Hi all,
more by accident I had the chance to activate DM/HE-547 “Nickel” today. I was using the 3-band EFHW with traps for 40-30-20 m (@HB9BCB design )attached to a 5m mast elevated by additional 1.5 meters by attaching it to a tree, and keeping the ends > 2 m above the ground. With 5 W and my TinySOTA / MTR-3B station, it was difficult on all three bands. 40m had QRN. 20m was very weak. The most distance contact I made was @SV1RHL. On 20m (14.0597 MHz), I heard a N4? station calling me (?) around 16:21 z but could not complete a QSO, and a V? station at 16:25z, also without completing a QSO.
The summit is also in the woods, that might have additionally attenuated my signals.
LZ2OQ/P on LZ/KV-021 was the only s2s QSO and @SP9AMH was the only other QRP2QRP contact I managed (well, at least the other where I knew it was QRP).
Pretty hard this time, I am glad I made it into Barry’s log on 17m. My QTH was the view tower (65 ft. high) on DM/HE-017. I was running 5 watts from my KX2 with internal ATU through a 1:4 balun and balanced feedline into a triple-leg vertical (radiator and radials 23 feet each). Like Barry I tried to listen to almost every spotted activator, but many Europeans were too close and the only NA I could actually copy was Barry, N1EU.
Still happy with six s2s altogether:
Thanks to everyone for trying, looking forward to working you on the next event and hope to hear you all with 599 on 28 MHz in about five years
73 Chris, DL4FO
I was calling cq in 20, 30, 17 meter from 14:50 to 16:32
I managed only one NA chaser Rich N4EX in 20mt cw 529 and other 12 qso european chaser and one s2s yo8ssh/p from yo/ec-035 20mt ssb. Any qso in 17mt.
50mins to the summit on this hill and 30mins back to the car. WX was stunning. I was in a T-shirt till the last 30mins on the summit. I feel a bit sunburnt
Wow, great to see the reports already, I just got in the door an hour ago.
I was disappointed to find S3 - S4 noise on 20m on my summit, it made many of the contacts tough with many repeats. Thanks to all for your patience. I spent the day calling on 20m, 30m, and 40m. I even tried 17m and 80m (no QSOs on the last two bands). Early in the day I thought I heard a EU activator on 17m, but with deep QSB.
I worked a fair bit of NA S2S, but it was tough. I worked Pete, WA7JTM, and usually I hear him well from a summit, but it was tough today. I did get nine NA S2S in the log with many repeats along the way. 40m wasn’t working very well today, I should be able to work Barry N1EU and Chris KQ2RP on 40m, but not today.
I was calling on 20m and getting ready to pack up. I heard some key clicks bleeding into my calling frequency from above. Since I had no callers I went up to give a listen. 300Hz above my frequency I heard the familiar di-di-dit dah-dah-dah dah di-dah. Great, maybe another S2S. I copied NL3TU/P and called S2S and we completed the QSO. And I corrected to DL3TU/P - I was ecstatic to get a S2S with Roman search and pounce!
After that I had to keep calling on 20m CW when Guru, EA2IF/P found me 20 minutes later. Many, many repeats later we had the contact.
So tough conditions here, but some good results. Thanks to all the participants, I hope your weather was as excellent as mine was. It’s the first activation in five months that I’ve been able to work CW without wearing gloves :-).
I went to a nearby summit, Mont St Bruno, VE2/ML-001. Because of the late spring here there was still snow on the trail which the sun turned to mush in time for the hike down.
Perfect weather, tough conditions and some nice QSOs
Brought my KX3 and ran 10 Watts CW into a vertically mounted EFHW on a 10m pole.
The Band was very noisy, about S2. At first I couldn’t find any signal belonging to a SOTA activator or chaser. After calling CQ for a while VE2DDZ gave me a call from VE/ML-001. His signal was perfectly readable! I was all excited that the band finally opened.
After some more QSOs I started to search the band again and found KQ2RP. The second (and last) NA S2S for today.
After about 90 minutes QRV and two EU S2S QSOs I decided to skip 40m and 60m and pack up. Due to a steady wind from the north-east I felt pretty cold. Sorry if someone was hoping for a QSO on those bands!
As always it was lots of fun. Thanks for the QSOs and your patience when signals were marginal. Hope to cu from the next one!
In the very last minute I changed my today’s targetted summit from a 1 pointer to the 4 pointer Mt. Erreniega (EA2NV-092). I had already activated this summit last January but I decided to repeat it today because its a 4 pointer and it’s a drive-on summit, which was very convenient given that I was planning to stay there until nearly sunset.
Here you can see the summit at the bottom right end of the image below and the direction towards which my 10m long endfed wire sloper antenna hanging from the top of my 7m telescopic fishing rod attached to the trig point concrete cylinder, plus 7m long elevated counterpoise wire were pointing to. Notice the great take-off with those nearly 500m elevation difference.
My rig was the usual FT-817ND at 5 watts output with my MFJ-941B antenna tuner.
Despite the temperature down in the town was a pleasant 19° C when I left it to the mountain, the 1037m a.s.l. summit was colder, cloudy and windy, which gave me some troubles at setting up and also made me loose my calories along the +2 hours I spent there, so I went QRT at 18h30 utc shivering (again) and feeling quite cold. Fortunately, after a quick pack up under a diminishing light, the car was near and its heating system brought me back to normal temperature during the drive back home.
I decided for an evening activation because I thought I may have better chances for Northamerica at that time.
The only band and mode I used was 20m CW.
In a bit less than 2 hours on air, I logged 27 QSOs, 7 of which were S2S, being only 1 across the Pond with Malcolm VE2DDZ. I was also chased by 4 Northamerican chasers.
