S.O.T.A. Fun Evening

Remember these? I think it was Paul G4MD’s idea originally, and several of us would go out and do an hour or so from our local easy SOTA summit in the summer. With it being on a Tuesday, I then discovered the RSGB VHF activity contests, and so “Tuesday Night Is SOTA Night” (© G3CWI) became an all-year pursuit for me.

Anyway, probably a bit short notice now, but if anyone fancies rekindling those days, I (and probably only I) will be QRV from a summit on 70cm SSB this evening.

The propagation on 432MHz can only be an improvement to that recently on 50MHz / 28MHz…

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Rather you than me, Tom, its been drizzling all day here! I will turn the beam your way early in the event and see if your signals penetrate our saturated trees.

Brian

I had planned to do GM/WS-003 or something else close to the works QTH this evening but there are too many “must do” jobs to be done in the evenings this week. A pity since it is sunny and calm here this evening.

I did activate GM/CS-050 during the 70cm UKAC evening last month in similar weather.

Perhaps if the weather is suitable I will get out some evening next week. Evenings that coincide with UKACs are good but evenings that have good weather are more important.

Robin.

Hmmm, I think that is a decent idea Tom. I might just have a go from Bardon Hill G/CE-004 one evening… diary note inserted for 11th August.

73, Gerald G8CXK

11th of August seems a good idea, I will pencil it in and find a local summit that I have not activated already.

70cm SSB would be fun, plus it’s lightweight and has high gain with relatively small antennas!

Could also use 2m FM to escape from the contests.

73 all

Matt G8XYJ

Sounds good. Might give it a shot a local Walton Hill - team activation could add extra fun and more bands / modes …

I did active a summit in EA5 last week quite late - I was up there until 1am local time. 17m in great shape and open until quite late - worked W3, JA & YN QRP.

73 Angel

We have two potential SOTA Fun Evenings this week.

Tonight (Tuesday 8th May) is a 70cm band focus, with FM between 1800 and 1900 (7-8pm BST) and SSB (mainly) thereafter.

Thursday 10th May is the 6m night, and Sp.E might now be coming into play for the season. Again the first hour is FM only, then SSB/CW from 1900 to 2130z (8-10.30pm local BST).

There were two qualifying SOTA activations participating last week. Dare we hope for 3+ tonight?

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Is the activity on Thursday horizontally polarised (in the SSB part of the activity)? It’s actually illegal to run vertical polarisation on either 6m or 4m here in Germany - has to be horizontal.

73 Ed.

There are no restrictions in the main UKAC re polarisation. I, and the vast majority of everyone else will be H-pol. In the FM hour receding, I’ll be V-pol, due to a very silly rule this year!

Tuesday 8th May 2018 - The Cloud G/SP-015

This time I tried the SOTAbeams MFD for the 70cm FM aspect of the evening, as I knew that other prominent activators use this antenna effectively on 433MHz - plus Jimmy checked out that the VSWR was OK on our Bank Holiday Monday activation. Performance overall was very similar to using the SOTAbeams SB270 with only the 70cm driven element attached, mounted for vertical polarisation - so I’ll probably revert to that next month to save on the amount of equipment carried.

For the main UKAC, I used the SB270 set up as a 6 element beam for 70cm, mounted horizontally.

Overall, I made 79 QSOs, all on 70cm. 20 on FM, and 59 on SSB. QSB was a problem all evening, and my squares count was a bit dismal.

DXCCs: 4 - G, GW, GD, GI.
QRAs: 13 - IO64, 74, 81, 82, 83, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, JO00, 01.

So as a VHF contest effort, a tad disappointing. As a 70cm SOTA activation - pretty good!

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Last 2m activity night of 2023!

Heading up to The Cloud G/SP-015 this evening for some VHF fun. It’s a cool way to do a 2m activation and rack up a 3 figure sum of QSOs!

Sorry for the short notice due to several unknowns at this side. Accordingly, I realise other summit activity and S2S opportunity - is highly unlikely!

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I’m guessing you have already left but I’m on a campsite near Evesham tonight and have my 2m vertical antenna up. Just had a QSO with a mobile operator near Kidderminster on 2m SSB which was nice. A spot will help if you have the time to send one. It could be a stretch to the Cloud but I will give it a go.

A sign of the times, here - though my beam is jammed pointing south I have just given 2m SSB a go and worked a few stations, but tonight I had to use DNR to tame the racket down a bit. With that much noise it hardly seems worth the effort to take the beam down and repair or replace the rotator, I may just put up a token three band white stick I have in storage.

I heard you in QSO with G4ASR (IIRC) - I worked him the next contact!

Evesham to The Cloud would be fairly easy on horizontal SSB.

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If I’d realised the 2m contest was on I would have brought a beam. :frowning:

But interesting to see how much 2m SSB activity there was. Not so much on FM but SSB was buzzing.

My mast was frozen solid and wouldn’t elevate :cry:.
Stayed in the warm instead

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By the end of the contest my mast was frozen solid and would not collapse.
That is why it was only extended to a specific mark that I know will just fit in the car.

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It was a beautiful night atop Bosley Cloud G/SP-015. Not a cloud in the sky and excellent clear visibility of the starry sky above, especially when I turned my headtorch off and allowed some time for my eyes to readjust. If only I knew what I was looking at! I can pick out URSA Major (The Plough), the belt of Orion, the North Star, Venus, the planes descending into MCR and that’s about it! It was very cold - around -1 Celcius - but I could get myself a +5 boost by going inside the bothy bag for a few minutes as required. My rucksack developed an icy film during the night which sparkled in the light of my headtorch. I was convinced my SOTA Pole would freeze up, but to my surprise, and relief, it did not.

There was hardly any wind, and zero precipitation, so despite the cold, it was a relatively comfortable contest evening. That in mind, my contest performance was a tad disappointing with 27 on FM, 1 on CW and 64 on SSB. Perhaps it was unwise to proclaim:

…as I fell 8 short of that. It was certainly “cool” though!

More 2m fun up there tonight. This time it’s the 2m FT8 evening, 1900-2100z, although there is a 4 hour section from 1700 also. There’s usually decent continental activity in this event, and of course with FT8 it’s much easier to work the EU DX.

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Venus didn’t rise until 0352 so the bright object you saw was probably Jupiter.

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He might have been looking at Herschel :rofl:

Oh hang on that puerile joke doesn’t work with the original name. And it’s hardly a bright object in the sky. I’ll get my :coat: