Hello everyone and thanks a lot! because, thanks to you, that 550-kilometre journey around the hills of Lorraine where F5AKL was born was a big success. Without your numerous reports to our CQs, it wouldn’t have been that great.
Thanks to F5AKL who knows the region well, and especially to a nice and sunny WX, we were able to activate 7 summits on the 13th and 14th of June. On the last summit, F/VO-061, we were afraid we’d have to stop as we were threatened by thunderstorms. But apart from the storms’ QRN, we managed to end without a problem.
We made more than 200 QSOs with our 3 calls: F6ENO/P and F8UFT/P = 125, F5AKL/P = 78.
We recognised a lot of calls we are used to contacting as chasers or hearing on air from our stations.
We warmly thank everyone to have made these 2 days become a real pleasure, and we can hold up as examples some of the most “diligent” ones:
DL6UNF 11 QSOs, DJ5AA 8, GM4FAM 8, F8DGF 7, G4SSH 7, GW0DSP 7, HB9AAQ 6, HB9DOT 6.
We hope to contact you in September from summits that will be more profitable as far as the points are concerned: F/AM-xxx, and the Sainte-Victoire mountain, before the CLIPPERTON DX CLUB convention in Provence.
Again, thanks to you all and “see you later” with pleasure.
73 QRO from André/Andy F5AKL and Alain/Alan F6ENO.
PS: thanks as well to Marjorie, F5AKL’s daughter, for translating these few lines. If it had been Andy’s “poor” English (he only knows “beefsteak” and “roastbeef”!), it would have taken you a week to understand the article.
In reply to F5AKL:
Special thanks to HB9BYZ, F5NHJ, DL6WT for “S2S” QSO, to F4EUN for his very first CW QSO, in pile up…!, to Roy, Les, Al, Mike, Fritz, Bernd, Cris etc… etc… It was a real pleasure to hear you again.
Best 73 to all
Alain F6ENO
In reply to F6ENO:
Greetings guys!
Many thanks for those 7 summit activations - quite a long expedition!
Its great to work so many SOTA stations in France and I am very pleased that it is so popular in your beautiful country.
The skip to France from here is very good (especially on 40 and 20m, but strangely not so fine on 30m), so look forward to hearing many more F/p stations.
And congratulations for the FB translation - bon continuation!
73 de CRIS
GM4FAM
I agree 100% with Cris, you guys did a great job on your expedition and it was a pleasure to hear your FB signals on every summit.
Thank you for so many uniques in two days.
Thanks also for the F5AKL report, a very good translation.
Many thanks for a magnificent “double-act”, which gave plenty of pleasure (and plenty of uniques) to chasers, during a week in which there was otherwise faily low levels of activity due to the poor weather.
I struggled with the QRN on 40m at times, but the length of time you spend on each summit and a choice of 40 or 30m gives chasers every opportunity to make the QSO, and is really appreciated.
Look forward to hearing you on the next joint expedition.