I cannot go on a summit because of concurrent commitments, I will try to chase from an unfavourable location (max 10W).
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Hi Matt,
As I said, âyou would expect...â. Perhaps I should have added that, that actually is not the case to make my comment clearer.
So Yes, Eastern Europe before Western Europe, but also Southern Europe before Northern Europe.
(Same comment to Andrew @VK1AD).
73 Ed.
PS, I extended the original post now.
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No S2S for me tomorrow, I have family staying over. However I will try to chase you for an hour or so before they sort themselves out.
Hopefully see you on the bands tomorrow early morning.
73 Marek
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Grey line in G/ is arriving! Hoping for brief window of LP propagation, itâs drizzle, low cloud and an probally no signal from water getting into the coax. 
HopingâŠ.
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Sorry Iâve pulled out due to the weather. Hopefully next time
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I doubt activators are having many s2s opportunities since chasers seem all to be using inordinate amounts of power.
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Poorer conditions than other recent nights here in ZL4. Germany (DL3TU) came in well at 0557, then Switzerland (HB9GVW) poor signal but workable at 0623, then ⊠a lot of barely copyable stations. We managed a few contacts on the peaks of the QSB, but exchanging more than callsigns & signal reports would not have happened.
Hope the path was better to other locations.
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WX somewhat pish and rather Autumnal. Was 25% blue sky but soon heavy overcast. Average wind speed 22mph with 40mph gusts⊠not conducive for the bendy 5.6m Chinese whips. And I didnât wake up in time 
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Thank you all for a fantastic morning working so many VK stations from G/SC-003.
FT891 today with a 1/4 wave vertical with single elevated counterpoise/radial. Recycled Vape batteries providing 100watts !
Shadow asking where the hell is my food, after a 5.30am start âŠ.
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Well, I got one S2S on 20m SSB with VK1AD and two other contacts with VK chasers. First time for me getting VK in the log 
However, I quit the activation out of frustration. I had VK1JIM on CW 559 for 30 f*cking minutes and impossible to make a contact because of 1 kW chasers. Same for VK3PF, even though he was probably 3/1. I was boiling inside.
I think we should make a private round for such events, and not spot on sotawatch.
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Thanks to all who have raised interest on the reflector. I decided to get up early and drive to a local quiet spot to have a listen. I didnât have high expectations of being able to work the DX with a mobile whip, but was delighted to get @VK1JIM & @VK1DA on the key at the tail-end of their respective pile-ups. Thanks both! Really made the early start worth it.
Other highlights included hearing a very happy sounding @G5OLD working @VK1AD for a S2S! Nice one Tim!
73 all - Matthew M0JSB
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The G and F stations were unfortunately down in the noise with me on DL/AM-001 (skip was too long) but I am very happy to say I managed contacts with Andrew @VK1AD, Matt @ZL4NVW, Paul @VK5PAS , Matt @VK1MA, as well as a couple of other VK2 and VK3 stations. 11 contacts in all: 1 ZL, 7 VK, 1 Swedish, 2 Russian. A good activation and preparation for the S2S event. Thanks for the contacts, guys. 73 Ed.
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Ed, I went looking for you and found your signal with qsb in and out of the noise. I worked you with 100W and a 2 ELE beam. Band conditions were not great but nice to work you again.
73, Ron, VK3AFW.
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Thanks for the contact Tim. You were the best of 3 EU SOTA activators I worked today. Sigs were not great but you were Q5. I had lifted the power to 400 W to help with the EU QRM.
73 Ron VK3AFW
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Great day out on SOTA, made 38 QSO and 4 S2S but the hayfever wore me out, sitting in long grass all going to seed was not good. Run 50w for this activation and got some more jobs to do on the repeater some time soon. Problems bit above my pay grade caused by power outages in the area a couple weeks ago.
73 regards. ian vk5cz
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I thought it was you but logged as VK2 online rather than VK3 - Iâll correct. Nice to make a contact again, shame this wasnât a weekday with less QRM!
