SOTA NEWS JUNE 2015 Part 2

SOTA NEWS - JUNE 2015 - Part 2 of 2

NORTH AMERICAN SOTA NEWS by Skip K6DGW

Greetings all from sunny California:

Well, it appears that the fat lady may be at least clearing her throat if not singing and sunspot Cycle 24 may be about to expire on-stage, although from all indications, it will be a very non-operatic demise.

This is Friday, 29 May, and the solar flux is down to 2 digits [99], and the smoothed sunspot # is 81. A-index=3, Kp-index=1. Conditions in early May alternated between pretty good and pretty rotten on an almost daily basis which may account for the somewhat lower totals on the higher bands.

STATISTICS: NORTH AMERICA TOTALS
[as of 2200 UTC 29 May 2015]

Total Activations: 487 [402]
Nr Unique Activators: 161 [132]
Total Chaser QSOs: 3407 [5517]
Nr Unique Chasers: 213 [215]
Unique Summits: 483 [304]

2m: 185 (5%) [120]
6m: 3 (0%) [0]
10m: 37 (1%) [68]
12m: 12 (0%) [40]
15m: 227 (6%) [650]
17m: 192 (5%) [272]
20m: 1839 (53%) [3250]
30m: 240 (7%) [397]
40m: 670 (19%) [717]
60m: 0 (0%) [0]
80m: 0 (0%) [0]
160m: 0 (0%) [0]
Unk: 2

CW: 2110 (61%) [3441]
SSB: 1111 (32%) [1959]
FM: 184 (5%) [116]
AM: 0 (0%) [0]
Data: 0 (0%) [0]
Other: 1 (0%) [1]
Unk: 2

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: Notwithstanding the very modest increase in activation activity, we continued to post achievements.

Pete, WA7JTM and W7A Association Manager reports, “As expected Brian, W7JET, went over the top and is now a Mt GOAT as of May 9, 2015. He is the second Arizona Mountain GOAT. Brian also reached Shack Sloth status while on that summit with a few s2s contacts. Brian just may be the first SOTA station to achieve Mountain GOAT and Shack Sloth on the same day.??” Hmmm … not only on the same day but SS while on a summit!

Pete himself activated his 200th, 201st , and 202nd unique summits on May 2nd. He also reports, “On May 9, 2015 I reactivated W7A/MN-143 which was my first reactivation of a summit ever. MN-147 was also the very first summit I activated, so I decided to end the “unique streak”
where the streak started over two years ago. Since then I have reactivated three more summits.”

Kevin, K4KPK, took a look at chaser statistics on SOTAData and discovered, "I looked at 2015’s top chasers on SOTAData today. The top
5 for 2015, worldwide, all bands:

 DL3HXX, 6568 points, 1654 activators
 W0MNA, 6491 points, 1380 activators
 N4EX, 6473 points, 1407 activators
 W7RV, 6361 points, 1317 activators
 W0ERI, 6235 points, 1299 activators

These chasers are successfully chasing about 250 times a month.
Absolutely amazing! Platinum Slothdom on an annual basis. FB indeed."

NEWS:

Again from Pete, WA7JTM, “The W7A Arizona SOTA Association continues to grow. We have 58 Activators and 74 Chasers listed in the database. We now have multiple activator “cells” located in Phoenix, Tucson, and Prescott.”

Todd, W7TAO has a very nice report on S2S Parties held in OR and WA at Puget Sound S2S Recap | pnwsota.org

The VK’s Are Coming! Fred, N7KRN, reported, “In my log, there are a dozen VK’s that I’ve chased. Don’t have any that chased me yet. 5 were SSB, and all but one were between 0530Z and 0830Z. I leave the light on for them.”

Curtis, KC5CW, has an S2S logged with a VK. I guess it was just a matter of time.

The new official SOTA Challenge [see link on the main SOTA website] has been announced by the MT. This one will be 10 and 6 meters, in two sections corresponding to the Es seasons north and south. We’re approaching the Northern Es season and with Cycle 24 tailing off, we probably aren’t going to see much F-layer propagation on 10 for awhile.

