It’s all about being in the duct. If you are, 5 W @ 6 dBd is plenty.
It will take me a few minutes to change from HF to VHF so don’t stop transmitting too early.
Hepburn and wx forecast indicate that it would be impolite to stop CQing after four qsos made and leave the pile-up on their own.
Hope to work you both!
Pom,
Apologies, i forgot to pack my beam antenna. I will try with a dipole, but i will be vertically polarised.
Pete,
My apologies. Tropo: yes. Ducting: no. Only one M0 station heard, not worked though.
Back home right now, time for supper and a pint.
Detailed report to come.
Ahoi
Pom
Tourist information
However most of the Northern Plains are in Niedersachsen, there are some nice summits south of Hannover meeting p150. Both summits mentioned in the following activation reports, DM/NS-127 and DM/NS-135, are part of the Ith-Hills-Weg, an 82 km hiking trail in the Weserbergland which is the most scenic hiking trail in the Northern mountian ranges (except Harz) and can be cut down to approx. 35 km.
The recommended SOTA trails (see SMP, SOTLAS) are also highly scenic stages of Ith-Hills-Weg.
DM/NS-121, DM/NS-126, DM/NS-129 and DM/NS-160 are also nice and nearby SOTA summits.
If you rather want to collect 30 points a day, visit DM/BW. If you want to SOTA in a highly underrated region and complete summits on which you worked most probably Chris, @DL1CR/p or me, then have a closer look at Niedersachsen.
DM/NS-135 Lauensteiner Kopf
Friday, 1634 - 1750 utc
Is there such a term ‘a used activation’? This was one!
I’ve been quite excited for some days, as Hepburn indicated that there would be wide-spread lift condx in central Europe. I didn’t give too much on it, as wx was forecast strong winds on DM/NS summits which would mix up all the lovely inversion layers. However, forecast from Friday afternoon was ok, i.e. winds decreasing and relative warm air at 850 hp / 1500 m. So I was getting really jittery and wanted to stop work at 1500 loc (1400 utc) latest. A support request that needed action delayed my plannings and so I was at the trailhead at 1630 loc. First thing that went wrong that day. The others are (in order of appearance):
Approaching the ridgeway, winds speeded up. What? Forecast was almost no wind.
Minutes later, I found out the reason why my rucksack felt so lightweight and remembered that I left the PA at home. So all I had was a barefoot IC-705 and 5-Elli, a 5 element DK7ZB 28 Ohms yagi.
At the summit, I found a new metal tower a few meters north of the viewtower, where I usually deploy my shack. The new metal tower, more than 2 m in diameter, will soon carry public services repeaters (Police, EMS, desaster control), but it’s right in the way to OZ. Questionable if this summit will remain as good as it used to be for the Nordic Activity Cointest / Tuesday 144 MHz activity nights.
On the viewtower wind was too heavy for my chosen antenna. At the trailhead, I decided to take the ‘upper’ of two stacked yagis with me which mounts at 6.5 m of the fibreglass pole. Should have taken the ‘lower’ one which mounts at 4 m and stand 7 bft at this position. So I had to cope with slant polarisation and an antenna turning in the wind over and over again.
The summit turned out to be much more noisy than ist used to be, even on 144 MHz.
Due to the strong winds mixing up possible inversion layers, there was absolutey no sign of lift condx. So only five local qsos were made. Earlier as planned, I decided to call it a day.
Thank you! What PA are you using for VHF?
RM Italy VLA-200. Very robust and forgiving. It claims 50 W in / 200 W out. Driven up to 25 W, it gives a quite clean output of up to 130ish W.
Ahoi
Pom
Hepburn suggests that tonight might be a good night for an VHF outing. WX also looking “good” with pressure > 1040 hpa, mist and temperatures at 850 hpa / 1500 m 5° C higher than at ground level. No wind here. So I put alert on SW for DM/NS-135 1730 UTC. Will mainly beam west/east.
Ahoi
Pom
How many times have the predictions fooled me… I can understand that very well. 
I also check the conditions here … sometimes they contradict themselves even… then I leave it meanwhile completely!
…you can also check the propagation conditions here
73 Armin
Condx were quite good, but stations lacking. So only three tropo qsos (2xG, 1xSP) and some local stations were worked. Local chap Tom, DL9OBD joined me on the frequency and so we had a good time working the few other stations.
Ahoi
Pom
Don’t miss the current fb tropo condx! Shame, I have to work now, so alert is set to 1730 utc DM/NS-135. Will be qrv on 144 and 1296 SSB.
Ahoi
Pom
Excellent condx, shwing! Good activity. Everybody was 59 with me, except the Scots were 20 over. 2 new squares worked. Shame I was late and missed the Scottish summit stations. Now having a Highland Park on the Orkney QSO.
Ahoi
Pom
Good signals heard this morning from G, ON and OZ at my tiny vertically polarised JO42 home shack. Hoping there will be another nice morning tropo tomorrow, I put on an alert for DM/NS-135 Saturday 0600z.
Ahoi
Pom
I’ll listen out for you at home. Got stuff planned so can’t get out on a summit in the morning.
Both Hepburn and F5LEN suggest that GW will be well in the duct. Fingers crossed!
Ahoi
Pom
I didn’t hear you here.
I was working stations on 2m FT8 (including DL1YDI and DK3EE) but the signals dropped noticeably about 0700z. I didn’t hear you on .300 or .290, there were a couple of G stations on SSB but they weren’t particularly strong.
Band seems flat now. 
ODX G0LTG 838 km. I’ve always failed to work Lauri via ACS, so it was tropo. Shame, there are no SSB stations anymore, only Klingon speaking computers on 174.
Ahoi
Pom
