YO SOTA Marathon 2015

After a successful YO Marathon 2014, another YO Marathon is planned for August 2015, this time with an international team. We cordially invite participants from outside Romania to join us between 9 and 15 August 2015.
Start and end of the Marathon will be in Timisoara, in the west of Romania. Timisoara airport has excellent connections to a number of European cities. The program includes activation of 14 summits with a total of 126 points in YO/WC, YO/MC and YO/EC, with an opportunity to visit some of the touristic highlights in Romania.
Accommodation will be provided close to the summits and needs reservations one month in advance. The usual accomodation in Romania is bed & breakfast and for dinner hot meals are also available. Travelling from Timisoara and between the summits will be done with available activator’s cars, sharing the fuel costs.
Approximate costs per participant is 300 Euro, calculating 6 days with 30 eur/day accomodation & breakfast, 10 eur/day dinner and 10 eur/day fuel.
Registrations are open until 15th of July, 2015.
For a detailed program & reservations please contact Sorin YO2MSB: yo2msb@gmail.com

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When we heard of this SOTA tour we immediately put our names on the list. I had a flavour of Romanian SOTA last year. The nature, the food and Romanian hospitality are fantastic. Looking forward to activating the summits, the Transalpina High Altitude Road (recommended by Jeremy Clarckson) and visiting Dracula’s castle.

73 Hans PB2T and Margreet K2XYL

Thank you Hans for your kind review, hope to give you all a week of joy & friendship in YO, this is my dream for you all.

Will make two different teams, each one with operators both in CW and SSB, operating in the same time from closest summits & switching the summits after activations.

May the propagation be with us, hihi!

There is only one week until the beginning of the YO SOTA Marathon 2015. All the arrangements were made and I expect a team of more or less 10 activators (depends of the different days), not only from YO but also from other countries, going together one week along the beautiful romanian mountains and making SOTA activations. We will split in two teams, activating closer summits in the same time and changing summits after.
I kindly invite the chasers to watch the SOTAspots page, because we will offer a lot of 6 to 10 points summits, starting from Monday 10 of August and until Saturday 15 of August. We will offer activations both in CW and SSB. Most probable bands will be 20m and 40m, but depends on the propagation we could meet also on 10m or other bands. Hope to work also on VHF, the main frequency will be 145.250MHz.
Taking count of the great number of activators, we will switch the operators very quick during activations, mainly on SSB, to give every activator the opportunity to qualify the summit. So please listen carefully our callsigns, we will make announcements on-air and also on SOTAspots when will switch the operator.
The team will be: Hans PB2T, Margreet K2XYL, Paul HB9DST, Zoli YO2BP, Sorin YO2MSB, Csaba YO6PIB, Razvan YO9IRF, Silviu YO6PSX, Petronel YO8SEP, Adrian YO6HDF, Florin YO9IPF, Dan YO9GSB. For the first time, ALL of the top romanian activators will travel and work together during this week. It was a dream almost impossible for me until now, but it seems that SOTA join very fast the people with same hobbies together.
My dream will become true soon, and every chaser is invited to be part of it. Meet you from YO summits next week!

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I wish you all the best, maybe next year I’ll be joining you 73/DX!
Viktor

Hi Sorin,
Sorry I could not be there but you you know why. At hospital on 12th August but besides that day will be listening out for all of you. If the marathon this year is like it was last year it should be a lot of fun.
Good luck to all in any event :wink:
Cheers
Mike

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all the best Mike

73, Hans ON/PB2T

Thanks Hans. I hope propagation is good for you all next week.
Night night.
Mike

@G6TUH: nice to have news from you again! Our thoughts will be with you on 12th August.
This year, the marathon will be twice interesting that last year. But the propagation will be twice ugly that it was… :smile:

@HA5LV: Tnx Viktor, next year you’re invited! … if we will have at least a little propagation.

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All the best Mike,
Hope to hear you on 20m.

73,
Petronel

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Speaking about the 2015 Marathon, “les jeux sont faites”. At this time the team gathers in Timisoara. We will have an evening chat & dinner together and we will hit the road tomorrow morning. Stay tuned, the Marathon is about to begin!

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Good stuff Sorin and the team.
I think I will get up very early tomorrow and put the mast up :grinning:
I hope to hear some of you - if not so be it but good luck and
very best wishes.
Cheers
Mike

On 11 August, late in the afternoon, the first two romanian activators became Mountain Goats on the same summit: YO2BP Zoli & YO6PIB Csaba. The YO SOTA Marathon team celebrate the event in the evening, setting up the tradition that each new Mountain Goat must eat grass from the summit where he qualifies. On the same day, Csaba became also a Shack Sloth due to his S2S points. Pictures from the YO SOTA Marathon 2015 are uploaded daily here: http://share.pho.to/9d7Ve

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Glad to be part of it as an activator for a change working you all on YO/MC-052 on 11th august. I have heard chasers pile up but a S2S pile up was good also being part of it.

Bering activator for a change was nice to hand something back you only get points for the one contact to YO/MC-052 I worked 4 stations in all. But I gave something back to those S2S chasing me for there scores yesterday.

You know what It feels good after been chasing for about nearly a year now.
Congrats to the new YO Goats and YO sloth’s also. So happy to be part of it.

Karl
M3FEH/p G/DC-003 11th august 2015 on 20mb

Hmmmm, when I eventually get to goat status, not so keen on eating grass on a summit here in VK - you just don’t know what the kangaroos have done on it! But this does raise the question, if Romanian SOTA Mountain goats eat grass when they get to goat status, what do their newly graduated shack sloths eat?

Matt
VK1MA

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Good question! Any proposal? :smile:

BTW, the YO SOTA Marathon 2015 is ended now, after a week of activations as planned before. The weather was almost perfect, everything was done as planned and all the team was able to perform activations all the week without incidents. The single problem was the lack of propagation, but we managed to combine different bands. A lot of S2S were done also. Tnx to all the chasers that worked us, sometimes it was critical to make 4 QSO’s for each activator of the two teams.

Pictures from the Marathon can be seen here: YO SOTA Marathon 2015 part 1 and here: YO SOTA Marathon 2015 part 2

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Matt, together with HB9DST I supervised the initiation of these first two Romanian Mountain Goats. I have the impression that Romanian Mountain Goats prefer a liquid celebration over the more symbolic grass.


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Hans,

This is a example of being cruel to goats. :grinning:

You know full well that the recipe is:

6-8 blades of grass.
1/4 litre of vodka.
Crushed ice then whisked and then swallowed briskly…

Cheers
Mike

Mike, at the Mountain Goat level you get the grass and the Vodka separately. Only at the secret Bison level you have to have this:

Cheers,
Razvan YO9IRF

Ah yes Razvan,

Stupid me again!

I have once tasted the secret Bison juice (with no qualifying points) some years ago. You need to be tough to get there and drink such juice.

I think now I should go and take Bertie the greyhound for a short walk and say no more!
Cheers
Mike