REPORT OF THE MONTH: Couldn’t pass up this report from Fred, KT5X:

"20 may, 2015
W5N/SE-023 and W5N/SE-020 in Valle Caldera

We (meaning Alan, NM5S, John, K1JD, and I) were in the Valle Caldera Wildlife Preserve today. This is the second largest caldera in this hemisphere behind only Yellowstone. When it blew, North America was pretty much wiped out.

The peaks here are between 9,000 and 12,000 feet. The two we did today had never been done before and were right about ten thousand feet.
There were no trails, but remnants of logging and also a big forest fire.

Park rules limited parking to a single spot forcing us to do quite a bit of extra hiking to do these peaks. Still, we reached the first peak right on time, and the second in two hours.

During the first ascent, I spotted movement among the trees in front of us, I could see a furry side but not enough to identify the animal. It had not seen us, however, and a few moments later, it burst out of the underbrush perhaps 30 yards away, a very large golden colored bear.

We warned her we were there, she stopped and gave us a good look, but I
don’t think she could make us out. After a moment, she retreated.

Soon after, we saw another, smaller one, but full grown, much darker, crossing along a topo above us and toward where the other had gone.

Then we starting hearing strange catterwalling behind us and downhill by
75 yards away. It was a sound I have never heard before. Soon we saw the big bear, running through the forest, downhill, stumbled, and up and onward, to our right. That’s when I realized, the sound was cubs calling her.

I think it fortunate there were three of us making a big blurry presence and she decided that it was safe enough to go around us to reach her cubs. That old admonition, don’t get between a she-bear and her cubs isn’t that easy to avoid.

The area had excessive elk droppings and we found a big antler, but saw only two elk.

Thanks for all the chases, folks!

73, Fred KT5X (operating as WS0TA)"

That’s it from the New World for this month. Haven’t gotten any news from SOTA organization efforts in Mexico or Alaska. Everyone activate safely.

73,

Skip K6DGW
North American SOTA Reporter Dude

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SOTA REPORT FROM AUSTRALIA by Allen VK3HRA

Hi All,

Getting colder down here as winter seeps in. Good time to be chasing the brave who continue to go out. Gerard VK2IO became the latest VK Super Shack Sloth. Joining Tony VK3CAT, Peter VK3FPSR and Peter VK3PF. Matt VK1MA gaining the last contact as I was writing this.

Earlier in May at the WIA Annual General Meeting Parks and SOTA players’
received President’s Commendations at the recent annual meeting.

Paul Simmonds VK5PAS received a President’s Commendation for outstanding achievement in the WorldWide Flora & Fauna amateur radio program, nationally and internationally, drawing attention to the importance of protecting nature, flora and fauna. - http://www.wwffaustralia.com/

Allen Harvie VK3HRA received a President’s Commendation for development of the “parksnpeaks” website, an online portal, providing a major contribution to VK amateurs engaging in working from National and State parks, Summits on the Air, the World Wide Flora & Fauna program, and QRP activities. – parksnpeaks.org

And active activators, Joe Gonzales VK3YSP and Julie Gonzales VK3FOWLreceived the Al Shawsmith Award for 2014 for the article “The International Museums Weekend at the Melbourne Museum” published in the September 2014 issue of Amateur Radio.

Several visitors to Canberra (VK1) for the WIA AGM were keen enough to activate several local summits with the help of locals Andrew VK1NAM and Andrew VK1DA. Summits activated included Mt Ginini, Mt Coree, Mt Stromlo, Black Mt and Mt Ainslie. Peter VK3PF also activated Boboyan Range and Livingston Hill while travelling to and from Canberra. Other operators heard making SOTA contacts from VK1 summits were Marc VK3OHM, Onno VK6FLAB, Alan VK4SN, Paul VK5PAS and John VK5BJE.

AM Day - Andrew vk1da/2uh

While the timing did suggest an April fool’s day prank, it actually did happen and a few keen activators made 20+ contacts on various bands including 2m, 6m, 10m and 40m. It has to be pointed out the intent of the day was to make AM contacts not just Andrew contacts.

Contacts we know of include;

Gerard VK2IO made 19 AM contacts on 40m
Andrew VK1NAM made 26 on various bands, 40m, 10m, 6m and 2m Andrew VK1DA made 21 on 40m, 10m, 6m and 2m Adan VK1FJAW made 8 on 10m and 2m.
Andrew VK3ARR made 4 AM contacts on 40m.

