HB9SOTA Activation Weekend 12-13 June 2021

Notices Events
1

The annual HB9SOTA Activity Day is scheduled to take place this coming weekend. The weather on both days should be ideal, and currently 41 stations have registered to be on the air on either Saturday or Sunday. To make it possible for all these operators to participate, the Board of Directors has decided to expand the Activity Day to an Activity Weekend. In other words, stations will be activating Swiss summits on either one or both days, Saturday 12 June and/or Sunday 13 June, 2021

Certainly this will be a fantastic time to gather S2S contacts. But what makes this event extra special is that stations have signed up to activate in every Swiss canton that has a valid SOTA summit. Activators and chasers working on the Helvetia Certificates – both from HB9SOTA and USKA – have a wonderful opportunity to fill in missing cantons.

We look forward to working you!

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2

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the message.
I am in short trip to SP/SS (may be including OK/KR).
I will start activations from tomorrow and continue on Saturday & Sunday - hope to work a lot of S2S with Swiss team.
See you :wink:

73, Jarek

3

Hi Paul

Looking forward to hopefully setting up somewhere in the Lake District and getting many S2S!

Regards, Mark

4

I need the UR canton. Hope you can get it in 40m. Magnificent the deployment of HB activators this weekend.
Greetings

5

Remarkable stuff. I nipped out for a morning activation. 5.5 hours on summit. 112 QSOs including 63 S2S!!!

20m FT4: 11 QSOs
20m CW: 36 QSOs (21 S2S)
20m SSB: 46 QSOs (34 S2S)
2m FM: 19 QSOs (8 S2S)

To coin a phrase … “No FT8 required” :wink:

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6

For me 3 summits activated today, 72 QSOs, 20 S2S, on second summit SP/SS-004 haevy rain occured just during our S2S with Guru EA2IF :wink:
I hope tomorrow WX will give more support.

73, Jarek

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7

I’ll be honest, it’s been a busy few recent weeks and days for me and I didn’t really look at this HB SOTA weekend event in any detail. However, the S2S action this morning was simply extraordinary!

I intend to go out again tomorrow morning, and again I’ll use just 20m. Whether I’ll bag another 63 S2S QSOs I don’t know, but I’m certainly motivated to get out again for another whole morning of SOTA!

I will need to go QRT by 1200z in order to be back home for the G v 9A football match in the Euro 2020, and then my youngest son Liam’s 24th birthday curry.

8

Another good morning on G/SP-015. For the second consecutive day, an activation with over a century of QSOs (103) and half a century of S2S (50). Plus, for the second consecutive day - “No FT8 required”.

20m FT4: 21 QSOs
20m CW: 27 QSOs (13 S2S)
20m SSB: 34 QSOs (22 S2S)
2m FM: 20 QSOs (14 S2S)
2m C4FM: 1 QSO (1 S2S)

113 S2S in two mornings this weekend - that’s ridiculous!!!

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Hi Tom,
Thanks for S2S on both days. Now I’ve chased you 7 times!
73
Paul HB9DST

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10

A pleasure also to work today from Wales Paul and also Juerg HB9BIN and Bruno HB9CBR celebrating the HB9SOTA weekend. Great levels of activity. Other S2S with Allan GW4VPX and Jarek SP9MA. We got very hot and tired on the climb ruling out a second summit, so I finished up in a local pub supping a cold pint of cider with XYL on lager.

73 Phil G(W)4OBK/P GW/NW-065

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11

Hi Friends,

WX in SP/SS today left without rain but on first summit was cold & windy.
Fortunately they served coffee which helped me to survive (in the morning I decided to left gloves in the car :smiley: )

20210613_084744651_iOS
20210613_084744651_iOS4032Ă—3024 2.95 MB

On second summit WX was fine :wink:

Many thanks to everyone I had contact yesterday / today and chapeau bas to HB9SOTA team for the event !

Today 82 contacts logged, 15 S2S :wink:

73, Jarek

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12

Results from the HB9SOTA Activity Weekend on 12-13 June 2021

In response to requests from several participants, this year we expanded our traditional Activity Day into an Activity Weekend. One result is that for the first time we were able to activate every canton in the country! Special thanks to those who made an extra effort to activate a special or rare canton.

On Saturday 12 June, 23 of a possible 24 cantons were activated, the only one missing was NW (Nidwalden). This was then covered by Markus HB9DIZ on Sunday, and on that second day we were able to activate 17 cantons.

