The pub near work run by the local flat earth society has a couple.
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I have a globe and I had never thought of using it like that.
Thanks for putting it in my head.
For years I ve been relying on the Yaesu map you get with new rigs (or used to get, now you get a hat - but that is a whole different topic) on a felt board and push pins.
Iām going to grab the one from the lounge when the wife isnt looking as its actually quite a nice lamp too 
Other globe matters: We have a TV show in the UK called Bargain Hunt where contestants find stuff at car boot sales and sell at auction. Globes always seem to do well, especially pre-world war 2 globes. Those and enamel signs are my tips if you ever find yourself on the Red or Blue team
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Hi Ian,
It wasnāt my idea really, I read an article somewhere explaining the SP/LP relationship, suggesting a piece of string between two points on the globe and explaining that the shortest distance is a straight line. I rummaged around trying to find something that would do that and finally found some elastic cord intended for garment repairs. Cut to length and tie the ends together.
And it occurred to me also that the dynamic beams use the reversal concept when they provide a sp/lp switch which changes the antenna from pointing SP to pointing LP without any rotation or direction change. They adjust the element lengths to reverse the direction of the beam by 180 degrees. The reflector and director of a 3 element yagi, when reversed in roles, change the direction of the beam. It all makes sense.
I found it very educational to see the countries traversed by the signal on the way around the globe
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA
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I was obviously lucky when I recognized VK4FW on POTA this morning and heard him working through a pileup of European stations - without my being able to hear a single one of those stations myself (meaning zero QRM from kilowatt PAs or beam antennas, hi).
So, I only had to call for about five minutes before making my first chaser POTA QSO with VK - and all this using my āalmost invisibleā indoor doublet antenna. (BTW, a P2P POTA QSO with VK is already in the log ā¦).
As it turned out, my luck lay largely in the fact that the QSO happened just moments before he went QRT, right after he had thoroughly fished out the āpond,ā hi.
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Is anyone interested in trying 20m and/or 40m long path on Saturday morning? Since a far too long time I will be at our club station DL0AO which offers optimal chances with a 6 element Monobander on 20m and a two element Monobander on 40m paired with some beverages for RX 
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Good Luck with the tests Thomas, I would have listened in but Iāll be at Eggenfelden all of Saturday.
73 Ed.
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hi Thomas,
I would like to hear the signal from that club station. Unfortunately continuous rain is forecast for tomorrow here and I cannot afford to take the risk of getting cold and wet.
if the rain dries up in the afternoon I may be able to be on a summit from 0600 to 0700. I have a dinner engagement with my son at 17:30= 0730 UTC.
Good luck, I hope conditions are favourable.
73
Andrew vk1da/vk2da
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Hereās a new update:
VK3QN on 20m WSPR at my QTH in JN48 with fairly high local noise level.
A few experiments suggest that the signal path should be suitable for SSB once VK3QNās SNR becomes positive. However, this is not a fixed rule.
The assumption is - of course - hat the noise is more or less constant but thatās not under my control.
It looks as though, after a few days of rather changeable conditions, the situation is returning to something more stable. Letās wait and see what impact the forecast CME has.
73, Roman
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Thank you very much. I just checked the alerts. Not a single one for SSB/CW.
I am sitting at a campfire with my oldest friends. I will probably enjoy an open-ended evening and be QRV a bit later around 08z when the event starts at our club station, but not already at 06z for long path.
Have a nice weekend all and hope to work you again soon
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My VK1AD 200mW 20m WSPR: EU long path opened at 06:02 UTC and was still open at 08:20 UTC.
Edit: now closed at 08:30 UTC
Andrew VK1AD
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Thomas,
As it happened, the whole afternoon featured steady drizzle and at 1800 local time or 0800 UTC we had a massive thunderstorm covering the entire city and all its sota summits.
Hope your activity went well.
73
Andrew VK1DA
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(I hope this isnāt too much off-topicā¦ There are only 2 SOTA summits in the Netherlands, so I do my testing in POTA parks insteadā¦)
This morning I was on a park bench in my home POTA park before sunrise, testing out my gear for the upcoming VK/ZL - EU S2S event. I had brought my QCX-mini plus the QCX amp which puts out 35W on the cordless drill battery pack, and an inverted vee dipole with the apex at 10 meters. All the gear turned out to play nicely. And the conditions were pretty good too.
Iām looking forward to being on PA/PA-003 in 13 days! Hope to hear many of you then!
Some of the highlights from today:
- I heard VK1DA/P who was (again!) on Mt Stromlo but I couldnāt get through the pileup. I think I heard Andrew working a JI2 station, maybe JI2MED? I was surprised I could hear the Japanese station; I hardly ever hear JAs hereā¦
- ZL1TM called me at 0620Z (35m after my sunrise; 2m before his sunset). He was a solid 559 at my end; I got a 539 in return.