The sound of AM was nostalgic but it was subject to selective fading that was absent on SSB and also not all operators had their radios adjusted to produce the right balance of carrier and modulation, which was “interesting”. After using AM for this activation my view was “thank goodness for SSB”.

SOTA 6/10m challenge.

This promoting contacts on 6m and 10m. Both bands very quite in VK with SOTA activators clinging to 40 and 20m. This challenge has created a bit more than the usual level of interest in these bands. To help kick off the challenge in VK1, several activations on 17th May by VK1NAM, VK1FJAW and VK1DA provided them with contacts with US chasers at good signal strengths on 10m. In the process Adan, VK1FJAW worked his first ever dx contacts, with 4 contacts into the US on 10m using his FT817 at 5watts.
Congratulations to Adan, even better to do it from a SOTA summit.

Additional National Reserves Qualifying for WWFF.

May saw VK0 received 33 Native Reserves added to the VKFF WWFF Parks list. This greatly increases the WWFF opportunities for VK1 as previous only had a single National Park, Namadgi NP being listed.

There are 7 SOTA summits in the new ACT Parks;

Black Mountain NR VKFF-834 Black Mountain VK1/AC-042
Issacs Ridge NR VKFF-845 Isaacs Ridge VK1/AC-041
Mount AInslee NR VKFF-850 Mount Ainslie VK1/AC-040
Mount Majura NR VKFF-851 Mount Majura VK1/AC-034
Mount Taylor NR VKFF-854 Mount Taylor VK1/AC-037
Rob Roy NR VKFF-861 Mount Rob Roy VK1/AC-031
Tuggeranong Hill NR VKFF-863 Tuggeranong Hill VK1/AC-038

These additions are on top of the 57 South Australian Conservation Parks, 26 Victorian State and 7 Victorian Coastal parks WWFF coordinator VK5PAS Paul added mid March.

VK5FO - 2 element 20M vertical.

Keen to take advantage of new parks and increase DX opportunities, Activators taking antenna beyond the typical dipole or EFHW.

Bob’s VK5FO recent activation of Mt Gawler – VK5/SE-013 was a unmitigated success with 45 contacts on 20M with 36 of them being EU DX in 30 -40min. Using the KX3 the key was a 2 element vertical antenna array. Yes, 2 elements on a summit is really a lot better than a dipole.
For more information - http://vk5fo.com/

VK Summits and Parks Conference.

The date and venue has now been confirmed for this event.
Where:- Wagga Wagga Amateur Radio Club
When: 24th and 25th October 2015.

The weekend will start at midday on the Saturday at the clubrooms.
Topics include Logging Software, Antenna beyond dipole and mapping.
A dinner will be hosted on Saturday night at a venue to be advised.

Sunday will involve activations of local SOTA summits and WWFF parks.
About 20+ people have shown their interest in attending.

Stay tuned for more details or watch VK SOTA Yahoo group.

Winter is coming. Rewards aplenty await the brave.

Allen
VK3HRA

THE VIEW FROM THE NORTH - 89. From Rob and Audrey G4RQJ

May, and a trip down to Lincoln for the DAM Busters Rally puts us close to Normanby Top, a small drive up summit, the highest point in the Lincolnshire Wolds. The summit cairn for this one is deep among the huge fields that cover the activation area so we elected to park close to the radar installation and to walk a couple of hundred yards along the road and to operate 2m with the beam on the 12 ft mast all handheld.

Raising contacts on 2m FM was not easy particularly as we are used to good chaser support in the LD/NP home area but we eventually worked just six stations and no sota regulars at all. A switch to SSB produced the usual silence and as we had other things to do we headed off down. We could probably do better with a personal spot on the phone from the top but not too keen on doing that, like others to spot us and always put out an alert before an activation.

