I will be attempting Mount Battock GM/ES-032 this afternoon. ETA is 1500z. A different route, one from the Cairn o’ Mount road that I can cycle most of the way.
Anyway, there will be two un-tried aerials in the bag - a 10m vertical and a 2m slim-G. The vertical took an hour to make last night and has been very quickly tested for SWR and that’s about it.
I will attempt the activation on 2m FM and then 10m SSB if the band is open.
I have a Sirio 2016 vertical 10m antenna up at home, approximately 1100ft in Mid-Wales. I will watch your spots and have a listen if the band is open - fingers crossed. No chance on 2m unfortunately Good luck!
Yes you are correct in what you are saying… but we all know radio does surprize on times. I’ve worked quite a few GM stations on 10m from my home QTH in the day, so we will see.
That was my original plan and I may still do this. This one is a quarter wave with three radials at 45°, where the radials are also the guy ropes. It’s forecast to be breezy on top today.
I’ve tried many times to work locals from my home QTH (~30m ASL) via ground wave on most HF bands without luck. It seems the ground wave is attenuated quite quickly with any hills in the way.
On the other hand Colin @M1BUU on a G/NP summit was crashing through on 20m CW at my G/LD summit during a recent SOTA event. LoS makes all the difference.
Hi Éric, I find this dx-heat.com chart useful since you made many of us aware of it (via this reflector). But as you pointed out, it shows activity on the band so it’s only an indirect indicator of propagation conditions. So, for example, a band could be open even when there’s little or no activity shown on the chart. For that reason, I have the frequency on 20m, 15m 10m, etc of the coordinated beacons programmed into my rig for a quick check of conditions.
Probably my ground plane and FOUR elevated radials doing the work!
I’m not sure as to the reason, but I was chatting with Roy Lewallen W7EL about SOTA antennas, and apparently an even number of radials is better than an odd number.
I’ve always run four radials on my verticals, I find it easier to gauge 90° spacing rather than 120°!
I don’t think 120deg - or for that matter, 90deg - is very critical. I copied the MM0FMF vertical with one radial which works very well, I tried it with two in an inverted T formation and got very little improvement, and with four got no additional benefit.
You were on Ingleborough or Whernside I think and I was on Arnside Knott (LoS, ~28km away). I was trying to chase a US station on 20m [hoping to sneak in between QRO home chasers] and you chased him - you were 599+ with me. I can’t imagine any other propagation mode other than ground wave over that short distance.
Good luck!
