FT8 SOTA Day - Sunday 5th January 2020

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! :muscle::muscle::muscle: 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?

1 Like

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

1 Like

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.

1 Like

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.

1 Like

Roger @F5LKW and I just had successful S2S on 80m FT8!

2 Likes

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.

2020-01-02_12h46_50
Update:
2020-01-02_12h59_24

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.

2 Likes

Hello John.
My eQSL is waiting for you :slight_smile:
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

2 Likes

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

3 Likes

Report via video. Have a good watch + 73 Roger
F/AM-578 (Croix des Béguines)

2 Likes

Schaumburg in nice wx.

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!

1 Like

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.

2020-01-05_16h22_43
2020-01-05_16h23_11

20m FT8 is completely full here, better would be seperate QRGs only for SOTA.

2 Likes

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.

w

4 Likes

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.

5 Likes

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.

1 Like

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.

1 Like

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

5 Likes

Hi all
Nice reports on digit activation’s, :upside_down_face: wasn’t QRV !
Find this video on minimal hardware for digit mode can be used on SOTA like @DK9JC setup :wink:

73 Eric F5JKK