Tomorrow Thursday 2nd January 2020, I will be QRV on SOTA with Leif F/LA3DNA/P on F/AM-578 and I will work on FT8 … C U Soon 73 de F5LKW/P
Nice! I recommend to write it direct into the alert (Freq/Mode) and not only in the text. 1000z is too early for me to be on a summit but I try to catch you from home. Maybe I go on a local summit around 1200z or 1300z. Can you do 7, 10 and 14 MHz on FT8?
GE John.
Yes !
I will be on the 3 bands and 3.5 Mhz trying QSO with Tom M1EYP/P … may be s2s.
May be we will still on summit when you’ll arrive.
73
As Roger says, we will be putting on some FT8 SOTA on 80m tomorrow (2nd Jan).
Also yes, we will nominate this Sunday as an FT8 SOTA day.
I will add my alerts now, and encourage others to do the same.
Okay I have put my alert now. I try to make it but I am not 100% sure. Normally I take resonant antennas with me, but when I go I take my z817 and rise a 7,5m vertical random end fed wire for a quicker bandswitch. With FT8 that should not be a big deal to lose some db.
I see you are heard pretty well also in LA. I am running a MagLoop indoors only on 80m. Same on 60. On 40m I have a short vertical outside. If you go up I try again. What is your antenna?
Just worked @F5LKW /P on 40m FT8 from F/AM-578. He was +2 - -10 here QSB and massive QRM due to big stations on 40m.
Update:
EDIT:
I am leaving now to DM/SR-012. Will do FT8 only from 1400z but if it will not work I switch over to SSB.
Hello John.
My eQSL is waiting for you
Thanks a lot for QSO. Really sorry not waiting for you on summit but I wasn’t alone.
Child and wife were frozen. We had to back down.
73 QRO
Roger
It was nice to work you. I have even more respect as I was in freezing rain (-1°C) during my FT8 activation from DM/SR-012. In SSB the whole activation would have been much quicker.
Most of the time I operated out of an plastic bag due to the rain:
On 40m I was heard well, also in England, but not takers:
But after 15 minutes there was only one station in the log: S57ILF. In SSB my log would probably have been well filled already. On 30m it was better then. At least 5 stations (HA0HH, R1BBT, @EA7GV @SA4BLM @EA2LU) came into the log. Because it was very cold I skipped 20m and called a few times on 17m. K1KZ came into the log. I was very happy about that. The antenna was just a wire, 7,90m long on my 10m mast. The z817 tuner matched it quite well. I didn’t like the bulky tuner anyway. I just wanted to change the bands quickly with it, but with my resonant antennas I don’t need very long to change them, too. Next time I leave it at home. Overall I was very satisfied with the test today. Here are my QSOs with 5W in around 50 minutes:
I was also heard in California on 30m:
Here are some screenshots from my mobile phone:
Full article and more details about my setup on my website: Raspberry Pi4 for Digimodes like FT8 and others - SOTA tested
Apart from me, I’ve only noticed a JA and a HB station on data this morning. The HB was on at the same time as me but on a different band. By the time I had an opportunity to change bands, I think the HB activator was QRT.
Plenty of contacts made from G/SP-001 on 80m FT8 though, and mostly recognised SOTA chasers. Now setting off up G/SP-004, so more FT8 SOTA in about an hour.
I will, naturally, focus on 80m FT8 again, with the added bonus of giving chasers a multiplier in the 2020 Flavours Challenge!
I went not outside as I saw only your alerts. The 2 other FT8 stations sadly did not alert in advance. I will look for you now.
EDIT: On 14.080 lots of FT4 contest callers. Just enable Contest mode and your log will be filled within minutes.
EDIT:
Don’t see @M1EYP /P on 20 here. Nothing on 80 too.
But worked @N2YTF /P on W2/NJ-009. 20m FT8. That is my first chased NA summit.
20m FT8 is completely full here, better would be seperate QRGs only for SOTA.
I was out activating GW/NW-043 with FT8
Running 5w into a EFHW on a 4m pole still produced reasonable results on 20m with 4 contacts and another 2 contacts on 2m in 40 minutes.
The weather was bleak with strong gusts and a biting wind chill forcing us into the boffy shelter.
I also found a new problem with the wind shaking the condensation from the roof of the boffy onto my tablet causing problems with the touch screen😀
As mentioned before anybody that says FT8 on a summit is easy hasn’t done it.
Good day out activating. Could have done with more FT8 activators, but I ended up with a QSO that made the whole day worthwhile!
Kinder Scout G/SP-001
80m FT8: 10 QSOs
80m CW: 3 QSOs
80m SSB: 6 QSOs
2m FM: 5 QSOs
Shining Tor G/SP-004
80m FT8: 2 QSOs
20m FT8: 1 QSO
2m FM: 6 QSOs
…but that 20m FT8 QSO was S2S with Tom N2YTF/P on W2/NJ-009. Very satisfying!
Wx condx by this stage on Shining Tor were most unpleasant, but I was about to return to 80m to give the CW and SSB chasers a chance for their Challenge multiplier. Unfortunately I was a bit too heavy handed (yes, I know, it’s happened before) when closing a link and I snapped the wire. Game over.
The bad news was that I only had recorded 3 contacts on HF FT8 and hadn’t qualified the summit. The good news was that I had my 2m handie, and this reaped 6 QSOs in just 3 minutes!
That’s a start anyway. We should now plan another FT8 SOTA day.
Right. Same what I say. SSB/CW is much quicker.
I saw the QSO but only from N2YTF/P. Very good.
Yes, we should. I hope for propper alerts then and not for surprise FT8 activity only.
I did a little late FT8 SOTA Day. It still was Sunday 5th January Pacific Standard Time, but it was already Monday, 6th January UTC time. I made 5 contacts - 3 on 30 Meter and 2 on 40 Meter bands.
What a blast that was—but I do need to fine tune my WSJT-X setup. I didn’t have the MFJ-1234 ready in time so it was the netbook but what fun. So happy to work S2S with M1EYP/P and DK9JC!
54 contacts but my most important contact wasn’t on FT-8. It was 2m FM to my little 5 yr old at home with KC2JOS…my first contact with the first harmonic!
I ran 75 to 100w for about three hours and went through about 24ah. Signal reports were plentiful:
WX was 39 F and windy. It was basically a drive up summit so I brought all my cold weather gear—but forgot gloves!
I want to do this again—we should set a date…
73,
Tom, N2YTF
Hi all
Nice reports on digit activation’s, wasn’t QRV !
Find this video on minimal hardware for digit mode can be used on SOTA like @DK9JC setup
73 Eric F5JKK