I do much less travel for work than I used to. I always liked to be at the airport check-in/gate nice and early. I could happily play with the laptop/read till the flight was called. However, I once travelled with a salesman type who did more travelling than me and he said that you didn’t need to get there early. What followed was one of the most traumatic 14 days of travel between Scotland/Korea and various destinations within. Time after time we were running through airports/stations and just getting to the gate on time. Sadly he was organising the itinery and I had to go along.
When I got back I laid down an ultimatum… “I’m not travelling with him again, even if you offer me 1st class on the long haul flights”.
Plenty of time is how I like to do it. Which is why I never put an EA3 summit on when I was driving back to Barcelona about 18months ago. I could have done it with about 30mins leeway in the end. Or miss the flight. But I didn’t know that till I was at the airport. Estrella Damm and lots of it would have eased the trouble of arranging another flight!
I would rather fabric something on site from what I had avaiable to achieve qualification on another frequency band than have to make a second visit to the summit. Running repairs are sometimes a necessity, so I do carry a small amount of kit for that purpose… which reminds me, the 10/18/24 MHz dipole needs a permanent repair as it broke last time out. I think I will insert a 6m link while I have the soldering iron to hand.
73, Gerald G4OIG
P.S. The dipole does work 7MHz through to 28MHz with my Z-11 auto-ATU.
…or send Paul down outside of the AZ with a 2m HT to work you using both of his callsigns! Highly unlikely you would ever need to do that though with your usual MO Gerald, as you infer.
That is certainly not what we would want to do, but we have had to resort to a contact or two made on the other’s station on occasion when one of us has come up against poor band conditions. While that is no different to sharing a station, it doesn’t sit well with us… so just don’t mention Tinto and Dungavel when you see me.
Nowt up with that Gerald, surely part of the advantages of having an activation buddy! Several times in recent months Jimmy M0HGY has used my HF station to get the 1 or 2 more contacts needed to qualify, or me get a few on 2m FM on his station!
No dissatisfaction with that whatsoever, although it is easier if all the contacts you want come in on your own station of course.
Nowt up with that Gerald, surely part of the advantages of having an
activation buddy! Several times in recent months Jimmy M0HGY has used
my HF station to get the 1 or 2 more contacts needed to qualify, or me
get a few on 2m FM on his station!
No dissatisfaction with that whatsoever, although it is easier if all
the contacts you want come in on your own station of course.
Indeed.
However it is perhaps a tad less ethical for your activation buddy to return to the car a few minutes before you, just to enable you to work him for your fourth QSO from the summit.
Not very satisfactory - but better than coming away from some remote place in Northern Scotland or West Wales without the points! Not done it much - maybe a single figure number of times - but can’t say it’s never happened in 1600+ activations.
In reply to G3NYY:
That one was amusing Walt because the car park is right in the AZ just 2m or so lower than the summit. So I had to drive halfway down the road to the main road in order to give him his 4th qso!
I don’t recall whether I drove back up to collect him, or let him walk down to me!
LOL! Well, as I said, it’s quite within the rules … although it’s probably not what one would wish to do as a matter of routine.
However, I do think it is THOROUGHLY unethical to work the same chaser operator more than once under different callsigns (for example a personal callsign + 1 or more club callsigns) in order to make up the total number of QSOs. I have been offered this facility more than once by well-known chasers, but have always declined.
However, I do think it is THOROUGHLY unethical to work the same chaser
operator more than once under different callsigns
There is a chaser in Wales who always works his mate with both his callsigns. Then again I don’t think either party is worried about ethics; at least one certainly isn’t!
In reply to G4OIG:
Dear Gerald,
I didn’t really need to qualify this activation, as I had already activated this summit earlier this year. This summit is very close to my QTH (9Km) and I’ve walked-hiked to it with my dog from home in a couple of hours many times. I can do it as often as I want. I must have been up there nearly as many times as Tom has been in The Cloud. This summit can easily be reached by car and so I did yesterday. I drove up to a parking surface located pretty close to the summit and I only had to walk-hike for a few tens of meters with the kids and the rucksack containing my SOTA kit to reach the geodesic vertex at 1037 m a.s.l.
The main purpose of the activation was to take the 2 kids outdoors with me and away from home in order to let my older daughter get some concentration to study for an exam she had today at school. When I got home from work this evening, she just told me she made a good exam today, so mission #1 accomplished
The second purpose was testing whether conditions on the 6m band were as good as they were on the day before for a simple 5/8 wave antenna and a 5w QRP station. I don’t think conditions were bad, but perhaps there are not yet too many SOTA chasers ready to chase on this band.
I didn’t get as many contacts as on Saturday but a S2S and an EA8 DX is something highly appreciated. However no more than a SOTA CW QSO with my friend Santi EA2BSB,
Only getting 3 QSOs must be the SOTA equivalent of coming 4th in the
Olympics.
I agree…
Have ATU, will avoid non-qualification.
I had my complete SOTA kit with me, which included ATU and 7m long telescopic fishing pole for HF activity, but the home made 5/8 wave antenna for 6m is performing so well, that I didn’t even need to connect the ATU. I put it directly to the FT-817ND with SWR 1:1.
After so many CQ calls on 6m without an answer, I would have installed the ATU and the 7m fishing rod to run for a while on 30, 20 or 15m should I’d been on my own, but I was with my 2 little kids and they were bored urging me to finish, so I didn’t want to hold them much longer.
I’d recommend you all in the Northern hemisphere to try to activate 6m these summer months, as it might be a lot of fun.
Best 73 de Guru - EA2IF
In reply to EA2IF:
Does anyone tinker with PSK on the 6m band, I have a day of next week and may have a try from a summit depending on the weather, but not to sure of the freq is it 50.305 or 50.250 ??
Does anyone tinker with PSK on the 6m band, I have a day of next week
and may have a try from a summit depending on the weather, but not to
sure of the freq is it 50.305 or 50.250 ??
The consensus seems to say 50.250 in Europe - but YMMV! Outside of Europe, it is 50.290.