73 Ed.
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From VK2/ST-036 Spring Hill today I worked about 30 contacts in the Spring VHF/UHF field day contest and then worked 27 contacts on 20m in the final hour, 25 of which were CW. I was running 50w output which helped my signal strength a bit. Antenna was a dipole. My vertical was to have been used but getting it out after so long revealed that one of the links had a faulty connector. It was used on the 12m challenge so had a link for that band. After faffing about with a soldering iron that could not tin the wires, I realised they were corroded, abandoned the vertical and put up the dipole instead. I donât usually take a gas soldering iron on activations but i had so many antennas and bits of things that I thought it might be handy.
Thanks to Thomas DF7TR who abandoned a pileup on 40m to come up to 20m and work me.
A few S2Ss among those contacts, including OE9HRV and fellow activators.
I had worked Andrew VK1AD earlier, on 2m ssb. In chat later we both thought it was a reasonable LP opening similar to the ones we had about 10 years ago.
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Abstract:
Summit: DM/BW-099 (Achalm)
QRV: 05.45 - 7:30 UTC
Rig: Elecraft KX3 @ 15 watts
Antenna: Delta Loop right at a cliff facing VK/ZL LP
Band: 20m
QSOs per mode: 11 x CW, 6 x SSB
QSOs per country: 10 x VK/ZL (3 x S2S); 6 x EU; 1 x JA
Weather: ~ 10 °C, light breeze
Sunrise: ~ 05:10 UTC
Wow, that was fun!
perfect weather here and a great 20m LP opening.
My first QSO was actually more of a chat with Andrew @VK1AD on VK2/ST-001, followed by QSOs with @VK3SQ, @ZL4NVW, @VK1MA and @VK2DAG.
Then I tried to get a summit-to-summit QSO with @VK1JIM and experienced the same as Remy, F4LEK reported: a huge pile-up of EU stations which wasnât easy to get through. More on that below.
A run on 20m CW resulted in a summit-to-park QSO with @VK2IO and QSOs with @VK2ZRD and two EU chasers.
Rather late I found Andrew, @VK1DA for another S2S QSO on CW and was surprised to be called by Hiro, @JG0AWE shortly after.
Sadly, I missed VK3PF whom I couldnât hear on his spotted frequency and VK5CZ.
Obcervations:
- At my location the LP opened around 5:40 UTC which was earlier than expected and closed around 8:00 UTC (confirmed by my observations of VK3QN on WSPR)
- I could have stayed longer on the summit but got only few responses on my CQ after 7:00 UTC.
- As the QSO with JG0AWE shows, we mustnât forget JA and the far east for the coming event! 20m LP may well lead all the way to JA.
- The wall of EU chasers around DX activators can be quite frustrating for activators in EU. I donât have a guaranteed solution, but perhaps activators could ask for S2S every few minutes or so?
Thanks for all the QSOs and thanks VK1AD for proposing the test run. Everything turned out to be working perfectly 
Now fingers crossed for the 17 October.
73, Roman
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Thank you Matthew (@M0JSB) for the QSO. I am glad I was able to pull your callsign out of the pileup. Great conditions today on 20m. I made 40 CW QSOs across Europe over about 90 minutes.
I was using an IC-705 at 10W and a dipole antenna.
James (VK1JIM)
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Went up my local 1 point hill in grey and misty WX and field tested my latest antenna, a Chinese whip groundplane with 4 elevated radials. I was initially using a P50+ amp with my KX3 but it unfortunately crapped out on me just as VK3SQ was calling 
. Tim, G5OLD/P was then first itl at 0613 and then I had to wait until the band fully opened for my 10w to get through, with chases from VK1MA, VK5PAS, then a S2S with Andrew VK1AD after the EU pile-up on him had thinned a bit. 2 Eu chasers(SP9GKS and 9A1AA) were then followed by a chase and S2S by/with VK3PF, which rounded off the morning nicely. With the weather getting damper, SQ9JYK was last itl before I headed home for a shower and coffee.
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