Proposal for a VK/ZL<-> UK/EU S2S event (Part 3)

[VK1DA]

I broke out the old quarter wave vertical for this activation. Its main vertical wire was faulty due to having lost some length. It was repaired before going up to the hill. It was 1:1 swr across the band.

I think it worked well but I was running 50w output for the last half of this activation, 25w in the first half.

Biggest signal heard from almost anyone, was Herbert OE9HRV whose signal actually sat at s9 on the blobometer on the FT857. I have sent him a short video of his CQ call, via VK1AD.

I was very pleased to make 18 S2S contacts, one of which was with G/NP028 which is the summit I activated in 2016. So it’s a new complete. Others worked included Ignacio EA2BD and Jorge EA2LU both of whom I met and activated with when in Spain in 2019.

I recently recalibrated my FT857 on HF by making 100% power = 50w. For 25w you set it to 50 on the menu 075 setting. A previous owner of the “all pots to the right” brigade had completely messed up the power settings on the three groups of HF bands. He left the HF1 TX Gain far higher than it should have been too. When starting today’s activation I forgot about the half power settings and that caused me to start the activation with 25w instead of 50 intended. This is due to finding that running 100w for even a short time overheats the BMS in a 7AH battery so as this radio is just for portable operation, all power settings are half of what is indicated.

Thanks for all the contacts, it was great fun. Packed up just as the sun set.

[GM4LLD]

It looks like very few UK activators got QSOs to VK/ZL.

[G4TGJ]

I activated G/NP-028 this morning on 20m CW with my homebrew rig and groundplane antenna.

I didn’t have high hopes with a warning of raised Kp last night and Andrew’s comment on this thread earlier this morning. But at least it was a fine night with a clear sky and a good view of the stars. There was a cold north wind though - the coldest SOTA activation I’ve done for a while even with the tarp and all my layers on.

Tuning around the spots was not promising with even the EU signals barely audible. I did manage an S2S with RX9WT/P - he was the strongest activator by far. Then at about 0720 I heard Andrew VK1DA/P as a decent signal (the only VK or ZL I heard all morning) and a few minutes later we managed a QSO. It took several attempts for him to get my callsign and then he sent me 549 QRM so that explains his difficulty. I’m delighted that it was a complete for him. About half an hour later I was chased by JG0AWE so that was a nice set of DX.

I finished off by working a few locals on 2m FM with the handheld. Although not as good as the last VK/EU S2S event I took part in it was worth getting up at silly o’clock for.

[F5RQG]

Small harvest but mission accomplished.

Thanks everyone

[VK1DA]

Hi Richard,

The QRM was another station exactly on your frequency and he would commence transmitting when ever you were sending something important! Very frustrating. Anyway when I copied your summit reference I was so pleased because I can still visualise the car park, the walk up the path, the stone wall and the summit marker. And sure enough after loading the log, a new complete is listed. thanks for persisting, the qrm and my keyer paddle combined to make it a more difficult contact than it should have been. It was Mike, (then) 2E0YYY who drove me to the summit in 2016.

73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA

[G4TGJ]

Hi Andrew

You returned my callsign as G4TPJ/P a couple of times. He’s also a SOTA participant so that’s why I didn’t answer at one point because I wondered if perhaps that really was the call you were working. When you came back with the report again I realised it really was me and it all worked in the end. So thank you for persisting too.

I mostly activate during the week when there is far less QRM so it was a challenge at times today.

73 Richard

[MW0KXN]

Well that was a splendid activation. Thank you for making it happen.

Matt, @GW0MAT, arranged a joint activation when he sensed my enthusiasm for an early start may be waning.

We chose GW/SW-034, Mynydd y Garth, made famous by the film, ,‘The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain’. The hillocks on the summit are bronze age burial sites that predate the film! The weather was dry, but with a cold wind, the shelter was a wise choice.

![IMG-20261017-WA0071|690x388, 50%(upload://3SziOblYtOvwtHEP6dSaOmks3Gn.jpeg)

![IMG-20261017-WA0056|690x388], 50%(upload://tMTxPvJBQJBrUXprkpy64VGLznf.jpeg)

Andrei, @ZL1TM, kicked things off at 05:28 UST, swiftly followed by a Ian, @ZL1IM, on ZL1/WK-153. We followed other people’s spots for a while, Bill, @VK1RT, was audible with the QSB and never became strong enough for us to attempt a contact. John, @VK4TJ called in just before 06:00, followed by James, @VK1JIM, on VK1/AC-042. These were all challenging contacts. Over the next hour we had some great contacts with the regular and ever dependable EU, CW chasers, and a few surprise summit to summits with UK stations on 20m SSB: Simon @G4JXP on G/WB-004, and Tim @G5OLD on G/SC-003, both were strong signals.

Just as we were about to pack up we saw a couple of spots. Andrew @VK1DA , was a solid 579 on VK1/AC-053; and Peter @VK3PF who was a good 57 on VK3/VT-057. We then listened to both side of his QSO with Pete MW0PJE on GW/NW-041. Conditions seemed to improve just after many of the VK/ ZL stations had gone QRT.

I had made a bit of an effort with a quarter wave vertical and lots of radials. It was surprising that the humble EFHW inverted V consistently outperformed the vertical.

Thanks again to eveyone who made this such a memorable activation.

