A remarkable winter activation: OE to VK

Activation Reports
1

Hello,

What a great day today. Great company, great weather and great DX.

For todays hike to Wasserklotz OE/OO-248 with its 1505m and 6 point + 3 winterbonus my good friend Anna joined me. She is back from one year of traveling around the world and so there were a lot of stories to share.

This was big fun and the very nice weather helped a lot.
While ascenting the snow levels increased up to about 40 cm at the summit. Luckily other snow shoe hikers prepared a nice track for us to follow.
Already before the summit I could hear Martin @OE5REO activating Schieferstein OE/OO-277 and I gave him a quick call. Some minutes later our S2S was the first QSO in my log.
Franz @OE5FSL and Peter @OE5AUL followed up on 2m FM.
No more contacts so I changed antenna to the vertical upper-outer for 20m.
Chasers from Spain and the UK answered my call but someone added : VK is calling you! Thanks for the QSP. :+1:
And I heard loud and clear with 58 - Ray VK4NH/2 and got 41 in return. That’s ~ 15600 km with 5 Watt in SSB from my 817nd yes I was sitting in the snow with a bbig smile on my face hi

After a short chat with Don @G0RQL and Phil @G4OBK (congrats to the new transceiver - working ufb) another VK was there:
Paul @VK5PAS came in clear and strong with 59 from the southern end of Australia. I don’t know how it happened but I am happy for this opening.

Woow what a day. :sunglasses: Equal thanks go to all chasers for their effort in returning my calls.

Now some pictures to show you the scenery and SOTA setup:

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OE_OO248_002
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OE_OO248_005
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OE_OO248_007
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Log:

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QSO map:

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73 de Joe

16 Likes
2

Congrats to your SOTA DX. Fantastic.

73’s
Peter

3

Hi Joe,
two reasons I think for Ray and Paul’s contacts from VK with you being possible,

  1. Short-Path (normal route) propagation helped by Pre-Auroral-Enhancement - a Coronal hole opened up today and sent high speed ionised winds to the Earth, watch out for the Plasma at the back of these winds on Tuesday - that won’t help propagation, rather take the noise level up!

and

  1. Paul and Ray were prepared to stay up late - your 12:03 UTC contact with Ray was 11:03 PM in NSW and the 12:09 UTC one with Paul, 10:39 PM in Mount Barker, South Australia.

Good going in any case!

73 Ed DD5LP / VK2JI.

4

Hi Ed,

Thanks a lot for the analysis. Very interesting situation overall and of course luck that both were up late giving my spot a try.
I am so curious for improvements in propagation that hopefully will happen in the next years.

Also thank you Peter for our QSO on 2m and the congrats.

73 Joe

5

Hi Joe,
after reading your spot on the sotawatch I had no copy of you but Ray was very clear here in east of France. Nice that you was able able to work another VK. :+1:
73’s
Laurent

6

Hi Laurent,

I guess the skip zone is not optimal between us on 20m. Thanks for listening in. Some stations were asking for a QSY and I guess that lead to more QSO from Europe to VK. Very good.

73 Joe