Dear SOTA mates,
With a very short notice and late in the evening, I have activated these 2 summits over the weekend. EA1/CR-042 on Saturday and EA1/CR-034 on Sunday.
I’m spending summer holidays in the EA1/CR area, as usual since I got married (my wife is originally from this area) and it’s not being possible for me to do the usual morning activations as I spend most of the day in different activities with my family.
Late evening activations stroke initially to me as attractive because being at the Atlantic Ocean shore these days and copying very well Northamerican stations from our holiday’s home with a random inverted vee long wire, made me guess that there would be good chances to be chased by a number of NA stations.
Unfortunately I have activated on a contest weekend and this may have reduced the number of potential chasers.
The fact is that I have been chased by a not very large number of chasers.
A total of 10 on Saturday, during my activation of the new unique EA1/CR-042, being just 1 from Northamerica. Guess who… Yes, N4EX.
A total of 11 on Sunday, during my activation of EA1/CR-034, being all EU, so zero NA.
Thank you all chasers and apologies for sending my alert very shortly before starting my CQ calls. I couldn’t do it earlier.
Apologies also for not working other bands and modes, but being on holidays here and not having initially planned these late evening activations, I don’t have warm clothing for being at the top of a mountain that late, so I must make the activations pretty short in order to avoid getting too cold up there with the cold humid breeze from the ocean and not at all or just too low sun.
I hope to copy you again soon.
73 de Guru - EA2IF (AM02IF just in these days)
In reply to EA2IF:
Unfortunately I have activated on a contest weekend
That does make SOTA a fair bit more difficult on the contest bands, and I guess the contest-free bands get displaced traffic too. Some potential chasers might have been diverted into taking part in the contest, too.
Guess who… Yes, N4EX.
Heh! Shows your signal was getting out there… 
73 de Guru - EA2IF (AM02IF just in these days)
What’s the occasion for the special call?
73, Rick M0LEP
potential chasers might have been diverted into taking part in the
contest, too.
That’s what I guess it happened
Heh! Shows your signal was getting out there…
Yes, indeed. The home made 1,5m diameter magnetic loop antenna I was using works great and the reports I got from the European chasers confirmed so. Shame that no NA chasers other than N4EX showed up. I built it some years ago and have got great DX with it and the QRP of my FT-817 from my home QTH in Navarra. That’s why I brought it with me to the West coast qth to see how well it works from the hills in front of the Atlantic Ocean. Hopefully, I’ll try it again before vacation ends.
What’s the occasion for the special call?
I wrote a thread here explaining it back around June 18th. All Spain licensed hams are allowed to use AM0 instead of EA, AN0 instead of EB and AO0 instead of EC between June and September 18th with the occasion of the new Spain’s king Felipe VI arriving to the trone.
Best 73 de Guru
In reply to EA2IF:
That’s what I guess it happened
I gather HF conditions weren’t at their best, which won’t have helped, either. (There was some seriously deep QSB on 30 and 20 metres earlier this morning, too.)
AM0 instead of EA, AN0 instead of EB and AO0 instead of EC between June and September 18th
Ah. Thanks for the reminder.
73, Rick M0LEP