VK SOTA QSO Bonanza

agreed Tony, I will try to have antenna for 80m too. Will take the extra wire to extend the dipole.
Today (Sat) around 11am, still very long skip, the ionosphere is high and thin.

73 Andrew vk1da

Hmm, yes 40M has been very erratic mainly in the late evening for intermediate hops.

Will attach the extra sections for 80M onto my dipole if I get a chance.

Trouble with having the extra length it can be a pain setting the thing up. Rather long.

Nick VK2AOH

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Global party :open_mouth:
hell where did that come from. LOL :grimacing:
Only said lets all pile up the summits and have a laugh :grinning:

Just might make it myself but if I do make it, Going to set up the L so its pointing S/P 60’ towards Australia. Again like the gent said earlier won’t be gaining points out of it but will help others along way and may be some extra S2S points.

Remember I can only self spot and will have to find you guys on air the old fashioned way. Plus like it out there nice and quiet easy to reach my type of office and the band noise compared to home is well down.

Karl

I put in 80m as well.

Compton
VK2HRX

And why not even give that a try LOL

Karl

80m worked well this evening. At 05:19 hrs Gerard VK2IO/3 was 599 on 40 metres from VK3/VG-061 , at 06:48 hrs and just prior to, zero on 40 metres from VK3/VG-038. Worked 459 plus and minus with qsb on 80 metres.
On the other summits, Gerard was workable with CW on 40, sometimes with difficulty but Rod was not workable on phone.
Ian VK5CZ was also only workable on CW.
Could not hear Hugh VK5NHG ON VK5/SE-003 or Julie VK3FOWL on VK3/VC-018
With 25 km/h winds, light snow and 0 degrees (wind chill -6 to -5) I will abort VK3/VC-002 and go to VK3/VC-018 and 019 tomorrow. The winter bonus points can wait for another time.
Nick, your KX3 may tune your 40m antenna on 80 with open wire feeder. My 20m extended double Zepp (12.64metres or 5/8th wave length per side with about 9 metres of feeder both tunes and works OK on 80.
Tony VK3CAT

I monitored for the spottted VK activators this morning, unfortunately nothing heard. Checked a couple of real-time propagation sites (WSPR and DXCluster driven) and both said no comms happening between VK and EU during the whole time that we usually get the long path contacts.

So despite my earlier enthusiasm, I have to accept that HF conditions are all over the place at the moment and there is very little chance of my managing any S2S contacts into VK in the morning from DL/AM-180 Berndorfer Buchet, so with regret I am pulling the plug on my activation early tomorrow morning.

Here’s hoping conditions improve over the next week.

73 Ed.

An excellent winter’s day for a walk and activtion of VK2/SY-002, around 20C and bright blue sky and nil breeze. As expected 40m was difficult, only made 8 or so contacts. I tried 80m and got a couple of S2S which was nice. Deep and fast QSB on all HF bands which is as anticipated with the current sun activity.

Didnt see any digital spots come up so I left the laptop in the pack.

Compton
VK2HRX

Up early was going to load up car.
That stuff falling out of skies big time again put as stop to that
So been on air since 0500 ut. Have heard couple stations in Europe working couple of the Australian sotas but no joy being heard here :frowning:

But did work an Greek sota not often happen here but good when it does

Karl

Also “bagged” the Greek SOTA but no VKs. Couldn’t even hear Mike 2E0YYY so conditions were not good.

Had the feeling to start with that I might have missed out by cancelling my activation, but it looks like I didn’t.

Shame - it would have been good to work back into VK, but I guess I’ll have to wait until conditions improve again.

Ed.

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Funny enough did hear him working you prior to me.
Yet no hear you working him this morning.

Karl

Hi Ed,

Smart move by you, cancelling your activation…Trust me :frowning:

Worst conditions I’ve ever experienced to VK. To make matters worse, there was a hatch of black fly that was so bad, I abandoned the activation. Must have been bitten 200 times.