I tried to often check SOTAwatch looking for spots from NA activators. That’s how I found and chased Malcolm VE2DDZ, as well well as many other EU activators. I also checked for N0MAP, when he was spotted on 14.066 at 17h18, but I couldn’t copy him. With these 2 mentionned exceptions, I didn’t have a chance to find any other NA activator.
This is the full log:
I enjoyed it, as usual, despite the shivering, to which I’m starting to get used to.
Thank you dear chasers for your calls and QSOs. Also to the activators for those S2S QSOs.
Hi Guru,
Thank you for making me your first S2S contact of the day. It’s always pleasure hearing you on the bands…
BTW, what was your set-up today? Your signal was pretty strong in my part of the world…
VY 73!
Zoran / E70AA
Okay Colin… here are the beans. FT-857D running up to 50 watts out (less for EU for most of the activation) , inverted vee dipole for 30 / 20 / 17 and 12m with apex at 6m. Add-ons - a darn good take off to the NW and ears that have had 40 years white noise training on 23cm.
Full report to follow including details on the get-aways and those copied, but who were too weak to work. Some might be surprised.
Having watched my eldest daughter play hockey I took the 20 minute ride up from Troutbeck to the Kirkstone Inn car park. Although I’d spotted for High Street, an 8 point summit I have yet to do this year, I ended up picking ‘old faithful’ Red Screes, 6 points and only a 45-minute staircase walk to the summit. The weather had gone from sweltering to warm with chilly wind as I reached the top. I wasn’t too worried about being late, as others have suggested it should be an advantage for NA contacts.
Unlike the last competition where my mast had snapped I located myself a little away from the Cairn (only possibly with the improved temperature) and started putting up the Slim-G - which reached all of 1m before the antenna fell down broke. Without a soldering iron there was no fixing this so I did my 2m activation on the FT1XD with standard whip - and as always properly surprised on the S2S - North Wales MW0VFC/P and MW0WGB/P and Northern Pennines with GVFL/P. Local chasers on C4FM were Sue G1OHH and Douggie G7CDA.
Following handheld activation I setup the Sotabeams compact travel mast, initially not full height due to the wind with the Sotabeams quad-bander. 40m brought a S2S with M3FEH/P on G/DC-003 who also caught me on 80m later. A few of the great European chasers Manuel EA2DT, EA1IFK, EA2CKX and CT2HKN on 40m and I moved to 80m with lots of QRN due to the thunderstorms over the UK. Finally I spent some time on 20m calling CQ with only EA5IJG initially but then a very satisfying S2S with YO8SSH/P in Romania on YO/EC-035.
My last QSO was a good conversation S2S on 20m with Neil GW0WPO/P on GW/NW-040 - presumably groundwave. Hope to meet Neil and other SOTA activators in Blackpool next weekend.
The last EU <> NA event at least bagged me a NA contact in N1GB but nothing today. I had better hopes given good contacts over the last couple of days including North American, Canadian and Brazilian contacts but it wasn’t to be today.
Had a lot of fun today here in Arizona, but alas no EU even heard this far west. I did hear N1EU calling and working Europe on 17 meters, but did not even hear a wisper from the stations he was working. I ended up making 65 contacts in North America with 23 of them being s2s QSO’s.
So all in all a good day for my faith-full SOTA pooch Shad and myself. Maybe Europe next time!
SFI up to a highest for a long time 75 and K down to 1 - which would have helped a great deal yesterday. I wonder who might be out on this the Marconi rembrance day to take advantage of what the indicators say should be a lot better day on the bands than yesterday with it’s high noise level.
My tally two inter-EU S2S contacts and a few other contacts around Europe with stations 3 or more S points weaker than I am used to them being, oh and a broken mast base for my troubles - more in the blog when I get to it.
Had a great day on G/NP-003 must be one of the easier 6 pointers to activate if you choose your day carefully, either sunny for dry ground or cold for frozen ground as it does get a bit wet on the feet. Lucky enough I had a bit of both today and managed to keep my boots dry.
Setup was the KX2 with doublet style antenna with traps it started out as W3DZZ antenna but had a coax problem last week and replaced with 300ohm feeder with 4-1 balun last miniute funny enough it is resonant from 3.54 to 3.7 MHz better than before.
I didn’t manage to snare any NA S2S but worked a few around Europe, highlight was on 80m SSB working GI0AZA and GI0AZB a first S2S on that band for me.
Nothing beats a day out with a view like this looking down towards Burnhope Reservoir
That is not what is shown in your log above, which I looked at with some disbelief
Many thanks, Mark, for the only HF contact better than 36 during the day. Bad luck with the aerial; I had a bit of a problem myself on Friday - infuriating, isn’t it.
Too much to do in the garden to get out myself.
73,
Rod
Hi Zoran,
I have just updated my post with an image and explanations about my set-up.
Great pleasure for me to QSO with you too. You were also a great signal with me. Conditions were pretty good for the bottom of the solar cycle we are in currently.
73,
I’m definitely NOT hearing a dramatic improvement on the bands this morning while trying to hear across the pond from the shack. If anything, the band is sounding slightly worse this morning to my ears than yesterday.
It is a 3-Element vertical wire beam (schema attached). I thought it would give me some extra gain over an inverted V-Dipole. The disadvantage is that I had to bring my 12.5 m heavy duty mast.
)attached to a 5m mast elevated by additional 1.5 meters by attaching it to a tree, and keeping the ends > 2 m above the ground. With 5 W and my TinySOTA / MTR-3B station, it was difficult on all three bands. 40m had QRN. 20m was very weak. The most distance contact I made was @SV1RHL. On 20m (14.0597 MHz), I heard a N4? station calling me (?) around 16:21 z but could not complete a QSO, and a V? station at 16:25z, also without completing a QSO.