Back home and its bluebell time so the 10th sees us off up Top O’ Selside. This little hill really has everything, a woodland walk, a climb beside a wall up a path that doubles as a stream bed in wet weather, a walk along a bridleway with views down on Coniston Water below and a final climb on a grass path through bracken to a heather covered top with a good take off for vhf and room for hf antennas. Start on the eastern Shore of Coniston Water at Dodgson Wood car park where there is room for about six cars. It is often busy with visitors to the bunkhouse just behind. Beware the rocks in the uneven surface, we once parked here and after the activation pulled the front spoiler of the car off whilst reversing out, not a cheap day out!

The walk through the woods is quite steep in places and marked with small posts with white markers which are easy to miss when the vegetation is high. The woodland is full of wild flowers, particularly in bluebell time prompting lots of stops just to take it all in. This place is also a haunt of cuckoos and today we were not disappointed as the first cuckoo of spring (for us) could be heard in the distance, pity it does not seem to have reached the weather gods! At the top edge of the woods a small gate leads out to the path beside the wall and sometimes in the stream. Today it was not too bad but it takes about fifteen minutes to slog up to the bridle path. The track is wide and contours the hill as a veranda but be careful not to walk off the edge while admiring the views of the lake below, the edge is grassy but steep. Look for a track on your left about a mile down the bridle way, it is marked with a way post. Climb about twenty yards on the track then take the path that forks to your left almost a reversal of your approach on the bridle way and easily missed this leads up eventually to the summit, marked with a pile of stones.

Summit conditions were cold with driving cloud/mist and we hid as best we could in the lee of the quite pointy top which resulted in the beam only being about a foot above the ground on the summit in spite of being on top of the twelve foot mast, not ideal. This resulted in seven fm contacts and one ssb (a repeat from fm) in quite a lot of calling. We were cold and had had enough so headed off down. Will it ever be spring?
Away in Northumbria and a chance for a couple of uniques

First on the 17th Ros Hill which went to plan as per the advice on the reflector. The obvious path up the front of the hill seems to be seriously eroded and would be very slippery for descent if wet which today for once it is not. The summit is a little pleasure with a trig and shelter from a wall. Organised walking parties passed through so maybe the hill is on a local tourist route which may explain the erosion. Plenty of contacts into the Newcastle area on 2mfm and some long chats, passing visitors were very interested in our activities. As there were children picnicking and playing we used the short inverted V dipole missing out 5 and 7 MHz but 14cw yielded a nice small haul including an s2s with HP9DGV/P. On the descent we tried the more circular route which is not eroded but may well be hard to find once the bracken is up.

Second on the 19th Lamberton Hill and our first venture on to Scottish SOTA territory, this little hill is just over the border and the smallest of the SS group. We asked permission at Campfield Farm (on your left just after a junction if you’re coming in from the A1) and the farmer was quite happy to grant it. There is wheat in the middle field this year so he suggested the second gate on the far side of it, we checked and he said that the small wooden gate route on our SOTA instructions was also ok so off we went The gate proved to be rather further from the road junction parking than we had anticipated and after climbing over it was a case of head for the high ground up a steep grass slope. We reached the visible post to find that this was not the top but part of a cross wall with two electric fences. The wall is quite broken at this point but the second fence looked quite high and I (Rob) was thinking of a quick limbo. Audrey is much more intrepid so like a good leader I sent her to recce the situation. We cover the fence wire with a thick plastic survival bag to avoid unpleasant surprises and she reported the ground on the far side to be much higher and the step down to be easy, Problem solved. The fort seemed to be as good a place as anywhere without causing bother so we set up initially for 2m fm and started calling and continued calling with the beam in every direction and no reply.

Eventually GM4VUT in Anstruther across the Firth took pity on us and he told us that there was little fm activity as most people had gone to D star etc. That was it for 2m, ssb as usual yielded nothing so with one contact in about three quarters of an hour we tried 5MHz with similar results. Forty cw was much more productive and it was nice to catch our editor Roy G4SSH, rare for us on this band as we are normally at a difficult distance apart. Further reconnaissance on the way back showed that the farmer’s suggestion of the second gate would have avoided the electric fence.

Very little chaser activity this month most of which can be blamed on Colin M1BUU and his mention of the BITX 20. This has resulted in a new rash of home construction and a working receiver is now on the bench (and several other places). Now struggling with Arduino to produce a VFO capable of portable operation. Old dogs’ new tricks spring to mind, they teach this stuff in infant schools nowadays! Also the level of activity in LD and NP seems to be down quite a lot on recent years, maybe it’s the cold weather, the fells have scarcely been out of cloud for two days at a time and the wind is relentless and from a northerly quarter.

