And the long DX was possible on 20m again yesterday when Mark called CQ and I copied him perfectly with my TH5-DX yagi at the house QTH in the village.
Mark got his first chaser of the day from across the Pond
There were no other activations at reach for me, so I remained on Mark’s frequency for the whole duration of his first run on 20m CW.His signal was a very good and steady 559 all the time. Well done, Mark!
On W0C/SP-123 at 2813m in the National Forest, on 20M CW:
ZL1BYZ John 1909Z
EA2LU Jorge 1910Z
On W0C/FR-165 at 2883M farther north in the National Forest, on 20M CW:
ZL1BYZ John 2156Z
JH1MXV Hatori 2158Z
Solar Flux was 70, near minimum level. The K index was 2 and 1 during the periods.
Band conditions were very nice on 40-30-20-17M, with low noise and long propagation.
I was running 10W to a 20M end-fed inverted-L wire, high-Z, on W0C/SP-123.
On W0C/FR-165 I ran 10W to a 16M end-fed inverted-L wire with 4M counterpoise, moderate Z.
While the antennas were only a few meters high, suspended from a pole at about 6M and sloping down to about 2M, they were both set up on sharp ridges running north-south.
If I see a DX spot for NA or anywhere else, I monitor the freq for awhile just in case I get a chance of a contact. This has worked a couple of times.I also alerted a HB0/HB9DQM/P Activator last year that S.America was calling him and he successfully made the contact & thanked me via email later which was nice.
That’s great news, dear George, again EA and ZL within a minute! Fantastic!
EA and ZL are perfect antipodes. I remember being CQing and working North-America late in my evening, thus beaming North-West and suddenly being called by some ZL station. There must be some type of common propagation path passing over North-America between us in EA and our antipodes friends in ZL.
You have a very good way to set-up your SOTA station. I have chased you several times and there are various other activators in your area who are often not getting here.
I have even chased you while you were in a joint activation, having the other ham activating with you working on 20m CW and not being copied at all here and just a few minutes later you showing up on that same band and mode and making the trip to my ears in EA2 land.
Man, you are a very experienced ham and highly skilled SOTA activator and your results are there to prove it.
Please, keep doing the good work.
Best 73,
Yesterday, from E7/BO-023, I had QSO’s with George N1GB (who gave me 529) and Bob AC1Z (339).
Today, from E7/BO-016, two new QSO’s with over-the-pond stations: Rich N4EX (429) and Bill K2TQC (579). It’s nice to see that my tiny signal traveled even deeper into the continent, all the way to Syracuse, NY . And earned such a great report!
Thank you all, old boys.
By the way, when is the next EU<>NA party?
73’s!
Zoran/E70AA
. And earned such a great report!