A “heads up” announcement for another OK (Czech) Tour this week by Victor GI4ONL / OK8VM and Phil G4OBK / OK8CDX. This will be the 7th OK Tour by Phil, and the 5th OK Tour by Victor.
After leaving the airport on Wednesday at around 1530z we will activate two summits in OK/ST before dusk. On Thurs 02 May we will be travelling and activating as we go into the OK/VY Vysocina region where we will stay for 5 nights. From there we will activate summits in the OK/VY and OK/JC regions.
On Tuesday 07 May we will travel north into the OK/PA region and end the day in Vlasim in the OK/ST region, closer to Prague.
Wednesday 08 May will be a half day operation, when we hope to activate our last four summits in the OK/ST region on our way to the airport.
As in previous tours Victor will specialise on 10 MHz CW. I will operate on 7 MHz CW/SSB and 14 MHz CW/SSB. I would expect to use 7 MHz in the early mornings and late afternoons and 14 MHz late morning and afternoon. We will always try to use two bands on each summit and both modes. We will operate for no more than 20-30 minutes on each summit so as to maximize the number of summits visited in the week. We expect to activate between 40 and 50 summits using KX2 radio’s and link dipoles. An HB1B QRP CW radio will be carried as the backup radio.
OK8VM AKA GI4ONL (Left) OK8CDX AKA G4OBK (Right) on SOTA OK/JC-100 in Sept 2018
I just discovered that breakfast time at our main 5 night hotel starts at 0600z (0800 Local time), so unless we can move this to an earlier time the predicted alert times for the summits I have listed may need to be adjusted.
It seems the most interesting places to visit for them in OK will be your summits. With a plan for visiting 40-50 of them, I don’t think they will have much time left for other visits…
73,
Hello Phil,
Starting from tomorrow untill May 5th I will activate summits in OK/KR and OK/OL.
The distance between us will not be very supporting for S2S but who knows ……
Good luck and let WX be helpful !
Thank for feedback guys. Yes Jarek, that is a tricky distance on the bands we are using, probably in the dead zone with the power we are using, but we’ll listen up for the well known SP9MA call. We aren’t big S2S hams, tending to be more interested in SOTA Complete and gaining overall points. But the S2S is always very welcome - the icing on the cake.
Yes, we’ll see a lots of road miles in between summits, 3 different hotels/guest houses, a few supermarkets for supplies (We like the pre-packed sandwiches sold in OK by Penny Supermarkets!) and watering holes / pubs / restaurants for our evening meals. Very little sightseeing, and lots of summits in the middle of the woods.
We hope there will be some Czech Beer available at a drinking house in the main 5 night village we are staying at - Rozochatec, near Chotebor. The information we have is a little vague but Victor tells me on Google street view a beer sign is visible pointing to a building by the roadside. That means he as the driver can have a beer or two when we get back to the village after the activations. Czech drink driving laws are very strict - ZERO alcohol is the maximum allowed in the blood when driving!
Not a bad start - OK/ST-070 and ST-080 activated this evening on 30m and 40m (Were many Chasers having dinner and watching TV we wondered?) and despite the Bank Holiday we were able to get a meal and a couple of beers in a hostelry in Kourim.
We had a good day yesterday, our logs are in. 20m band was dissapointing all round, so most activty was on 30m and 40m. On the 3rd or 4th summit I had a broken wire on my dipole feedpoint at the centre but that was repaired no problem. I think Victor managed to complete 12 activations on his KX2 internal battery all told! I connected an external one after the power fell to 5 watts on the 9th summit since we arrived in Prague.
Yesterday we managed to pull two extra summits and activate them from todays (Friday) plan. We’ve woken up to a wet day though today and that may affect our progress. Currently revising the plan, deleting the two summits we did extra yesterday and adding two more if the WX will allow it. I will alert as best we can. Breakfast is at 0600z and we hope we be on the road into the southern OK/VY area by around 0630z or so.
Hi Phil,
I kept listening for you during the day yesterday, when I saw your spots, without success. Either the skip distance was wrong or there were other stations on your frequency. Here’s hoping I’l get you on a summit in the next few days. Perhaps an S2S on Monday - we’ll see.
FB Ed, thanks for trying. Skip probably wrong for you. Not many worked in SSB.
It looks like we will be late starting today, we will let the rain finish before the first summit.
I went out specifically at lunchtime to chase you Phil but was very disappointed that the Sun wasn’t playing ball - 20m and 40m were a real struggle. I tried to work Stavros for about 1/2 hour - I did hear you manage a S2S with him. Very poor propagation, lets hope it improves now that Tamitha has told us that the 2 sunspots on the last rotation that provided some decent propagation are about to turn back towards us.
OK Mark, well I did log the one QSO with you yesterday and guessed you weren’t on a SOTA.
With the unavoidable weather delay, once we get started today assuming it stays dry, we’ll carry on activating until the last vestiges of daylight leave the sky I reckon!
Good day, with S2S QSOs abounding, too much to take in, 8 summits bagged and avoided the worst of the rain with our late start. Now in Pansky Dum Bar in Chotebor awaiting meal. Amazingly, my driver OK8VM seems to like low alcohol beer, good for him! I’ll stick with Pilsner Urquell and Merlot.
Same again tomorrow, and the days after that.
Goodnight, thanks to all chasers and S2S partners. Yes Juerg VY-012 was the summit, sri about spotting errors today caused by our fat fingers. Picture on Spicak OK/VY-017
Rain stopped play today on VY-022, had to QRT unfortunately to save the radio from torrential rain. Hope to be back on SOTA tomorrow in the VY and PA regions north of where we are staying.
