Hi. I will be in St Aubin this week and I am going to activate a nearby summit F/NO-117 Foret de Marly or F/NO-112 Bois de Villiers.
Can anyone from Paris advise if they are safe, how long it takes to climb them by walk, any hints which I should know. I will be without any specialised equipment, just normal shoes, jeans, and jacket. I will be using a 2m handleld with an improved inbuilt vertical. Will I have difficulties to find anyone from Paris wanting to QSO with Sota activator?
This is my first time activation and I hope for some hints from local hams. Merci!
Today I tried to activate the mountain on 2m FM with my vertical, hoping for large community in Paris. Unfortunately no QSO was done, and I don’t know whether the Paris community estimates are way to high? Or maybe I failed partially (transmition from tree-covered area).
Anyway, I will attempt once more today, on Wednesday, around 19:00 local time/17:00 CET
In reply to SQ6GIT:
I have the feel that there’s not much SOTA activity in the area of Paris.
People are mainly busy with work, traffic and enjoying that beautiful city.
Cheers,
Tree cover can be interfering with VHF communications, in particular when you are using vertical polarization, although in most cases you will “see” enough gaps to be able to hear and work somebody. Have you scanned over the repeater section of the band, just to check whether you can receive anything?
There is, however, considerably less activity on the simplex frequencies on VHF nowadays compared to, say, 20 years ago. I suppose most hams are on shortwave now, if they are active at all. There may be many hams in Paris and its surroundings, but they may not listen on 2 m any more, or if they do, they may keep to the repeater frequencies. Maybe you could try to solicit for a simplex QSO on a repeater? Worked for me in the late-ish 1990s in Berlin.
Sorry miss the msg,
So I’m very far away from Paris… I’m Near DIeppe (Sea side of the Channel !!!) Only if propagation on SSB CW will be good !!! Don’t think on FM !! Normaly 7 MHz must be the better band but the prop is very changing !!!
Good luck with these summit…
Bye
Tof F5UBH
