ON7DQ EA7 Tour

Hi All,

Sunday May 19th is the big day !
Leaving early morning for Málaga … already getting excited now , hi.
Activations in EA7 (and a bit in EA4) start on monday May 20th, and my last activation should be on June 4th.
Since I travel with a non-ham friend this time, I had to do some clever negotiating to “smuggle” 11 summits into the 3 week schedule … hi.

See Alerts page for details. I hope to do them all, but all depends on wx, travel times, fatigue or other health problems, … I will post changes in time.

Several summits are also valid for DVGE or EAFF, if you hear me on one of those, please help by spotting me on the DX Cluster too … I won’t have time to do that myself. If I can’t selfspot at all, the activation will be CW only.

I will carry my FT1D with APRS while walking, call = ON7DQ (no pre- or suffixes, full call in the comment).

More plans for activity:
I also have a 20m QCX as a backup, and will be in the QCX QSO Party on monday May 27th (19:00Z-20:00Z).
And if you’re also an SKCC member, look out for me in the SKSE on June 6th (18:45Z-21:15Z).
All if time permits of course …

Looking out to work many chasers and maybe a few other activators for a S2S too !
Hasta pronto … setenta y tres !
Luc EA7/ON7DQ

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Today one summit, Reina EA7/MA-027.
Please help me by spotting me on DX cluster (DX Summit) with references VGMA-110 and EAFF-0004 in the comment.
Couldnt get cell connection on monday, not sure abt today …
Tnx, Luc EA7/ON7DQ

The good :
Last sunday I did my 200th activation (on EA7/GR-088), which was also my 130th unique summit. And today I activated my 15th region (on EA4/CR-005) , getting me the Mountain Explorer GOLD !

The bad :
I haven’t been able to get a data connection on any summit so far, so activating without self-spotting is very tedious, and limiting mostly to CW.
But today was even more frustrating …
I started by 10 CQ’s on 14.285 ssb, hoping that at least one chaser would check the qrg … nope, no replies.
So again, I switched to CW and made 10 CQ’s on 18089, 14062, 10122 and 7032. Result : not one chaser called.
I couldn’t check if I was spotted (no data), so I supposed the RBN or SotaWatch had to be down?
Back in my BnB I checked SotaWatch, and hey ! I have been spotted four times … so I don’t know what went wrong …

I would be interested to know if any one tried to call me at all ?

I saved my activation by s&p, and after a full hour on the summit I had 5 qso’s.
Mission accomplished, but not one regular chaser in my log !

Then again some good news … I finally found some setting , together with restarting my phone, that enabled the 4G connection ! Wow!
Should have tried that earlier, but I’m still puzzled why I always had instant 4G in France, Germany and also EA6 and EA8 … and have to change settings for EA7 ???

More SOTA fun tomorrow and Saturday I hope.
And my last summit will then be on June 4th, see Alerts page.

73,
Luc EA7/ON7DQ

Hi Luc,
I saw your spots on SOTAwatch and tried to copy you or your chasers without success on 40 and 20m. Good that you managed to qualify by working 5 on S&P.
73,

Guru

Hi Luc,
My suspicion would be that in France, Germany, EA6 and EA8, either your phone company or a local company with a working arrangement to your phone company was present and so connection for data was automatic. In EA7 perhaps you have now selected a different company who will bill your home phone company. Also in the later Android phones, you can select what standard of data network you will accept EDGE, HDPA+, 3G, 4G etc. If this is set to a network that is not available in EA7 you could hit problems. Although my phone is a 4G one, I tend to set the “desired” data network to 3G as for what I use the link for, 3G is adequate and there are far more 3G networks than 4G. Setting to 4G “ought to” fall back to 3G but you may have a problem.
In any case, take a look at the name of the network you have connected to and then check if it has a direct deal with your home cell network provider. You may also find you are given a lower connection priority on the foreign network than locals and in some cases when a cell is busy, you won’t get a connection no matter how strong the signal is.

73 Ed.

Likewise for me Luc. I saw the 20m and 17m CW spots but could not hear any signals at the time.

I’ll keep a watch out for you again when I in the shack.

73 Phil

Same here saw the spots but nil heard.

73 Victor GI4ONL

Sometimes you need do nothing more than put the phone into Airplane mode, count to 30, then exit Airplane mode. Airplane mode normally powers down the RF and modem chips and on exit everything gets rebooted cleanly and then your phone should roam and authenticate.

Tnx for all the replies.
So must have been bad propagation or bad luck …
Have to cancel the activation today.
Next will be two activations on Saturday June 1st.
4G is working now, so should be able to selfspot and look for S2S.
73 Luc

Luc,

I had the same problem in EA4 a few weeks ago and restarting the phone enabled the 4G connection. It took me a while to sort this out. Will look for you 73 GL Luc

Karel ON4FI

Hi all,
My EA7 tour is almost over, but I have a SURPRISE for you … one EXTRA summit tomorrow ! See alerts page for details.

Here a wonderful view from yesterdays summit EA7/CA-007 Lijar, towards the Embalse de Zahara-el-Gastor.

Our hotel is just across the lake and has a wonderful view over it.
We have dinner, looking at the sunset … unforgettable !
73 !
Luc EA7/ON7DQ

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I could live with that view. :wink:

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