I think what you can derive from the responses Wayne is that SOTA ops will make an effort to work DX S2S (and, of course, chase DX activations) if they know there will be a concentration of activations.
The next big event planned is the North American SOTA (NASOTA) activity day. I don’t have the details to hand but ISTR it is this September. The other big activity day is the International SOTA Weekend which is the 1st weekend in May. These are the kind of events where many people tend to try to do something special.
I know that if I know there will be a few VK’s about NASOTA day then I’ll do my best to get the best portable antenna I can rig out on a summit. I might even take a wee PA along to help the ionosphere a little! Even if it’s only a 1pt hill each way, I’d be delighted to get a VK-GM S2S in my log.
After several rounds of discussions, we seem to have finally arrived at
a destination for NA SOTA Day … the second Saturday in September.
There are a large number of competing factors in choosing a date, one of
the biggest being weather. North America is moderately large as
continents go and across all of it, temperatures and conditions can
vary dramatically on any given day. Earlier in the summer is pretty
tough for those in the W5, W6, and many parts of W7 where temperatures
can climb to 120F [48C], bordering on “this isn’t safe.” As Mike,
KD9KC, has been heard to joke, “El Paso Texas has two seasons … Summer
and Christmas.” On the other hand, get much later than September and
other parts of the continent are getting cold with rain, hail, and snow.
We also wanted to avoid major contest weekends when competition for a
frequency with 1.5KW stations would be very tough. Second Saturday in
September sort of fell out as about the best
Even if it’s only a 1pt hill each way, I’d be delighted to get a VK-GM S2S in my log.