[GM4LLD]

You had more radials than me, 4x as many ! It took me long enough to deploy and retrieve 8 radials, it must have taken you some time to get all that taken down. The bands were very quiet for me and despite following spots, I could hear none of the VK/ZL DX. Maybe I was just too far North. I was quite astounded to see Vlad RX9WT’s summit is at 54.8N and I was at 55.9N which means I was 125km further North than someone in the Ural Mountains I know that one Russian station replied to my CQ, maybe RB??? or RX??? but just too weak. Later I tuned to Vlad’s QRG and he was 59+20 on the KX2 meter.

It was bigly worthwhile to go out and setup in the dark for a new association S2S and another JA chase. Now let’s see how the Sun and WX can sabotage the EU<>NA event

[M0MZB]

I was camped on Seatallan (G/LD-025) overnight, I arrived on the summit at 1800Z.

I has two QMX radios, and an EFHW. The EFHW was not running very well on 20m, it always seems to have a problem for some reason. Anyway, no VK/ZL stations worked. The highlight of the night was a nice long chat with G6AEK while waiting for my Kashmiri potato curry to cook.

My 23rd night wild camping this year, on track for may annual target of spending a month out wild camping in the year. Its been a couple of months since I was last camped on Seatallan, so nice to be back.

The cold weather has properly started, signaled by ice forming on the outside of the tent; using my winter weight sleeping bag; and wearing a buffalo shirt.

[RX9WT]

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who took part in this impressive event.
R9U/SO-217, is covered in a dense forest; there is no clearing or open space at the summit. Anticipating this, I brought along a 14 MHz dipole as my primary antenna, with a half-wave end-fed (Fuchs-style) antenna as a backup. From Australia, I could clearly hear VK1DA and VK1AD. I managed to complete S2S contact with Andrew, VK1DA, but my call to VK1AD did not get through. In total11 S2S contacts, with 22 QSOs overall. I wasted my time on the 28 MHz band—no one responded, although stations from the Far East could be heard on that band. Finally, I managed one QSO on the 17-meter band with OE6PNF/P. I used a TX-500 transceiver with an output of 10 watts.
73!
Vlad
RX9WT

[DL3TU]

Wow, that was fun!

But first of all, a big thank you to everyone who joined this event! Seeing more than 30 alerts posted by yesterday evening was fantastic. So many people were willing to get up ridiculously early or stay on a summit until late in the evening, knowing they might end up making their descent in the dark. That’s just great!

I headed once again to Achalm, DM/BW-099, and set up the Delta Loop in the first morning light. That’s why the antenna ended up hanging a little crooked, but the SWR was acceptable
The radio was an Elecraft KX3 set to 15 watts.

In about 90 minutes 16 QSOs went into the log, including 9 S2S contacts.
6 were with VK and ZL summits: @ZL1BYZ, @VK1AD, @VK1DA/P, @ZL1IM, @ZL2ATH and @VK2IO/P. Two more DX QSOs with VK/ZL home stations.
One S2S was with Asia: @RX9WT/P and two S2S were with EU @HB9EKO/P and @OE9HRV/P.

Right at the beginning, I could hear VK1RT and VK1KIM on CW, but I couldn’t manage to get through. Sadly, both had disappeared by the time I tried again.
I could also just make out @JP3DGT/3, but the signal was too weak for a QSO.

Signals from Down Under were generally much weaker than I had hoped. My daily WSPR observations of VK3QN suggest that the window with the best SNR values was very short - between 06:40 and 07:10 UTC.

And just as conditions seemed to be improving, the rain arrived. I had been watching the rain cloud approaching for while, and when I got confirmation that a heavy shower had already reached the town below, I decided to pack up.

All in all, I was lucky to be able to participate. The rain could easily have arrived earlier. So, no complaints here
Thanks for the QSOs, and for your patience when it took more than one repeat to complete a QSO. We must try this again!

73, Roman

[EA2BD]

Hello,
I was happy to wake up and see it wasn’t raining this morning.
Temp was a generous 15C, not windy.

I had chosen my local summit in Pamplona, EA2/NV-119. It’s fancy to arrive and see the glowing lights of the city while you setup with a headlamp on.

It was easy to put up the quarter wave vertical with a single elevated radial. Only 14 MHz today.
Rig was FX-4CR, 10-15 (CW-SSB) watt out.

The day started just promising when I logged a S2S with VK1AD right at the start, thanks Andrew!

I alternated calling CQ with chasing DX spots, both in SSB & CW.
I worked all that I could hear, logging 6 VK/ZL S2S:
VK1AD, ZL2ATH, VK1DA, ZL1BYZ, VK2IO, VK3ZPF.
I was also chased by VK2ZRD.

Signal were stable and there weren’t huge pile up so it wasn’t complicated to get these QSO.
Some of the activators called CQ adding a “any S2S ?”, which made things easier.

I tried chasing some of the EU activator but they weren’t audible that early.
Later I had more success and logged a few, plus some regular chasers.

The summit was progressively covered by fog. I heard JP3DGT/3 calling CQ, and tried calling him for a last S2S, but I wasn’t lucky with him.
At 7:40 I called it a day and went down.

A pleasant event, thanks all for adjusting the timing to meet on air. Looking forward the next event.
73 Ignacio