Hi Ed,
I listened in from Yass while some of the contacts were made. Signals from EU were not strong at my place, but I did make a contact with an activator.
Andrew’s route up Mt Taylor is not the southern route you took from Sulwood drive, it is on the north side of Mt Taylor starting at the water reservoir in Chifley. Parts of that route are much steeper than the southern route. I prefer the southern route, myself!
I may be able to activate on Wednesday evening (around 0700-0800) so hopefully will join in some long path fun.
will try 20m CW on Sat and Sun around 7:00-8:00 UTC.
Saturday location is in a forrest, but currently looking for a cleaner peak for Sunday morning. I am usually around 14.064-14.066.
You obviously have an eye for the finer details, Ed. I didn’t recognise it was DA-Andrew announcing here but AD-Andrew alerting on SW3.
It’s sure gonna be fun.
Hi Matt,
thanks for the contact on easter sunday. It was really amazing for me as a newbie to work ZL and VK in ssb that morning. And this only with 10W and a simple wire of 5m on a glass fibre pole!
If the wx is as forecast an activation at VK2/ST-053 is feasible. Current temp at 7AM is 13C and last night’s thunderstorm and rain is hopefully not going to occur again today. I’ll post an alert in hope of it being possible. I will be operating as VK1DA as I always do. CW and SSB. Probably 20m and 30m for dx.
Argh. The 1DA vs 1AD confusion got me! Tried contacting 1AD twice before realising that was the wrong acronym!
==
Decided to play POTA tonight and see how ZL to North America was playing on 14MHz. Not as good as Europe - but 3 contacts with Alaska, New Jersey & Hawaii. But signal reports received 52, 25, 22 - so not great compared to what I’ve been receiving from Europe. But the path to North America is also, somewhat open.
Lots of VKs to make up the numbers, and a German SOTA station for good luck!
20w, endfed 40m halfwave on 20m (4.6m counterpoise). 6m SOTA pole. Good takeoff, broadside atop a 30m terminal moraine with lake beyond.
Tried to join in this morning but couldn’t hear any of you on SSB. I think I was an hour or two too early for the propagation, and the other activators.
Didn’t see any VK/ZL on FT8, DK/DG was very weak, YO/LZ was very strong.
Which way should I point my antenna for best chances?
That seat and view looks just like the one at Blender DL/AL-149 (see below) but you were on DM/TH-064!
I heard people working you this morning and could just tell you were there but not strong enough for me to work you S2S from DL/AM-001 on 20m.
A good morning’s activation. I managed an S2S with Andrew VK1AD, thanks to Andy ZL1TM telling him where I was, I think (I had a solid S5 carrier on Andrew’s chosen frequency).
I could hear ZL1LMT but he couldn’t hear me I think (or I wasn’t strong enough to get over the other chasers).
The VK/ZL contacts this morning were ZL1TM, VK3DET, VK1AD/P, VK5CZ and VK2IO. I did see the other Andrew VK1DA spotted but he was on CW each time I saw the spot. After switching to 40m, I had 37 chasers call me in 20 minutes.
So there is no doubt the 20m band between Europe and ANZ is good at the moment, especially from 0600-0700 UTC