In total, 63 members activated one or more summits. On Saturday there were 52 people active, on Sunday we had 30 participants while another 19 were activating on both days.

Several of us were on multiple summits:

HB9DQM on 5 summits in Canton Ticino
HB9HBV on 4 summits in Canton Schwyz
HB9EAJ on 3 summits in Canton Jura
HB9HCS on 1 summit in Canton Fribourg and 2 summits in Canton Bern
HB9NBG on 1 summit in Bern and 2 summits in Canton Vaud
HB9FZC on 1 summit in Bern and 2 summits in Canton Vaud

If an operator’s goal was to be far up in the list of those with the most S2S contacts, that person would almost certainly need to be active with two operating modes, most frequently SSB and FM or alternately SSB and CW.

Of the 52 stations on Saturday, 37 were active in SSB, 30 in FM and 27 with CW; on Sunday the stations were distributed among modes in this way: 22 in FM, 21 in SSB and 7 in CW.

Looking at the overall results from both days and all operating modes, the leaderboard falls out this way:

  1. HB9BIN Juerg 70 HB9 118 total, SSB and CW, Sa/So
  2. HB9GUX HaWe 61 HB9 99 total, SSB and FM, Sa/So
  3. HB9EAJ Stephan 45 HB9 67 total, SSB and FM, Sa/So
  4. HB9HBV Jean-Pierre 45 HB9 59 total, SSB and FM, Sa/So

Best results for a single operating mode:
6. HB9GIN Christian with 41 HB9 S2S, FM, Sa/So
12. HB9CBR Bruno with 33 HB9 S2S, CW, Sa/So
23. HB9GVW Martin with 14 HB9 S2S, SSB, Sa/So

Leaderboard of those chasers who made contact with at least one HB9 activator:

  1. HB9EVF 22 QSOs
  2. HB9JAT 21 QSOs
  3. HB9DDZ 19 QSOs

The longest distances covered:
227 km – HB9TNF from HB/GR-252, contacted HB9FUE on HB/NE-001 - SSB
214 km - HB9BQU from HB/VS-103, contacted HB9CGA on HB/AR-012 - CW
186 km – HB9FUE from HB/NE-001, contacted HB9GKR on HB/SZ-013 - FM

The idea of covering both days in the weekend proved quite popular because anyone who wanted to participate had a good opportunity, which is confirmed by the total of 63 participants. Our hearty congratulations to those who won their respective categories! You will be rewarded with a SOTA pocket knife (if you haven’t won one already).

73 de Bruno HB9CBR, HB9SOTA Secretary

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13

Thank you Paul @HB9DST for the English translation and thanks to all the HB9SOTA organizers behind the scene, it was once more a great event!

Where I live, there are no SOTA summits (canton Basle-City), but when I realized that nobody had chosen canton Jura, I thought I’ll give it a go. Bonus: it’s not that far from home.

I planned to further test my portable 2m/70cm 2-element log-periodic, so I decided to give the highest 1302m Jura summit Mont Raimeux a try, even I was aware that the coverage on 2m to most parts of Switzerland will not be that great:

Screenshot
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Even with this VHF-wise not optimal summit, I was able to make 13 S2S contacts to 8 different cantons on 2m FM, using 5W into the directional antenna.

While I did my contacts, I didn’t realize that I got surrounded by the Swiss military (as can be seen on one of the summit’ photos). They were absolutely not interested in my secret contacts, but more in frying their sausages :rofl:.

On the second day I activated two lower 1-point Jura summits. The use of my 2m FM handheld with the telescopic antenna resulted in only two more HB9 S2S.

HF produced many more S2S contacts on both days and again, the 60-meter band produced the most reliable contacts “behind the horizon”.

This band works so well for nearby contacts. To me, it’s the perfect SOTA band within our small and hilly country.

73 Stephan

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14

Hi Friends,

Many thanks to HB9 team for organizing this event.
During that weekend I activated 5 summits in SP/SS region and logged in total 15 S2S with operators on HB9 summits.

73, Jarek

15

Thank you, Paul, for the report and the statistics. The HB9SOTA Activation Weekend is a great idea!
I was QRV on Saturday, 12th June, from DM/BW-853 and worked 15 S2S with HB9 stations. 6 on 60m CW and 9 on 2m FM. It was a real blast!

73, Roman

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