VK JA ZL - EU S2S 10 March 2018 (Part 2)

Careful Mark the Antron is BIG and heavy and so is also the mast it has to go on. I know having heard of Mikes repeated succeses, I bought myself a second hand one. I haven’t had the energy to drag it up a hill as yet!!

I think timing was the key this morning although I was on at 06:20. I think, as I’m further east, I would have needed to be on at 0600 to grab those VKs! (if they were there by then)

73 Ed.

http://www.radiomanual.info/schemi/ACC_antenna/Solarcon_A-99_review.pdf

My thought was that we in the UK needed to be on by 06:00…you would have needed to be up and running by 05:30. :wink: Unfortunately it is impossible to determine precisely what time we should start these events. The same applies to the NA <> EU one. After all, how long can one stay on a summit? For most there is a practical limit, unless you camp overnight.

As for me, some may think that 170 miles and three and a half hours driving just for 4 QSOS is not worthwhile, but I really enjoyed it and working my first VK summit has made my day. :smiley: Sending the former Class B call on CW on HF was great - back in 1969 when it was first issued it would have had the Post Office inspectors frowning to say the least!

73, Gerald G8CXK (aka G4OIG)

3 Likes

How strange, I’ve worked a combination of nealy 1000 VK/ZL contacts from various SOTA summits, almost 100 of them Summit to Summit.

Perhaps I should take it back to the dealer I purchased it from and ask for a refund!

2 Likes

Hi Gerald,
Yes I’m trying to work this out both Jeny in Bulgaria and Ignacio in Spain made S2S SSB contacts (the harder ones to make) between 0700 and 0740 UTC but Mike says he started with VK S2S contacts at 0630. I would have thought Mike’s contact window would have been later than those from Continental Europe, not earlier.

In any case it looks like I came on just after the 20m band closed today. :disappointed_relieved:

Roll-On the clock change so I can get to a summit 1 hour earlier from the 25th of this month.

Instead of here, I have published separately my activation report, as I usually do.
You can find it here:

I hope you’ll like it.
73,

Guru

1 Like

Exactly, the point is to have fun. Need to ensure I can play for the next one.

They’re further South than you Ed. You should try playing on the bands from up here. They can be dead when people 500miles South are hearing and working all sorts.

I may have done the same, but at least I was only hoping to chase from home. I’m wondering whether grey-line may have played a part in at least some of the S2S contacts. I was awake a bit late to catch it…

K index at 4 was the killer… Game set and match…

Latitude has a big effect indeed. I lived 6 years at the South of the Madrid region and I experienced there the best conditions ever compared to those in all my years being a ham in my birth town Pamplona. Now that I’m back in Pamplona, there are not those great conditions anymore. And that’s about 450 Km latitude difference only.
Comparing EA8 with GM, for instance must be like switching ON and OFF the light… :wink:

Cheers,

Guru

I wasn’t using a vertical antenna Andy, but an inverted vee, so its likely down to low angle radiation which makes the difference. I think the biggest influence is how far north you are. Southern EU will always do better then we do on that long path, as to a lesser extent southern England will. If I had been on a summit and calling CQ SOTA, even up north, I may have been in with a better chance.

With the strength of Neil’s G0WPO/P signal on Pendle Hill he should have been working DX if there was any chance of it. He worked a 5B4 station who was strong I recall. I’m not sure if he went on to work any other DX. I did hear a ZL station at good strength in QSO on 40m CW with G3ROO well after 0800. Possibly QRO with a 4 square array - who knows? I didn’t take note of the callsign. It made a change listening around like we used to do, rather than clicking on SOTA spots at home from your cluster hihi!

As far as the police are concerned I was also approached by a detective and then at the same location, by a uniformed officer and interrogated when I was operating in 2015 with Nick G4OOE on PA/PA-004 near Apeldoorn in 2015 Catterblog: Benelux Tour Day 5 PA/G4OBK/P our passports were checked then, but we were left to continue operating.

The best part of my SOTA day was working EA6KB Lorenzo this evening on 40m SSB on EA6/FO-001 for a SOTA Complete. I was the first acitvator and Lorenzo is the second.

73 Phil

Isn’t PA-004 in the Dutch Queen’s garden/forest? That would explain the visit from the 5-0.

Just read the other reports, especially Gerald’s, and it does appear that I was too late getting on the air with my mobile chaser station (about 0700z) to take advantage of what propagation there was on 20m. I think in my case, I backed the wrong horse and 30m would have been a better choice at that time. However, the number of CW operators in Oceania on that band using Morse would have reduced my prospects.