- At 0626Z I heard VK3PF calling CQ a couple kHz above me. I worked him easily, handing out a 449 and receiving a 539 from him. This was 40m after my sunrise and roughly 2h before his sunset.
- Some time later, JI2MED called me at 0716Z; he was 549 at my end and I received a 559.
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Hi Frank,
Conditions were quite good and I was testing the atu in my kx3, which had been dubious on 20m on the previous activation which was also at Mt Stromlo. (I donāt have a season ticket there but every kangaroo seems to know me. It is only a few km from my home in Canberra and I have activated it 94 times.) However I didnāt work any ji2 prefix. JA0AWE and 7N1FRE were the only Japanese stations worked though others may have called. There were several German 2 callsigns in the list though.
The kx3 tuner seemed to be ok and it was good to work into EU with 15w. Originally I wanted to make an s2s with vk4enu and vk2oms who were activating vk1ās highest summit vk1/ac001. Having achieved that it seemed like an opportunity to check out the kx3. Meantime Matt vk1ozi visited my setup and we chatted about antennas and other things while his daughters (both with callsigns) climbed trees. Almost like a pota activation, but on a hilltop.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA
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This is going to be a little off-topic. As i wrote above, I decided against trying 20m long path. In fact there was not a single SOTA OC spot spot on 20m SSB/CW on Saturday morning.
The day went well. A few kids were even able to make their first QSO with one of the special callsigns DL26MAUS, DL26ENTE and my favourite DL6ELEFANT. And the guests also enjoyed our other offers
We showed some portable equipment outside and I also set up my 6 element Yagi for 2m that I am mostly using for the challenge this year. I was not too optimistic to make QSOs with it because the club station is located in a quite flat area and I had trees around. Still I was able to work Michael @OE5HKT on three different summits on SSB with a distance of around 230 km each. And then Arek @SP6WBL made my day on VHF when I was able to hear him on SP/SS-007 which is 352 km away. He was only using 6 W! 
I was also able to chase 7P8LZ and 7P8JL on 7P/BB-014 and to chase Tom @HB9EVF and Tabea @HB9HXJ on 9H/GO-001!
After the pubic program ended and the other members one by one left the station, I was thinking about going home. It was already a long day. But of course I checked the SOTA cluster and I soon realized that the bands are open to both the East and West coast 
At the same time I noticed, that there is quite much activity on the SOTA cluster because of some S2S event! From that moment it was clear that I would stay longer and I enjoyed every single one of the QSOs with portable stations.
All of the DX QSOs on that map are chases of portable SOTA and/or POTA staions! Towards the end, Keith @KR7RK made my day on HF. I had worked him before, but he was spotted again on a new summit W6/NC-178 on 20m CW with the comment āKH1 with whip only, not a nice summitā. To my greatest enjoyment, I was really able to hear him deep down into the noise. He has not yet uploaded his log, but I heard parts of my callsign, my rapport and the 73 in the end 
So even if there was not a single long path QSO, I had a great DX evening!
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Thanks for the report, Thomas!
CONGRATS on your great achievements, both, with your special event āTĆ¼ren auf mit der Mausā as well as with chasing SOTA DX!
Looking at the QSO-map, one gets the impression that condx must have been excellent. It was exactly the right thing to stay in the shack - looks like youāve caught the hours before the solar wind speed and density picked up significantly.
73, Roman
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Thanks for sharing this plot, Roman. I picked just the right time to be at the station and I also went home at the right time 
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Already ten alerts for next weekās event
Propagation didnāt look great during the last couple days, judging by the WSPR data Iām collecting.
Fingers crossed that the sun calms down a bitā¦
Looking forward to hearing lots of participants!
73, Roman
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Just a heads-up for all involved: the (upcoming) SOTA S2S day will have other portable stations out for different reasons and may be worth listening out for if you are not too busy with S2S contacts!
- POTA Support your Park action.
- Autumn: 3rd full weekend of October (October 17ā18, 2026)
- https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gk6dxLO13os
- JOTA/JOTI - (16th - 18th October). The Scoutsā largest worldwide event relies on contacts made on amateur radio between cubs & scouts around the world, a friendly voice willing to talk with a young person who is operating a radio for the first time will be very welcome.
https://jotajoti.info/
They hope to use the following frequencies:
- 80 metres: 3.690 and 3.940
- 40 metres: 7.090 and 7.190
- 20 metres: 14.290
- 17 metres: 18.140
- 15 metres: 21.360
- 12 metres: 24.960
- 10 metres: 28.390
- 6 metres: 50.160
73 Ed.
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Iāve alerted for Saturday morning. Amazingly the weather forecast is looking excellent if a little cold. I will mostly be on 20m CW but will have SSB and other bands available.
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