Looking ahead to the March DV Flavour, and I have some interesting news, particularly for C4FM activators and chasers in the Midlands, Wales and NW England.
On the evening of Monday 2nd March, from 1930, there should be plenty of C4FM stations QRV. The Stockport Radio Society has very active weekly nets on a variety of bands and modes, running on a monthly cycle. Normally, that first Monday of the month would be a 70cm net, but upon hearing of the SOTA Flavour for the first week of March, they have agreed, in principle, to swap the dates with the 2m C4FM net.
If you’ve ever stumbled across the SRS 2m C4FM net, you will know it typically attracts good numbers of club members, and they are always happy to have a (non-member) SOTA station call in and work down all the members on air. So make a note of Monday 2nd March 2020 in your diaries and get your alerts on for 1930z! A huge number of summits in GW/NW, G/WB, G/SP and possibly other regions should be in easy working range of the Stockport members - plus of course there will be the added opportunties for S2S QSOs if several of us are activating simultaneously.
This event will also mark SOTA’s 18th birthday, so perhaps any activators in the area could convene afterwards at the Harrington Arms in Gawsworth for SOTA’s first legal drink!
In other news, I have provisional pass-outs for Sunday 1st March 2020 and Saturday 7th March 2020, and intend to have some multi-summit days in the Shropshire Hills and Clywydians, activating on 2m C4FM. I’ll try and get out in the evenings of the weekdays in-between on my local summits too.
If any activators contemplating participating in this DV Flavour have local club nets on C4FM, DMR or D-Star, then perhaps you too could coordinate with them and set up a similar DV activity night in your area.
This depends on which country you are in, in the UK it would be SOTA’s first legal drink, but in Germany SOTA’s legal drink would have been 2 years ago and in North America, SOTA will have to wait 3 years until it’s first legal drink.
I can now reveal that discussions are in place and it looks like there will also be a 70cm C4FM simplex night on Wednesday 4th March, in conjunction with the North West Fusion Group’s weekly net.
Indeed it is - based on a bit of research by me and making contact with the local groups that are active on DV. My hope is that other activators looking to add to their Challenge score in March, will be similarly proactive in seeking out potential C4FM/DMR/D-Star simplex net activity in their areas.
The potential is there, so why not? It’s a win-win. The added SOTA activity should add interest and traffic to the DV nets, and the DV nets will provide extra “unique-QSO-partner” points back to the activators in the Challenge. And the enhanced activity will provide extra chaser opportunities, especially in the scheduled nets if activators align themselves to them.
Great news - especially if you’re an activator planning on participating in the SOTA DV activity evening on Monday 2nd March 2020.
We already have the very active Stockport Radio Society simplex 2m C4FM net joining us on the air from 1930z.
Also now, I can advise that the Macclesfield club will be QRV from the club shack on 2m C4FM (simplex of course - I saw a thing on the SOTA Facebook group the other day bemoaning that digital repeaters are allowed - they are not; that would be against the rules). This will be after the Stockport club net, so probably around 2000/2015z.
A great opportunity for Challenge activators to rack up some “Unique QSO partner” points in the Flavours Challenge.
I’m hoping this will encourage more DV activators to be out on a summit on this Monday evening thus creating S2S opportunities, as well as incentive for SOTA chasers to be listening on C4FM that evening.
So what did I forget tonight? A guying kit, that’s what. M0HGY assured me there were not one, but two guying kits in the MFD bag. There were, in fact, none. However, the antenna bag itself, together with a way post on the summit, did the trick.
Tom, thanks for the S2S tonight.
Indeed, I had worked Adrian before working you.
There seemed to be a lot of break through from the masts tonight, and it seemed better from a little lower down from the trig point.
Maybe catch you tomorrow in the UKAC?
Any other activators out tonight on 70cm C4FM? The North-West Fusion Group will be active on 433.675MHz C4FM (simplex) from around 1930z; I will activate The Cloud G/SP-015 from that time, and this time using a beam to maximise chances of getting QSOs into the Central Lancashire / Fylde Coast / South Lakes epicentre of the NWFG. But from my summit, I should be available to DV chasers over a wide area too.
I will also call on 2m C4FM before 1930z and again just before descending.
I’ve had another great multi summit day in GW today, activating the 5 Clwydians, then nipping over to Great Orme. It is insanely windy up there!
I’ve made C4FM contacts on the first five summits. But despite qualifying Great Orme easily enough on 2m FM, I couldn’t get a C4FM contact for the life of me.
Then the message came from home to sort my own tea out before returning. So I’m having fish & chips in Llandudno, recharging my FT70D batteries, and going back up for another try.
So - is there anyone in VHF-workable range of GW/NW-070 with C4FM capability for an early evening QSO?