I admire the efforts of those who really went out of their way on this event by getting up in the middle of the night, travelling and then setting up in the dark before suffering the horrible wet WX they must have experienced, good on you guys.

73 Phil

I know it was private and well fenced Andy that’s all. We were on the road side of the fence though and not on private land. Summit is now deleted due to lack of prominence.

73 Phil

An interesting event and many thanks to the organisers and to the EU activators going to the extreme lengths required to activate in the weather conditions.

I had arranged with vk1ad to make a few quick contacts on 1296 and 2403 as we had line of sight between our summits. That was supposed to be all done and dusted by 0600 but actually dragged on due to equipment problems at my end. Suddenly Wade vk1mic popped up on 146.5 and announced he had just worked his first S2S into G. At that point I said to Andrew let’s quit messing around with microwaves and get onto hf, which is why we are here.

I then had to set up my 20m vertical so it was another 20+ mins before i was on 20m to hear big signals from VK and ZL and some weaker signals from some Europeans. That delay no doubt cost a few contacts. However it was at that stage still way before sunset and I was expecting condtions to improve in the last hour, as usual. That wasn’t the pattern on this occasion. Reading the comments about conditions being very selective at the European end, expecially the dead band experienced by Phil G4OBK, suggests that the final hop into many European stations was sporadic E occurring in the Atlantic where the sun was already active in the long path. Sporadic E does tend to switch off quickly whereas F layer tends to fade. When the usual time for long path F layer propagation arrived, there wasn’t sufficient F layer ionisation to support the path.

At my activation I had made the decision to run some extra power so was using the IC706 set to power level 4, which probably means somewhere between 30 and 50 watts. On ssb I used the inbuilt compressor at a low level. I made a few ssb contacts but signals sseemed to be fading so I went to CW. I noted several spots from Tom but never heard him but other stations were on his spotted 058 freq. I know I had multiple callers at one stage but only worked 2 of them and on completion of those contacts there were no further calls. We all have to try to get those contacts made quickly as otherwise callers give up and move on, I found the most time consuming was sending and receiving REF data which actually isn’t a required part of a SOTA contact.

When 20m faded out for Europe I put up a dipole for 30m and had some contacts into Europe including two DL4s, HB9DQM (big sig as usual Manuel) and several JAs. And VK2IO, 439 both ways.

On the subject of compression for ssb, I believe Wade VK1MIC and Andrew VK1AD would have been using compressors too. In marginal conditions improving the talk power of ssb is vital.

Including the local contacts made on vhf/uhf, my contact count was 26 with 21 S2S. I guess 5 or 6 of the S2S were on vhf/uhf.

Sorry to those who called but didn’t succeed. I think in many cases you actually did get through but only one contact can be made at a time.

Not bad for the sunspot minimum. Well done everyone, commiserations to those who had dead bands, thanks very much for your efforts.

73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH

6 Likes

Not the best DX for me, mostly due to poor choice of summit: hard to get antenna up well, even then rock blocking LP to Europe, worry about car being vandalised by the “car enthusiasts” who use the road 15min walk below as a racetrack at night.

Latitude also a possible factor here - was I the southernmost station?

Still, 11 contacts, all with VK and all strong signals, 9 S2S. Heard VKs working EU but the only one I heard was a SV and not well enough to work.

Thanks to the organisers. Will try next time from a different summit.

73 Andrew ZL3CC

Fantastic effort by all who took part, some truly inspiring stories! Very sad I couldn’t make it this time due to family commitments.

Did have a listen on 20m between 0630 and when I had to go out at 0700, heard not a peep above the local noise but the Hack Green Web SDR wasn’t showing much more…

Will definitely book myself for the EU<>NA event in April!

73 de Paul G4MD

The one reviewed there looked more than a bit as if it had been “got at”, or manufactured last thing on a Friday afternoon, what with the blobby solder joints and bits where the wire had just been twisted together. I suspect the one you actually have is in a rather better state, and that if you went out with the one reviewed you’d not do so well.

I’d be curious to see an objective (WSPRlite?) comparison between a good A-99 (with matching unit to make it work on 20 metres) and a well-made vertical for 20 metres mounted at the same height.

I think this gives a much better insight into the antenna.

https://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1233

At the end of the day, it’s an 11m antenna that works 20m thru 10m…Logs don’t lie…

Stick it on summit during E’s and work the 10m band and it’ll simply blow all the competition away…Period.

Hi MIke,
Will you give your Antron99 an afternoon go on the week 12 of 2018, starting March 19th (Monday) and ending on the 25th (Sunday) to explore TEP on 10m?
73,

Guru