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 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.
…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.
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!
wasn’t QRV !