Follow the sun with DA20XOTA and earn an award

Dear All,

On June 15th we will activate all 10 Alpine regions in SOTA-DL. We will start at 8:00 UTC with the BG region and end at 18:00 UTC with the AV region, following the sun from east to west. This is your chance to earn one or more DA20XOTA Awards in one day.

This is the first time that all German Alpine regions will be on the air within one day. If you would like to join us as a DA20XOTA operator, please drop a message to Andy, DL2DVE.

More about here: http://sota-dl.bplaced.net

Follow the sun with DA20XOTA and earn an award!
GL es 73 de Dzianis, DD1LD

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Here is the detailed plan:

“DA20XOTA One Day Ten Regions Follow the Sun”

08UTC DL/BG
09UTC DL/CG
10UTC DL/MF
11UTC DL/BE
12UTC DL/EW
13UTC DL/KW
14UTC DL/WS
15UTC DL/AM
16UTC DL/AL
17UTC DA/AV(GMA).

73 andy DL2DVE

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Thanks for organising this event, Andy!
I wonder how many people will try to work all ten (or at least as many as possible) regions.
It could become very busy for the activators, trying to put everyone in the log in only one hour. Very exciting!

73, Roman

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The first Alerts are coming in already, thank you
DL3TU Roman and
DL3EC Chris !

73 andy DL2DVE

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Hi Andy,
I just realized that this is the weekend of the CW part of the All Asian DX Contest. We’ll see whether it is sufficient to stay on the usual SOTA frequencies at the upper end of the CW segements. If it’s too crowded, I might focus on the WARC bands.

73, Roman

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Hi Roman,

good point, and at 20/15/10 there could be some impact by the AADXC, we will see. 40 is probably not used so much at daytime.
During big contests - as an activator have sometimes experienced many more callers than usual, probably as they are at the station already and see a spot - so there could be even a positive effect.

73 andy

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Hi all,

pretty bad WX is expected in the Alps for Saturday.

Instead of postponing - we want to pull in the event by one day.

Unfortunately this excludes a few well known activators due to QRL but we are able to achieve critical mass to activate All 10 Regions in One Day.

So we will activate tomorrow 14.June from 8UTC onwards, we will update the Alerts now.

73 andy

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Andy, thanks for your huge effort to re-schedule the whole event!
Too bad that the weather isn’t supporting on Saturday! But I’m glad you found a solution for tomorrow.
I’m really looking forward to joining the fun :grinning:

73, Roman

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What great folks! A huge thank you to all of you who planned, scheduled, joined and will take part tomorrow!

It looks like everything is set. Let’s only hope that good weather and superior propagation will join the event tomorrow. Follow the sun with DA20XOTA tomorrow and have fun with us!

We apologize for the short notice!

Cuagn tmw es 73
de Dzianis, DD1LD

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Wow, that was fun!

Pulling in the event by one day was a challenge but with a cold front approaching on Saturday, there was no real choice. Thanks again Andy @DL2DVE and Dzianis @DD1LD for your efforts!

Being scheduled for 1600 z with DL/AL, I had lots of time for travelling. I arrived more than an hour early on my summit and had the opportunity to work Mario @DJ2MX and Andy @DK7MG on their respective summits in WS and AM region S2S.

My activation of Falkenstein, DL/AL-167 started slowly with a handful of QSOs on ground wave on the high bands. Then it picked up speed as I worked through the bands top to bottom. Finally I ran out of time on 40cw. 55 QSOs were in the log after 60 minutes. That’s awesome for a fairly odd time for an activation.

Thanks to all the chasers who seemed to be waiting for the next summit to go on air!

Thanks to all who arranged and supported this great event! It was tons of fun :grinning:

73, Roman

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I had the priviledge to activate the highest summit in this challenge: DL/KW-008, Westliche Karwendelspitze at 2385 m. It is located close to my home QTH and a cable car can be used for most part of the ascent. A short scramble leads to the summit.
I used a „small footprint antenna“, as recommend by DD5LP and from previous experience on this summit, my modified MP-1 vertical.

It was a lot of fun to operate with DA20XOTA for exactly one hour, from 13.00 to 14.00 UTC and more than 50 QSOs went into my log. ODX was PY1NP with 9533 km on 10 m.
A big thank you to all chasers and the SOTA-DL team for organizing this event.

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Wow, what an event! 10 German alpine regions in 10 hours with one call sign DA20XOTA!

We have written a piece of history together and can be proud of it. Firstly, all German alpine regions were activated in 10 hours, and secondly, all 10 alpine regions with one call sign – DA20XOTA. Is there an association that has done something similar?

Everything went well and worked because the whole team played along and enjoyed it! The weather was good, the propagation conditions were fair at the beginning and end and weak with deep QSB around midday. The interest and demand were huge, so some activators continued to operate from their regions under their own call signs. Over 600 QSOs were logged on Friday, June 14th by 9 OPs.

The DA20XOTA show makers were:

08UTC: DL8MEK @ DL/BG-037
09UTC: DL2DVE @ DL/CG-116
10UTC: DD1LD @ DL/MF-072
11UTC: DL5AZZ @ DL/BE-073
12UTC: DM1DF @ DL/EW-021
13UTC: DF3MC @ DL/KW-008
14UTC: DJ2MX @ DL/WS-058
15UTC: DK7MG @ DL/AM-009
16UTC: DL3TU @ DL/AL-167
17UTC: DL2DVE @ DA/AV-198

It was fun! Thank you very much to everyone who made this possible and followed the sun with DA20XOTA!

73 de Dzianis, DD1LD

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From DL/CG-116 Mehrentaler Wand, at the early second slot of this day, I had the pleasure to be the first who offered CW to the chasers - and the pile-up on 40m was gigantic ! 49 QSOs in the first 30min…

Then 2m FM for the locals, then 30m and 20m. When the hour was over (with total 73 QSOs) there were still CW callers on 20 so I continued with personal call after handing over the DA20XOTA callsign to DD1LD.
Think I was very lucky with condx during this slot. Overall 96 QSOs.

Rig: 5m Vertical with loading coil 1.4m from the feedpoint, 4 Radials on the ground, 4m each, IC706 set to 80W and 12Ah LiFePo4.
It feels phantastic to be part of such great activity !

73 andy

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