70cms UKAC and Fun night

Looks great Pom. I was disappointed with conditions last night from G/SP-015, but made 60 QSOs - 19 on 70cm FM, 37 on 70cm SSB, 1 on 70cm CW and 3 on 2m FM.

No chance of working you S2S - even working into GM was a struggle, and the South East of England was never heard.

Yap, absolutely flat condx, neither SK7MW nor SK7CY were heard.
But autumn and winter condx are to come, Tom! When the condx are fb, I’ll hopefully be QRV from DM/NS what will make a s2s more likely than from OK. :wink:

Ahoi
Pom

Edit: And I may have to add another 3 dB by stacking antennae…:face_with_monocle:

Will you be on a SOTA for the 6m tomorrow night Pom? I’ll be on FT8 1800-1855z and SSB/CW from 1900-2130z.

No, 6m portable situation still unclear in DL. Anyway, I yet don’t have a decent 6m portable antenna.

As the lovely weather continues, a reminder that it is 70cm contest evening tonight - FM 1800-1855, and CW/SSB 1900-2130z. A great opportunity for some SOTA S2S on 70cm from a convenient local hill (are you tempted Viki @M6BWA ?)

After last week’s brilliant SOTA turn-out on the 2m contest night (many activations across G, GW, GM and DL), I hope there is a SOTA presence (as well as me) tonight too.

Hi Tom,

I’ll be on GW/NW-042 this evening for the contest. Will give HF a go as well, as 7MHz was busy with inter-G last night, so I hope to make some HF contacts.

73, Simon

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The car is packed and I will departing straight after work.
I will be on my usual spot G/CE-004 for the SSB part tonight.
(I probably won’t be on a SOTA on Thursday evening.)

73,
Stuart

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Last week there was 3 or 4 alerts and there ended up being around 15 SOTA activations on for the Tuesday night 2m contests - if you include GM and DL. There’s 3 alerts on for this evening (although I have cheekily posted one for Stuart ZAR based on his stated intentions above!) - so could we have a similar bumper crop of activity tonight? Hope so!

I’ll be taking part in the contest tonight but I don’t think I can get out to a summit with suitable gear for 70 cms. I will look out for activators to work though. Hope to catch you later!

I’ve just alerted for 18:30 on Corndon GW/MW-013. I hope to catch a bit of the FMAC and then on to SSB / CW.

Plan is to be on Blencathra G/LD-008 this evening for the 70cm event. However only 5W to a horiz 7-ely ZL and LD8 is well screened in many directions. I don’t expect much on 70cm but will TRY to work Phil G0UUU/P & Phil G4OBK if he’s about, beaming east at app 8:30 local.

Sometime 10pm local or after - Top Band on 1.832-CW and 1.843-SSB (50W - loaded dipole).

Maybe 2m-FM-QRP vertical if 70cm dries up.

Plucking a frequency at random for SOTA chasers 432.222 +/- at say 9pm local and same for the easterly sked at 8:30pm. I will try to be there +/-. If there’s phone signal I will self-spot in case that’s occupied etc. Not promising anything - still got to climb it and already done LD10 today. It’s a bit warm here.

73, John
using G4YSS/P

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Last night I had a mixed evening on 70cm from The Cloud G/SP-015. The FM hour (55 minutes really) was reasonable with 24 QSOs. The SSB main contest was awful. Conditions seemed dreadful - either that or my 817’s RX has gone deaf! I made just 25 QSOs and quit early at 10pm.

The SOTA Fun Evening aspect was good though. Several S2S worked:

GW7WKX/P on GW/NW-042
G1ZAR/P on G/CE-004
GW4AZS/P on GW/MW-013

…but sadly not G4YSS/P who I couldn’t hear at all.

I hope the evening ended well, John.
I could hear (but not copy (apart from CQ)) lots of CW exchanges, one of which was VERY loud. Then Phil, G4OBK, came up on ssb, clear as a bell 57 with a bit of QSB but not a squeak from G4YSS/P or anyone else. I did not stay long enough to see if I could work Adrian, G4AZS/P, as he was still on CW.
73,
Rod - in Hereford City

I thought conditions were reasonable but activity was light during last night’s contest. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to find any of you on the summits though :frowning: Next time!

Lovely summer evening on The Cloud G/SP-016 last night for the June 70cm activity contests / SOTA Fun Evening.


The view from the ‘shack’!

74 QSOs made - 19 on 70cm FM and 55 on 70cm SSB.

DXCCs: F, G, GD, GI, GM, GW
QRAs: IN99, IO70, 74, 75, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 91, 92, 93, 94

S2S:

Peter MW0PJE/P on Moel y Gamelin GW/NW-042
Stuart G1ZAR/P on Bardon Hill G/CE-004

Great to have 70+ QSOs on UHF, and great to have some SOTA S2S activity. Maybe we can aim to have the July sessions on 2m, 70cm, and 6m as “Summer SOTA Fun Evenings”. Also great to have comfortable operating wx - not often the case on night-time activations!

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I didn’t do as well as hoped on FM, I’m wondering if my beam is too directional. I could easily lose stations if I turned it a small amount.

I didnt stay /p for the SSB part, it was getting a bit chilly in the breeze.

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Nice to work you both last night.
I worked a similar number of stations / squares as Tom and was pleased to be called by an EI station in IO62.
The beam does not look to extreme, but perhaps having it vertical the pattern is different to what I am used to?
I had my short (15 element) beam last night, as I consider this to be “not to pointy”.
Yes, although it is the middle of the summer it can still get cold on a summit. I did end up with hat and coat on at the end of SSB. Note that your summit was twice the height of mine, so could be quite a difference in WX.
Hopefully I will be on a different summit for the next one.

73…Stuart

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