Great! Hopefully a large number of activators and chasers will be aware of our “CQ S2S” and “CQ SOTA” (and perhaps “CQ DX”) intentions! We should probably make a general announcement on the reflectors right before 19Nov.
I’m planning on closely watching spots and doing much qsy’ing between 20/17/15M (12M?) ssb/cw to chase EU and NA s2s.
VOACAP predictions I’ve run (with sunspot numbers of 30-40) seem to suggest possibilities on 12M-20M, with 17M looking consistently the best. I’m tempted to do a single band 17M effort.
The danger of “CQ S2S” and “CQ DX” is that it can create anxiety amongst some types of “particularly keen” chasers that their window of opportunity to work the activation is fast reducing. In some cases, this can lead to ever more aggressive and inconsiderate operating, ie, it has the opposite effect.
In any case, I agree with Ed; we shouldn’t be giving the impression that any callers are in any way unwelcome.
The solution to this is easy. Simply call CQ / CQ SOTA. See what comes back and work them. If you suspect a S2S opportunity might be in amongst the pile-up that responds, then call “Please only the stroke portable” (or -…-./.–./…–…). It’ll work just fine.
I’m sorry, but isn’t this an event that specifically targets NA <> EU S2S? Trying to direct a pileup of chasers on cw with your weak summit signal is a very futile project.
Yes, but not at the expense of everything else. EU-VK day was great. I made 99 contacts. Only 2 of them were VK S2S. But I made 18 S2S in all. Activity levels were great, and the time spent was very productive. Judging by my recent “dry run” for EU-NA day, I’d expect the EU-NA QSOs to be much higher in proportion. And if nearly 1 in 5 of all my QSOs are S2S again, I’ll be well happy.
Pile-up management is perfectly possible with QRP CW. Never causes me any difficulty.
During an activation about 10 days ago, I got amongst the North Americans on both 20 and 15m. I logged about 30 NA contacts in total, with 15m producing the best DX.
Working into CA, wasn’t something I was expecting. Sadly, I had to leave the summit, due to another commitment.
OK, building a 17m J-Pole out of RG-174 (real RG-174, this time HI) to go with the lightweight 15m one and I will decide based on propagation which to put up. It looks like we might get a few people willing to try bands other than 20m after all…
I have little hope of hitting the West Coast, but who knows - if we don’t try, we wont know. Amplifier now repaired and working again, so it’ll be 20 watts rather than just the 5 watts I had two days ago.
I will concentrate on EU and NA s2s stations during the “window” on whatever band I can find them on. Once I figure out what band is open to EU I will likely sit on a freq and call lots of CQ’s… when not tuning around.
Since I will be on the summit until around 2100, USA Chasers will have plenty of time to work me on 20 or 40 meters after EU drops out.
As always I will try and work everyone that calls me, but I will favor the EU DX early in the day a bit.
Anyhow I am sure it will all work out…chaotic but fun.
I realise we in Europe have the better local time window this time, compared to the VK-EU event where it was an early rise and (at least for me) a cold activation.
In the US and Canada the 1400 - 1700 UTC window equates to 0900 – 1200 on the east coast and 0600-0900 on the west coast. Nice to extend the activation into the warmer part of the day as Pete plans for inter-NA contacts.
By the way, my experiment on 15m two days agao had the EU-NA link already open at 1330 UTC (or possibly even earlier), so getting operational by 1400 UTC (or earlier) would probably be a good idea on the 19th. Then again propagation can be completely different on the day!
I would like to add to the conversation that I plan to be on a summit in Alberta on the morning of Nov. 19, Canadian weather gods permitting! Over the last week I have done a couple of activations later in the day and managed contacts in New Zealand once on 20m and once on 17m thanks ZL1BYZ. I was running 25 watts into an inverted V dipole. I have links for 20, 17 and 15m and I was planning on starting on 20m and changing the band up as the dawn develops.
I hope to talk to many of you on the 19th.
Ian
VE6IXD
So it looks like I’m taking two antennas and two poles - 20m & 17m - on this event! I realise other options are available, but nothing I have tried beats the performance of single band resonant groundplane with vertical antennas at these frequencies.
Well, we’ll see - it might be raining or i could have a gig come in. As it stands through, I’m in. No doubt I’ll end up lingering a bit longer than the nominal 1700z event close though, as I did on the VK day. With any luck the path will be improving to the mid-west and west around that time.
That was half way up what I’m hoping will soon be a qualifying summit in Southern Brazil it’s a little “oh errrr…” in places in fairness, they weren’t joking with the “risk of death” on the sign.
Just need the full licence now so I can operate when I visit my family there.
Any advice on creating the 15 and 20m vertical antennas? Not something I’ve attempted yet.
could be of interest if you are looking to build a vertical antenna. This “J-Pole” design requires no radials and I worked from Southern Bavaria into the US and Canada using 5w of SSB on the 1st. Novemeber using a 15 metres version of the antenna.
Count me in weather permitting, snow is OK, freezing rain is not OK. I’ll probably activate Vache Noire VE2/LR-017. Operations will be mostly 10W CW, alternating periods of CQ SOTA and CQ S2S, probably only two hours on the air this time of year.
73, Malcolm VE2DDZ
Something for next year Gerald - I wonder if we could do the NA-EU event in October like the VK-EU one - the reason? The majority of the mountain lifts in Bavaria shut down for maintenance before the ski season on about November 5th. each year. In some cases, such as the summit I am looking at for November 19th. they will “sometimes” run on weekend days if the weather is really good (and there are therefore lots of walkers wanting to use the service). Often however these services are time restricted, such as 10am to 3:20pm - which doesn’t help me with wanting to start an activation at 3pm local time!
While some may say, why not walk up the mountain instead of using the lift for part of the way, but in my case having the lift makes the difference between being able to activate a 6 (or more) point summit or only a 1 or 2 point summit.
In any case, mysearch is on for other summits, in the same area, so that IF a lift is running (and running until say 5pm) I might be able to get there and if not, I have a lower summit to fall back on.
Yes, whatever people prefer. It would fit in well with the QRPTTF being in April so the two events are six months apart. The precise date would need to be arranged in agreement with the VK<>EU event, assuming that will continue…
I do not profess to be the architect of this event since I was only musing about the possibility after the VK<>EU S2S event and just happened to be the one to initiate the thread and then to move things on, suggest a date. I see it as being owned by us all. We need to get as many people as possible on to make this a success, both from an activating and a chasing point of view. What I see so far is very encouraging.
found this the other day, looks quite good and pretty easy to build. Might be worth a try for the NA-EU S2S event? http://www.moxonantennaproject.com/ea2bd/EA2BD.htm
construciton document link on this page for those interested.
73
Anthony
Well it looks like my best option is to head to a different association on the 19th. Every summit I would have liked to activate in the (DL) Alpen regions has “revision” (maintenance) on its lifts from either the 5th. or the 7th. of November through until at least Christmas week.
So I’ll be heading over to the DM association and picking off one of the 10 pointer summits that I haven’t as yet activated. They’re 2.5 - 3 hours drive away from here but with not needing a lift, I am not constrained on access and being an afternon activation, I have time to arrive and set-up without rushing. So I just need to make sure I’m not snowed in here (snow is forecast for parts of the Alps this coming weekend).
it’s a little “oh errrr…” in places 