Looking Europe from VK6 Saturday VK6/SW-030

Hi all

Just posted an alert for Saturday, for Mt.Solus VK6/SW-030. Planning on getting on the air if approval granted about 06:00 UTC. The EU LP opening can be pretty short but probably 06:30 to 07:30 best chance for 20 LP.

The Summit may change as I need approval to gain access, the Summit is surrounded by a Bauxite mine and I will not be allowed in if blasting is planned in the area. Its a 6.5 km walk in from the parking area.

If I don’t get permission for this Summit, I will find another one close by to Activate.

CW/SSB planned so forgive my poor CW still getting to grips with it for Sota. As always would love some European S2S in the log but European Activation Alerts are pretty scarce at the moment.

Hope conditions are good enough for you to work this rarely Activated Summit.

73

John VK6NU

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Hi John,
I’d love to be activating at that time for an S2S with you, but we’re having a typical spring season here and it’s been raining for ages, with an 18 hours non stop raining recorded a couple of days ago and the Arga river, which crosses Pamplona city, partly overflowed.
It’s, of course, raining right now and the forecast is for more rain all these days, but I’ll do something if I see a chance, a small window without rain on our Saturday morning.
Good luck with your permissions and activation. I hope you can have several S2S with EU and I hope to be in the log too. We’ll see…

73,

Guru

Hi Guru

Sorry to hear about your weather, we’ve had some great qso’s. Its been too long since we worked. Look forward to when you make it in my SOTA Log again.

I will look for you.

73

John VK6NU

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Hi John,
If you can take 40 metres as well, at the present time you may stand a better chance of getting into Europe.

I hadn’t planned to go out on Saturday, but let me see how it fits with plans. We have the other side of the coin to Guru (and the guys in the UK) with three nice days so far this week and sunshine forecast for Friday and Saturday - at the moment.

73 Ed.

Hi Ed

Think better chance from eastern states on 40 meters, I did hear Germany on 30 metres last time out so 30 I think would be a better chance than 40 from VK6.

Hopefully get some 20 metres in the log, see how we go.

73

John VK6NU

Hi John,
I’m sure 30m would help in several of these activations, unfortunately access to the band in Regions 1 & 2 are limited to CW and digital - no SSB allowed. As I don’t do CW and I’m not quite ready to do digital from a mountain top with the new rig yet, I can’t use 30m.

Ernie VK3DET has also promised to be listening on both 20 & 40m.

Propagation conditions don’t seem to be improving at the moment. K keeps going up and down and SFI is staying in the doldrums so any 20m contacts we manage will be an achievement.

But if we don’t try we won’t know.

73 Ed.

Hi John,
Me and iu2ijw Martino will try to contact you in s2s, if wx will be good.
VOACAP says 20mt 7:30 8:30 utc has the best probability.
See you soon

73

Ok will be looking for you guys, is it ssb or CW Activation.

73

John VK6NU

Hi John,

I’ll be looking for you tomorrow. Probably 20m CW would be best chance for me. I’ll have 20m SSB as well available. I see IW2OBX and DD5LP have alerted, so a mini-event is building up.

Fingers crossed for decent conditions.

Tom M1EYP

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Also cw but qrs, we are newbie…
73 iw2obx Roberto

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Sounds good guys, Tom you will have to slow down for us. Will advise if I have to change the summit in the morning. Phone call to mine site security to see if its a goer. Beautiful 24C Autumn day forecast. About a 2 and a half to 3 hour journey for me with travel and a 6.5km walk to the Summit.

Hopefully band conditions are favourable for some LP.

73

John VK6NU

Well we wont manage 24 degrees but perhaps half that at the time I’m packing up at about 10:30am. The main thing is tonights storms should have passed by the morning. (I’m UTC + 2 here).

73 Ed.

Hi everyone,
it looks like we are doing this VK<>EU thing on a regular basis now - i.e. every saturday morning :smiley: I will join, but most reliable band was 30m in the past weeks.
Will try 40 and 20 as well as SSB!
73 Chris

These are not official events Christian, more a case of amateurs refusing to give up despite the conditions - of course, the more the merrier!

I’m not sure whether John in VK6 has 30m with him, but I would agree 30m may offer the best opportunities.

73 Servus Ed

Think I heard Chris on 30 meters on the VK-EU Day but he didn’t hear me. Yes can do 30 metres. Best we look at some spots and see who is where and take it from there. KX2 10 watts and my inverted L with radials that I used last time out for VK-EU day. CW and SSB.

See how we go.

73

John VK6NU

Just got the OK from Mine site security So all ok for todays Mt.Solus Activation. Look for Spots.

73

John VK6NU

3 Likes

I heard you sporadically when you went to 20m CW John, but not well enough to try for the S2S unfortunately. Mike 2E0YYY/P on Billinge Hill G/SP-017 was a very good signal, but I wasn’t with him, apparently. Another SWL point then.

It was ages before anyone heard me calling. This was confirmed when I checked the RBN website, and no skimmers had heard me either! Eventually, at 0645, after 15 minutes of unanswered calling, I got a weak call from UR3IF and we made the QSO. At a similar time, I was spotted on the RBN network by a skimmer over that way - but with only 2dB SNR!

Imagine my surprise therefore to be then called by John ZL1BYZ. That was brilliant, and certainly raised my hopes of getting the VK S2S. Alas, that was not to be, and the very quiet band continued to be - quiet.

I finished with six QSOs, 5 on CW, 1 on SSB. It was the first time in a long time that I had operated the FT-817 with an internal battery pack. All seemed well with that.

Unfortunately nothing heard John, and I did try a couple of “blind calls” when you spotted. I’ll wait and see what the others that were out say, but from my site with my set-up, the conditions were not there. Even 40m EU contacts took some effort!

73 Ed.

Hi everyone,
thanks for trying and congrats to Tom for the QSO with ZL. CONDX seemed extremely poor over here. Never before got as few RBN spots as today. According to real-time data from
Space Weather Monitor ,
the actual MUF was extremely low. No wonder I could only work GI, OH and SM on 40, and a few stations from Northern England later on SSB.
I managed to install my antenna on the view tower on top of the summit, about 65 feet above the ground. Not a bad QTH, even with 10 watts…

I heard something in the noise on John’s frequencies, but that were rather local stations working him than he himself.
I later received (but could not work) ZL4YL around 09:30 UTC on 20m in a contest and she was only 539, despite her fantastic antenna and QRO-power.

Well, we tried hard and will not give up :grinning: !
One thing was great: the view from my tower (see below).
Sorry that we did not even manage some s2s QSOs within EU, but it can only get better next time…
73 Chris

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Lovely photo Chris. Conditions did not favour us today but we are still alive to try another day. I think I worked 12 stations so qualified the summit. I’ll report with some photos later.

John VK6NU