Just wrapped up a trip to Europe where I had the chance to activate a few summits. I wrote up a report from one of the highlights. It was a joint activation with OE9HRV, OE9AMJ and OE9CSH. They took me on a great hike (loop of 10+ miles / 4832 ft elevation gain) to activate a rare SOTA gem.
In reply to K0MOS:
Thanks Matt for the great movie and really gutsy sound track with ear phones on i felt like i was in a theatre . Great activations everyone.
de Ian vk5cz …
In reply to K0MOS:
Hello Matt.
Your Activation report is brilliant!
While watching the video, one gets the impression to be activating with you.
Among other things this is due to the good quality of Sound and Photos.
Thank you for the S2S!
Best 73 de Fred, DL9MDI
You picked a fabulous day for this roundtrip and I recall many good memories from 22 July 2013 when I was activating HB0. Naafkopf was my unique summit #100 Next time I have to include HB0/LI-010; don’t know how I could miss Nospitz during my planing phase …
Thanks for the video, very enjoyable viewing. I particularly enjoyed the double bass solo section of the background music.
Did all four of you activate all three possible references on the second summit? Was it difficult to know exactly where the borders were, and how easy was it for you to rotate operating positions, taking down equipment and setting up again etc on a border summit with three references like this?
Activating summits with more than one reference is governed by the General rule 3.7.1 clause 13. Fort short, only the operator has to be in the appropriate association. Therefore the equipment stays put (at least the antenna) and only the operator moves around (put the radio in the center and you only have to rotate the radio a few degrees when moving into another association).
OK, just looked on the Database and it looks like you guys did move around operating positions to activate each of this summit’s three references.
However, I am confused by claims of S2S QSOs between two of the team on Naafkopf. You might have been activating different references to each other but you were still on the same summit in the same activation zone, and so these QSOs are not valid either for activator or chaser/S2S entries.
In reply to K0MOS:
Great movie Matt. Made me want to get on a plane and go there tomorrow! Although I suspect the first winter snow will now have arrived.
I’ve just taken another look and I see that these “S2S” contacts are claimed by two of the activators in this expedition. The logs appear in the activator logs, and are also claimed in the Summit-to-Summit award table.
As you correctly state Matt, provided the position of the operator is within the jurisdiction of the appropriate association, then the activator may do multiple activations on a border summit such as this. However, the definition of the activation zone does not alter and become within national borders. And QSOs with others within the same activation zone are not valid for SOTA chaser, activator or S2S awards.
A nice idea to quickly rack up 70 points in the S2S award, but not really in the spirit of the programme!
This may however force us to look again at the issue of border summits!