My only contact to VK was a s2s with Gerard VK2IO/P up on VK2/SM-068. Also made contact with SV2HJW/P activating SV/MC-047. Apart from that, a mixture of about 17 EU’s logged.

Be interested to hear if any of the VK Activators had much success to Europe?

73 Mike
2E0YYY

I’ve encountered the big black flies on Gun before. They seem to turn up for just a few days in August every year, then disappear again. Generally, I have found that they don’t bother, so you were unlucky to cop for so many bites. I use my bothy bag for insect protection if needed.

I recall in Spring 2008 that 80m was popular for SOTA, but by Summer that year it wasn’t so useful in the middle of the day, still good for mornings/later afternoon though. Looks like we’re heading back down the other way.

The WAB net is now often on 3.760 rather than 7.160. The second phase of the 6m/10m Challenge this winter could be “interesting” in this hemisphere!

Hi Mike,
I’m sure some will reply here, but the reports on the SOTA_Australia Yahoogroup have all been of strange HF conditions with limited contacts outside of VK I think. Interesting that you managed an S2S with Gerard 2IO - was that on CW or SSB I wonder? I supect CW might just have made it where my SSB signal would have failed miserably had I been out.

Sorry to hear about the flies - they can be really persitant! On my last activation I had a wasp that simply would not go away, no matter how many times I hit him! In the end, I simply let him buzz around - he wasn’t interested in stinging me it seems.

73 Ed.

Hi Ed,

The s2s was ssb and IIRC, Gerard said he was qrp. In such testing conditions a very good contact indeed.

As for the insect bites, lumps are coming up on my face as I type :frowning:

73 Mike
2E0YYY

My activation of Bonfire Hill went fairly well despite the erratic band conditions.For VK wide contacts at times 40 gave good coverage of some of the eastern states.

30M did not seem to give good coverage to VK3 or VK5 although a couple VK4 chasers came in with very strong signals.

15M and 20M were very problematic. Called for a long time with not one response until late in the afternoon around 0608 when suddenly the floodgates opened.

Worked S2S with John VK6NU QRP cw and at the same time many overseas DX calls came in.

Something John and I have been trying to do for quite a while.

There was a small dogpile for while and made a number of contacts.

Have not collated the results as yet.

Otherwise it was a heavily overcast day and freezing cold. My hands were numb and cursed myself for not bringing gloves !!

In the end lit a fire which made things a bit more comfortable.

Had intended to camp for the night however the bitter cold and the rain that started to patter down in the evening put an end to that.

Otherwise things went well with a good number of S2S contacts.

73’s, Nick

73’s, Nick

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Hi Mike, Ed,
I used 10W for the contact and it was my only S2S with EU. I heard and called SV2HJW many times but he didn’t come back. Worked other EU including DL3HXX on SSB so we would have had a shot at an S2S, Ed. The summit I was on did not allow me to put my antenna N-S but I was able to swing one leg around from E-W into an L shape looking from above. So I had 5W firing towards EU and Mike was perfectly readable. Struggled with VK6 on 20m. Only cracked VK6NU on CW with many unanswered calls to VK6HAD. Best was VK6MB on 30m - armchair copy. Pretty happy with 42 S2S over the 9 hour activation using 80m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 6m and 2m.
Cheers. Gerard - VK2IO

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Hi Mike,
Commiserations about the bites. You may need to treat them lest they turn into something really nasty. I never venture into the hills or countryside without my insect repellent.

I listened for you at intervals but not a sign of a signal yesterday. Thanks for being out there in less than ideal conditions.

I figure we will have one more good period of long path openings and then we will have to hope for short path, or any other path for that matter.

73
Ron
VK3AFW

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No DX S2S here also.
Did work three EU DX stations.

73, Warren vk3byd

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Despite the poor conditions you all went ahead with what you could for that moment of you of just never know. You have to be in it to find out rather like the lottery if you don’t play you WON,t win.

Thanks again guys

Karl