Enough moaning, soon be summer.
Take care out there.

73
Rob and Audrey
G4RQJ

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SOTA ON TOP BAND - Mark G0VOF

Hello everyone & welcome to this month’s edition of SOTA on Top Band.

There were two activations during May that took place during a 7 night trip to the North of Scotland by John G4YSS.

On Friday 8th May John activated GM/NS-069 Ben Armine - Creag a’Choire Ghlais and this was the first activation of this summit since SOTA started in 2002. Scotland still has a few un-activated summits, especially in more remote areas so there is still opportunity for those who like to be first. John was returning to this summit after being unable to activate it in September.

Being the first activation, John decided to spend a lot of time on several bands to give as many chasers as possible the chance of chasing the summit, as well as the Worked all Britain squares in the area. After no fewer than 83 QSO’s on HF contact was made on VHF with two local stations, Ray GM3PIL & Art GM0RML and a QSY to Top Band was arranged which resulted in 4 QSO’s, two each on CW & SSB.

Following a spell on 10MHz John departed but included an activation of WAB square NC72 before returning to his base at the Dornoch hotel.

A highly comprehensive report can be found here:

G4YSS:BEN ARMINE GM/NS-069,1st Act'n. WAB-NC62/72 on 08-05-15

The following Day, Saturday 9th May John activated GM/NS-107 Ben Horn, a local summit to his hotel, as he needed some time later in the day for more WAB activity. This is the third time he has activated Ben Horn having previously visited in 2005 & 2013. After a good run on 7MHz again a QSY to Top Band was arranged on VHF with Ray GM3PIL in Nairn & QSO’s were made using both CW & SSB. Phil G4OBK was heard quite clearly by John, but sadly Phil could not hear John. With a hail storm approaching John packed up & returned to the hotel before departing for WAB square NH97 in the afternoon.

Again John has provided a highly detailed report which can be found here:

G4YSS: Ben Horn, GM/NS-107, 09-05-15

Thanks John for the activations & superbly detailed reports.

At the time of writing, these were the only Top band activations during May that I am aware of, if I have missed any others please let me know.

On 8 May, John GM4YSS/P Activated GM/NS-069 Ben Armine - Creag a’Choire Ghlais & made 4 QSO’s (2 CW / 2 SSB)

On 9 May, John GM4YSS/P Activated GM/NS-107 Ben Horn & made 2 QSO’s (1 CW / 1 SSB)

As always, If you do have any suggestions on things that you think should be included, or if you wish to contribute tips, ideas or anything else that you think may help others on the band please email them to me at mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk

Until next month,

Best 73,

Mark G0VOF

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EXTRACTS FROM SOTA DATA BASE - CHANGED FORMAT

Commencing this month and as a result of the interest shown in the 6m and 10m Challenge, SOTA News will display callsigns of stations entered into the data base as being active the previous month on 6m and 10m, using SSB, CW and FM. Note that listings for May will also contain the first 14 days of activity before the Challenge commenced:-

SOTA Activators submitting entries to the data base for 10m and 6m during May 2015 - from Kevin G0NUP. - This file produced on 29th May 2015.

Mode: SOTA CW on 28MHz: activity for May,

DF3MC/P, DL/F5HTR/P, DL/HB9BQU/P, DL/HB9BRJ/P, DL/HB9JOE/P, EA2IF/P, F5LKW/P, F6HBI/P, G4OBK/P, GW4TJC/P, HA7UL/P, HB9/F5HTR/P, HB9AFI/P, HB9BIN/P, HB9BQU/P, HB9CBR/P, HB9CGA/P, HB9IIO/P, K1JD, K7ATN, KD7WPJ, M1EYP/P, MM0FMF/P, NF1R, OE5EEP/P, OH2NOS/P, OK1MLP/P, OK2PDT/P, TK/F5UKL/P, VK1DA, VK3CAT/P, W6/DL6AP/P, W6AH, W7USA ,

