https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=29&month=08&year=2021
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That’s a shame really. We’re off to Arrochar (south west highlands) for a few days. Thankfully the hills there are close enough to Glasgow that I should to be able to activate them on 2m FM and 2m SSB. I’ll pack the HF kit anyway…
Cheers, Fraser
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Hi all,
Some propa on 6m now
Worked Terry GM0VWP/P on 40 and 20m but was hard !
Fraser take a 6m antenna with you, maybe you can get some propa too.
73, Éric
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Éric, Which App are the screenshot from?
That’s a great suggestion Éric. Unfortunately the only 6m antenna I have is this one!
I plan on making one of these but haven’t got round to it.
Cheers, Fraser
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Hi Fraser. Arrochar is my home QTH, I never have any problem activating the local hills on 2m FM. I usually put an alert on a few local social media groups though. I will keep an ear out for you and spot you if I can.
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Thanks Steven. I see you’ve been pretty active around about. Its great that you can climb them from your house!
Fraser
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I see you have planned for today, I will keep a listen out from work. Not a bad day for it, good luck, Narnain and Ime are two fantastic hills.
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I’ve been out activating mountains in Maine and New Hampshire for a week now, with pileups on 20m every day. Today the bands were almost silent. I was lucky to get 7 QSOs on 20m and one on 40m, and the RBN system didn’t even hear me on 30m.
But the Kp index is low, well below geomagnetic storm levels. Must be something else.
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Hi Scott,
Unless I’m wrong, I don’t think you were spotted on 20m today.
I saw spots for NM5S activating a W5N summit and K9IR activating a W8M summit, went to the frequencies and heard not a peep from them, only their chasers. On the other hand, chasing European activators was quite successful today, better than yesterday and the day before.
We’ll see how things go tomorrow…
73,
Guru
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Guru, thanks for responding. It looks like I was spotted at 1546 UTC in 20m and at 1601 UTC on 40m. So that worked.
I now am trying to determine why the SMS messages I sent did not result in self spots. I used the same format as on previous successful spots, but in the past 2 days none of my SMS messages have resulted in spots appearing on SOTAwatch.
It’s always something.
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Did two summits on Wednesday 1st September. My usual local stations I work on 80m ssb were very good on the first summit around UTC day roll over from the 31st. The same stations in the afternoon who I would expect to still be able to contact from past experience were all very low signals. On ssb they had the “head in the bucket” sound, local noise levels were also very low on the summit but chasers had lots of noise. I did work VK1DA on 80m ssb on the first summit which is a long haul between me and vk1, and ZL1BQD on 40m ssb is a pretty tough contact too but we made it. Signals on 40m ssb were ok but CW was the best mode I did not notice much different in signals from my usual chasers on 40m. I guess we have learnt over the last few years to get by with quick changing band conditions and low SFI etc. Be interesting what Tamitha has to say about it on the next YT.
Regards to all 73
vk5cz …
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That’s right, Scott,
I had been looking for spots later than the one on 40m only in the (wrong) assumption that you started on 40m and moved later on 20m.
Now I see it was the other way around.
Since you activated a W1 summit, I may have copied you well on 20m, but the problem is I was not in the shack at that time, unfortunately.
I hope next time will be successful.
73,
Guru
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Message contains an LF character in the middle of the data stream
WB8ICQ W1 AM-004
7.060 CW QRV now
instead of
WB8ICQ W1 AM-004 7.060 CW QRV now
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Aha! Thanks very much for checking. I’ll fix that for today’s activation. Weather permitting; we have the remnants of hurricane Ida, now a storm, passing through the area. Hope it will taper off later this morning.
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Very bad propa 
13:00 UTC
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I failed to activate Arnside Knott G/LD-058 about 1530 UTC today with 6m CW [i wanted to check my 6m kit prior to the SOTA LD weekend event]. I heard no CW or SSB stations so no surprise my CQs went unanswered. But oddly, I could hear the GB3NGI 6m beacon S8 240km away near Ballymena N.I.
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Hello at All,
I failed Atri Hill I/AB-136, I tried at 14:30 and 16:30utc.
20-30-40-60 no one qso and rbn spot.
73
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Hi Roberto,
I heard you briefly calling on 40m, but your signal didn’t sound as clear as in previous occasions. I called you, waited and I never heard you again.
Then I followed you to to the other spotted frequencies and I never copied anything from you or any of your chasers (it seems you didn’t have any).
If I were you, I’d check that your SOTA station actually worked ok and you transmitted some RF.
Good luck!
73,
Guru
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That 6m Delta works well Fraser and would be a good one for SOTA. We made one at YJ0X in 2014, pulled it up into a tree and worked a heap of JA stations and KH6.
Good luck.
Geoff ZL3GA/YJ0GA
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