z on 19Nov. VOACAP says 20M and 17M have a slight chance at 1400Z. Please call cq 20M and 17M cw at 1400-1430Z. I will listen hard for you. FWIW, there has NEVER been an OH-NA s2s! (I chased you in 2013 on JS-066 from home with a 3-el yagi, 20M cw)
Thanks for the compliment Saku - but this was Gerald G4OIG’s idea - we all get behind him and help where we can of course.
I have a few contacts in some AR podcasts and so can help with publicity outside of the normal SOTA community along with the MTs own hard working publicity officiers.
Hope to get an S2S with you on the 19th.
The number of points a summit is, is not important in this action - it’s more to get as many summits, in as many associations as possible, on the air at the same time. Thanks for adding Finland to the active associations.
Chris (W3CDW) and I were out activating yesterday and I wanted to let everyone know we made some EU contacts as follows…
Equipment… FT857, running 50W, Link dipole up about 25ft positioned NW-SE
14.330 @ 16:26 EA2IF he was 59 gave us a 56
@ 16:37 G0RQL he was 59 gave us a 56 @16:38 ON4BWT he was 59 gave us a 59
@ 16:43 M0MDA he was 55 gave us a 53
@ 16:47 F4HRM he was 59 gave us a 57
We’ll be using a gain antenna for the event… but were wondering what power level others will have on their SOTA activations??
80W into either a bobtail curtain antenna on 20m or a vertical on the other bands. I’ll be activating relatively close to you and Chris (and Barry N1EU) and might put up a NVIS antenna on 40m. As a side note, lately W3-land for me has sometimes been a skip zone on 40m.
Thanks to you and others for your comments on a half-square antenna. Looking it up caused me to find the bobtail curtain. I have it up and trimmed now, WSPR reports look good. Just need some EU activators before I go to work to see if I can hit a summit.
@AC2KL
Simple 40M dipole at about 10-15ft with at least one ‘on the ground’ reflector would be perfect… for NVIS effect
Our other “just thinking about it” antenna is probably going to be a 10-40 Windom up fairly high… our selected SOTA peak has a good location for hanging a big antenna.
I need to get an order into DX engineering for some coax runs and an antenna switch… and I’ll need to break out the larger capacity “winter” backpack…
Great! Roberto - thanks for adding Italy into the mix - very welcome (as always).
Richard (N2GBr) - were those were good contacts for 20m SSB at the moment. Usually 50 watts is about the maximum a SOTA activator runs over here. There are exceptions, one OE station can run up to 150 watts portable and many, many stations only run 5 or 10 watts.
Until this event was announced I wasn’t going to bring a mic! But there may be many non-CW stations to work so I’ll pack a mic for them.
No problem with speed, I’m no speed daemon and normally run at 18-20wpm. If I hear anyone calling slower I’m more than happy to slow down… it’s why I use an external keyer with a speed pot on the front instead of faffing with menus on the 817.
I’m hoping a lot of the EU activators will be running cw, much greater chances to make the contact at low power and typical summit antennas! I happily will match whatever the sender’s speed is
Also will bring a mic for the KX3 and will chase ssb activator spots.
This antenna can be end-fed at the bottom of either 1/4 wave wire using a typical 1:8 autotransformer as commonly used for end-fed antennas. Best if the bottoms of the 1/4 wave vertical parts are kept at least chest-high.
Ken, K6HPX
I activated a peak here in Arizona Saturday and worked OK1DVM at 1533 UTC on 20 cw (I run 4 watts and a dipole). Also had an EA1 call me on 15 meters CW at 1556 UTC, but he faded out.
So there is already a path to Arizona on those bands. Should be better on the 19th.
I’m hoping to activate G/TW-002. Ill be on 20m SSB and possibly 17m SSB if I make a 1/4 wave gp antenna. Not sure if to try with my new ft817 with 5w or take my ts-480 and use more power. I’m using a resonant end fed half wave antenna on 20m. It fits as a slight sloper on my 10m pole.
I really, really hope I can participate in this one. I’ve got over a week to figure out a plan, which includes convincing my YL that it’s ok for me to leave and head to the hills on a rare day off for her. This truly sounds like a lot of fun!
73, Keith KR7RK