Mode: SOTA SSB on 28MHz: activity for May

2E0YYY/P, AC2KL, AE4BL, AE7AP, AE9Q, AK5SD, DB7MM/P, DG7ACF/P, DH4DK/P, DK2CX/P, DL/HB9BQU/P, DL5RT/P, DO1DJJ/P, EA2CW/P, EA2DCA/P, EC2AG/P, F5LKW/P, G1INK/P, G4OBK/P, G8JSM/P, GW4AZS/P, GW4TJC/P, GW6DTN/P, HB0/OE9HRV/P, HB3YNO, HB9BIN/P, HB9TNF/P, HL1ZIH, IZ1TWC, K6KWI, K7ATN, K7JFD, K7NEW, KB1RJD, KD2GKO, KF7JQV, KI4SVM, KK4NQQ, KK4OSG, M0HCU/P, M0OAT/P, M1EYP/P, MM0FMF/P, MM0YCJ/P, OE/DL9MDI/P, OE/S57MS/P, OE5AUL/P, OE5EEP/P, OE5JKL/P, OE5PEN/P, OE5REO/P, OE7FMJ/P, OE9HRV/P, S52Q/P, S53XX/P, S55KM/P, S56LXN/P, S57MS/P, SQ9OJN/P, SQ9OZM/P, SV2OXS/P, VK1DA, VK1DI/P, VK1FIVE/P, VK1FJAW/P, VK1MBE, VK1NAM/2, VK1NAM/3, VK1NAM/P, VK1RX, VK2IB/P, VK2IO/P, VK2JDL/P, VK3CAT/P, VK3YY, VK6FLEW, YO6PIB/P, YO9GSB, YO9IPF/P, YO9IRF/P

Mode: SOTA FM on 28MHz: activity for May
DG7ACF/P

Mode: SOTA CW on 50MHz: activity for May

DL/HB9JOE/P, F/YO9FWO/P, F5LKW/P, F6HBI/P, F8FEO/P, G3RDQ/P, G4OBK/P, HB9/F5HTR/P, HB9BIN/P, I/F6HBI/P, K1JD, M1EYP/P, OK2BDF/P, VK2IO/P, VK2MWP, W7USA, WB5USB

Mode: SOTA SSB on 50MHz: activity for May,

2E0HPI/P, AE7AP, AF7GL, DG0JMB/P, DL/HB9BQU/P, EA1/CT2IUV/P, F4ESK/P, F4GLD/P, F5LKW/P, F6HBI/P, G0LGS/P, G1INK/P, G4OBK/P, GM7PKT/P, GW2HFR/P, GW4TJC/P, HA/OE5JKL/P, I1WKN, K5RHD, K7ATN, KC7MSU, KK4NQQ, M0OAT/P, M1EYP/P, NF1R, NJ7V, OE/S57MS/P, OE5AUL/P, OE5EEP/P, OE5JKL/P, OE5PEN/P, OE5REO/P, OE5YYN/P, S52Q/P, S53XX/P, S56LXN/P, S57MS/P, SV2NCH/P, SV2OXS/P, SV2ROS/P, VE6IXD, VI1ANZAC/P, VK1DA, VK1DI/P, VK1MA, VK1MBE, VK1NAM/2, VK1NAM/3, VK1NAM/P, VK1RX, VK2IO/1, VK2IO/P, VK2JDL/P, VK2MWP, VK3CAT/P, VK3PI, VK3YY, VK5BJE/P1, VK5CZ, VK5PAS/1, W7JET, W7TAO, W7USA, WB7TJD, YO6PIB/P,

Mode: SOTA FM on 50MHz: activity for May

DS1MFC, GW2HFR/P, GW4TJC/P, KK4OSG, M0OAT/P, M6EUW/P, VK3CAT/P, VK3PI.

Regards
Kevin J Prince G0NUP

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CW REPORT FOR MAY 2015 - by Roy G4SSH

May was a month of widely variable propagation conditions, with entire bands dead at various times during the day. The start of the 6/10m challenge on the 15th saw many activators migrate to those bands, but the openings were often brief and unpredictable

MAY CW Highlights

1st MD/PB2T, MD/PE4W were both active from the Isle of Man
3rd 9H4RH, Robin heard active again from Gozo.
3rd TK/F5UKL on a start of an Andres Corsica Tour, all day, all bands. FB.

