On Sunday 2015-06-14 we will celebrate the 2nd EA2 SOTA Day “2015ko SOTA EGUNA”.
We’ll activate Mt. Atxabal EA2/VI-040, near Murgia (Araba) using the special call EG2UNA, on all bands & modes. Then we’ll have a lunch near the summit at Oroko Andra Mari Sanctuary.
On the previous weekend, (sat 6th - sunday 7th) we will activate as many EA2 summits as possible, in order to give points for claiming the “2015 EA2 SOTA Eguna” Certificate.
To claim it, you will have to contact with at least 33% of the EA2 summits activated between saturday 6th 00:00:00 UTC and sunday 7th 23:59:59, plus the special call EG2UNA (at least once) which will be on the air on sunday 14th from EA2/VI-040.
Today I have contributed to the success of the EA2 SOTA day events by activating Mt. San Cristobal again.
I started hiking about 10 minutes behind schedule because I went to bed at 3AM (local) due to a dinner with work colleagues yesterday and I didn’t hear the alarm I had set for 8AM (local) this morning. Thanks to some men coming home to do some works who rang the house door bell and woke me up at 10AM (local).
While driving to the start point, I had the pleasure to chase Alberto, activating our 10 pointer Mt. Ori - EA2/NV-003, and also Adrian, activating Mt. Etxauri - EA2/NV-070.
The hike was a bit hard due to the sun and high temperature, plus the consecuences of last night dinner with wine, the late sleep and not having drank enough water at breakfast. However, I managed to get to the summit in slightly less than 35 minutes. Not too bad…
When I set-up and I was almost ready to start CQing, I unexpectedly noticed a high SWR which didn’t seem to get reduced by playing with my MFJ AT.
The RG-213 coax cable had been accidentally bent more than 90 degrees in a very small radius during the rushed antenna installation, so I feared something might have broken, but I double checked everything and whatever it was going wrong, seemed to get solved, as I now quickly managed to tune my MFJ antenna tuner for 1:1 SWR.
Then I sent a selfspot by using the new SPOTmySOTA App recently put in place by Iñigo EA2CQ but, for some reason, it didn’t produce a spot on SOTAWATCH, so I finally decided to raise the spot directly from the Sotawatch page.
With all these unexpected problems, I got a bit late on the air. It was 10h04 (utc) when I started CQing instead of the alerted 09h45 (utc) and the first QSO was quickly logged followed by many others.
I was only 14 minutes on air but managed to log 20 QSOs, three of which were S2S and 1 was a DX with Matt KA1R.
This is the activator log:
And this is the chaser log:
Again, thank you very much for your calls and I’ll be looking forward to contact with you all again soon.
Have a great weekend and enjoy the EA2 SOTA day = SOTA eguna.
Best 73 de Guru
Thanks very much for today and for hearing me, also well done with the contact with Matt.
40 was full of qrn/qrm and on 20 sometimes the OTHR popped up but managed to have QSOs with EA2DXY/P (EA1/LR-001 & EA1/LR-004) and EC2AG/P (EA2/VI-035) so not too bad.
OTHR does not exist in the traditional form anymore - at least from internet based sources. Duga-3 was decommissioned towards the end of the 1980’s.
But I do acknowledge the interference. Its exact source is unknown to me, but it would seem unlikely that the old installations are still capable or even useful as an early warning system in the present day.
Anyway this is Russia and whilst the installation definitely existed the exact naming or operational status of the OTHR seems largely unknown.
Guru, looks like lots of fun in EA2. Here the WX was horrible, even for Scotland. We had 70kmh wind gusts and heavy rain showers. It is still very windy now.
Hi Andy,
Sorry to hear about your miserable weather. Other colleagues in other EA2 areas have reported some storms and had to even cancel some of the planned activations. However, we had great weather here in Navarra and I even found it a bit too hot for hiking this morning.
I don’t know yet whether I’ll be able to actívate something tomorrow. It depends on the family
If I finally can’t, I hope I’ll be able to do some chasing.
I hope the weather will improve for you.
Best 73 de Guru
Now I know why the spot sent through SMS didn’t show up on SOTAWATCH: it was my fault, as I wrongly typed 1!9 instead of 119 for the summit reference number
2015 EA2 SOTA Eguna previous weekend activated summits
Here is the table of valid summits for the 2015 EA2 SOTA Day certificate which has been activated this weekend. Data was taken from sotawatch, and stations listened on each summit, band and mode included.
From a total of 23 summits, 18 of them were activated on HF (CW, SSB or both) and 15 on V-UHF FM.
So, in order to achieve the certificate, chasers must have contacted at least 7 summits from this list.
Don’t forget that you must also work the special station EG2UNA (for “eguna”, “day” on basque language) next sunday from Atxabal EA2/VI-040 to obtain the certificate.
Thanks to all the activators and chasers who have taken part. See you on next sunday!
Ordered by summit SOTA reference. (C:CW, S:SSB, F:FM)
As you already know, this last weeked we tried to activate as many EA2 summits as possible, in order to allow chasers to work at least 33% of them and later, after contacting also with EG2UNA on next weekend, being able to claim the 2015 EA2 SOTA Day certificate.
Here you have a summary of the previous weekend results:
of activated summits: 23 (15 on V/UHF and 18 on HF)
of activators taking part: 15
of QSOs made: 830
of different chasers contacted: 393
Now, the certificate data:
of chasers who contacted with 7 or more EA2 summits (>33%): 23
from them, # of “only chasers”: 11
from them, # of activators who contacted 7 or more other EA2 summits (S2S): 12
of non-EA2 chasers who contacted with 7 or more summits: 1
max # of summits contacted by only one chaser: 20
of chasers who did only 6 summits: 7 (5 of them non-EA2)
So given the weather conditions, and the poor progagation, we are glad. Just thank to all activators who made the effort of hiking and staying on the summits, and to all chasers who had taken part. Now, only rests hiking up to Atxabal on next sunday or trying to contact with EG2UNA from your shack. Good luck!
