Curses! Foiled again!
(With apologies to “Hiss the Villain” by Cossons and Taylor!)
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Thanks for todays early morning activation on 80m CW/FT8, a pleasant change to get a QSO in the log before my breakfast. The relaxed pose in the photo noted (crossed legs)…
73 Phil G4OBK
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Many thanks for both CW and SSB on 80m, SOTA chased before the kettle had boiled 
Decc
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Not necessarily if you find me cross-legged during an activation it’s usually because I’m bursting for a leak in the middle of a pile-up and hence far from relaxed :-s
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Decc - you mean FT8? I was summoned home before I had chance to do SSB!
I wasn’t quite awake enough to catch you on 80 metres CW yesterday. I’d guess you and I would be pretty much at opposite ends of the “enjoys competition” scale. 
I’ve never ever been even slightly tempted to enter anything like a major marathon, cycle run or mass hike, either. If it involves being given a number, I’ll not be there. 
I do, however, find the rules of radio competitions a source of considerable fascination, and more than occasional mind-bogglement (like, for example, the Fox Mike Hotel POC, which includes some particularly fascinating scoring complications). 
Every day I check the Alerts for 80m activations so that I can give reports to people preparing for the challenge. I look for 160m, too, but more out of duty than in expectation - come on, guys, John using GX0OOO/P has shown that it is practicable, give it a try!
Weather permitting I will be using the 160m coils again in November. Catch you then, Brian.
Thanks for 80m and 60m QSOs yesterday. I was surprised at how well 80m was doing mid afternoon.
73,
Rod
It’s not a competition. It’s a Challenge. Just a motivation to use bands and modes on SOTA activations that you might not normally consider. Hopefully adds a bit of variety and interest for the chasers, increases activity with activators revisiting summits they might not bother with a second time otherwise, and gives a push for post-MG activators to stay active in the programme.
YMMV - as they say.
I’ve alerted for wednesday 4th Nov at 16:30 on 160m, g/wb-005. Hoping to be there for an hour or so through sunset.
If successful, this will be my second 160m activation, the first was during the solar eclipse a few years ago. I still have the full size dipole that I made then, so it may as well have an airing.
(5W from FT817)
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I’ll certainly have the cans on for you Adrian - will be listening out…
73 Phil
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Same here. I listened out for Rod M0JLA today on top Band but heard nothing. A later activation might be better, that’s about the time the band starts to stir to life.
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You missed me on 80 this morning Brian. I had the drama of having to leave the Windows 10 tablet at home once established that the micro USB socket was kaput. That meant no FT8 and the terrifying prospect of having to conduct an entire activation using only legacy modes. :o
Anyway, it turned out really well in the end. It was a slow start, but the contacts did start to stack up, and once I was one of the target stations on the WAB net, it was great fun.
A new tablet has been ordered and FT8 activations should resume on bonfire night.
@M0LEP
Did you mean this rule ?
The reciprocal value of the number of concurrently-used transmitters is applied to the total contact score by multiplication. The maximum number of transmitters is limited to two (2).
(= divide score by number of transmitters, 1 or 2)
But, a little above they said:
For the 2020 POC, the SC have decided to limit the number of concurrently-used transmitters to a maximum of 2.* This will reduce complexity…*
OMG 
Luc ON7DQ
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Hilarious. You have to wonder about the sanity of people who design junk like that. I went to the web page and it didn’t pass the five second test i.e. if it’s not obvious what it’s about you don’t look for more than 5 seconds.
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So that’s why you won’t “plough through” my activation reports…
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We don’t seem to getting any input from the people not taking part in the challenges. Apart from Rick that is.
It would be good to know why those not taking part are not taking part.
Likewise it would be good to know why those actively avoiding the challenge are doing so.
Finally it would be useful to know how many don’t know of the challenge at all.
If you are not interested you probably won’t be reading this thread.
That is not as flippant a reply as it first might seem. The question is how do you get that feedback/input from people who are not engaged?
It’s bound to be that way. We are deliberately selecting underrepresented bands and modes as Challenge flavours. Therefore participation is bound to be minority interest. It can be statistically demonstrated that the Challenge flavours have boosted interest and participation on those bands and modes but it should be of no surprise that this activity pales into the sidelines compared to SOTA’s staple diet of 2m, 40m, CW, phone etc.