Adrian EA6/MM0DHY was very popular on a Mallorca tour.
JĂĽrg HB9BIN was active almost daily during the month.
OK1DVM Miro was active from multi SOTA’s in a day during early May
Andy MM0FMF was heard active daily for 4 days in and around Kintyre and Knapdale .

CT8/HB9DPR was in the Azores 9th-12th May
EA1/K1TNT active almost daily during the month.
E7/PB2T heard active on the 10th

Nick CT9/G4OOE was active from the rare PortoSanto Island
16th Marko OH9XX was very active in JS region of Finland

There was a Mass activation on the 16th by members of HB9SOTA club
from HB /ZH-004 with HF bands flooded with members calling CQ SOTA
Members heard:-
HB9BAB JĂĽrg
HB9CGA Uli
HB9CBR Bruno
HB9BQU Hans
HB9CKV Hans
HB9CLT Tom
HB9NBG

There was much excitement on the 17th when an Alert was issued for ZS6/PA3BHF/p on ZS/GP-004 at 1100z. Sadly, nobody heard or spotted this activity, so we hope that he will try again soon.

Fred DL8DXL commenced a 3 day tour of the DM/TH region on the 18th
and Hans HB9BQU commenced a tour in DL

Just how unlucky can you get? Last year Dave G4ASA commenced his annual holidays in EI , only to find that his rig would not work on the first day. This year he was ready to transmit on EI/IW-070 on the 19th, when he was moved on by the local Garda due to a Royal visit to the area.

Bob F5HTR commenced a tour in DL on 21st F/F5HTR

Chris ON6ZQ listening 1 up on 10 MHz in the DM/HE region on the 23rd

Marq CT1BWW was very active from the 23rd on a “II SPRING SOTA TOUR 2015”
1 DAY = 4 SOTA’s Activation

Paul HB9DST was very active from Germany towards the end of the month, Cesar K1TNT was very active from Spain, HB9AGO was very active from Germany.
and Tom HB9DRP was also active from Germany.
Finally, as we went to print on the 31st, Chris CT9/ON6ZQ was active from Madeira and the two Victors, GI4ONL and MI0JST were active from EI-land.

73
Roy G4SSH

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SOTA News is normally published on the last day of each month, but there will be occasions when the Editor is not available at this time, in which case it will be published as soon as possible afterwards. It can only be as interesting as the items submitted, so if you think your particular field of interest is not being covered then please submit an article by the 25th of the month. Have you a favourite SOTA? favourite mode? favourite rig, antenna, or favourite band? How did you find your first day / month / year as an activator or chaser? Your comments and experiences will be read by SOTA enthusiasts all across Europe, the USA, Australia and beyond, in a total of 24 different countries. Your input will be most welcome.

I receive many e-mails during the month containing details of activations, milestones reached and general SOTA news. Unless advised otherwise I will use this information in the next edition of SOTA News. It is important therefore that you advise me if any information is not intended for publication.


Roy G4SSH
SOTA News Editor
g4ssh@tiscali.co.uk

U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW [aka “Skip” on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Auburn CA
k6dgw@foothill.net

Australian input to:-
Allen VK3HRA
VK Reporter
arharvie@gmail.com

South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za


6 Likes

Thanks for another great report. I had however managed to qualify the Summit before the Garda decided my son and I were a Security risk to the Royals and moved us on. Not realising at first that the pole was collapsible, they were greatly intrigued as to how I managed to get a 7 metre pole to the top!!

73
Dave/G4ASA

1 Like

Hi Roy,

Thanks for an interesting news again. Also to Mark (Top Band) and Rob/ Audrey for viewing even further north than usual. Read all articles while it poured with rain here in G/LD land. Just made it back to the road at Newlands Valley from Robinson before it started. A real old fashioned 'Smash and Grab! Just six QSO’s on 2fm. 73, John

We need to hear more about that! :slight_smile: Unless I’ve missed it in another thread. Maybe start another one so as not to hijack the news.

Great news reports as always - love reading what is going on.

The reference to VK0 should have been VK1.