I’m just wondering how many chasers (or activators for that matter) have access to QO-100?
I think its time for a quick survey:-
Yes, I can chase on QO-100.
I don’t have QO-100 yet but may setup a station in the future.
I don’t have QO-100 & have no interest in setting up a station for it.
0voters
Having got my home station working properly, I am now turning my attention towards building a portable station.
I realise a satellite dish (along with all the associated ancillaries to get on QO-100) is a lot to carry up a summit but I fancy giving it a go.
I know a few people have done it & a quick search reveals quite a few activation reports (which I am slowly reading my way through) but I don’t think QO-100 activations are particularly common.
I suspect it’s a bit niche and I’m wondering if posting a spot on SotaWatch will round up enough chasers on QO-100 to qualify the summit without relying on a “more traditional” backup such as HF, or other random contacts. I’m guessing the answer is probably not!
Currently 44 summits activated on QO-100. There are some pictures on my QRZ page.
We generally try to use a convention of adding QO-100 in the comments field. For Point to Point I use P2P in the comments. This is in addition to S2S where we can have long path and short path.
As to carrying the kit, it is not too bad provided you don’t want to do any other bands. Think 10-12kg all up. Also 30% of the summits I have activated are in France where there is an abundance of drive to (or nearly drive to) summits.
There will be no shortage of contacts if you go to The Noup GM/SI-183 or The Sneug GM/SI-103 in IP80 but most of the QSO will not be interested in SOTA IP80 will do.
My current challenge is a trip to IN69 (Scilly Isles) the boat makes the “Eazy Fli” brigade baggage requirements trivial. The boat stipulates 550 x 400 x 200mm and <5kg plus no open batteries for hand baggage on a day trip. So this limits dish size and power. My normal setup is about 7-8 kg for the essential elements with an 500 x 600 dish.
Andrew, congratulations for your many activations on QO-100, it is definitely impressive.
I’m QRV on QO-100 for DATV, but I’ll do my best for setting up the narrowband station so I can chase you on your next activation. It would be amazing.
So I’ve just experimented with a “portable” system which I’ve been working on.
I definitely need to find a much smaller & lighter tripod to support the dish. I’m thinking something along the lines of what is shown in G0HIK’s pictures in this activation report:- QO-100 S2S - #6 by G0HIK
Other than that, I just need to find a sensible way of carrying the dish & it’s virtually ready to go.
Not sure that I’d want to take it too far though. This is probably an experiment best suited to a drive on summit!
I have managed without a tripod, the OS provide a great concrete lump with attach points on many summits. You just need a couple of bungees to hold the QO-100 dish down. The antenna will usually work on the ground, remember it is pointing up at 25 deg in the UK. Damp grass close to the antenna is not good but a rocky summit is OK.
For carrying I use a load frame that was ex MOD bought on e-bay. I haven’t seen many advertised of recent so may be I was lucky.
BTW when we Alert on SOTA we usually put the mode as QO100 e.g. 2400-QO100 or 10489.7-QO100
As expected, the vast majority of people don’t have access to QO-100. That comes as no surprise.
What did surprise me was that 8 people do have access to QO-100, with a few more looking at the possibility of getting kitted up for it in the future…this is significantly more people than expected.
I thought I might only get 2 to 3 people with QO-100 capability at maximum.
The take away from this is that with prior notice and a little coordinating, it should be possible to activate a summit using QO-100.
This may be an experiment for better summer weather in a couple of months time. Watch this space!
I made a QRP CW QO-100 TX with 1 watt amplifier and 45 cm dish … it works.
The main drawback is the reception … A SDR with a phone/tablet is not so easy to use on a summit. I plan to use a modify LNB with 430 Mhz FI and use an UV-K5.
73 Nico
Not SOTA , but I will do a POTA activation this afternoon, and will test my Satrover system for some QO-100 qso’s. Calls from SOTA friends are welcome of course.
I’ll self-spot on the POTA spotting page as usual, I should be QRV between 12:15 and 15:00 UTC, probably also on 20m and 10m if I’m talking to the noise on QO-100.
73,
Luc ON7DQ/P
