What about antenna for 630m band, How much space does this needs?
IMO 160/80 is lowest we can go in terms of practical antenna deployment. Even that will exclude number of summits here in SP-land where some part of antenna would be outside of activation zone. I guess some Alpine regions will have large number of such summits.
Popular 5.6mtr whip as vertical will have 20-30% efficiency on 80 and 5-15% on 160. So we are talking QRPp and QRPx challange.
Am I missing something?
Please see my video clips on spota-labs.com/630m for more details about antenna. Use the AI translator to understand my german.
I have use a 20m long wire, 10 m vertical and 10m top load and 40m wire on the ground for radial. This had work for 100km distance at day.
Efficiency of this portable antenna on 630m is near 1%, but however a working challenge!
73 Chris
As long as the operator is in the AZ it doesn’t matter.
All of the operator? Arms and legs? we are testing boundaries here.
Before “testing boundaries” remember that the GR says “The Golden Rule is that all participants are required to operate in a manner that is in keeping with the spirit of the programme.”
Already happened, with a TS-430S into my Heath KW Kompact on a summit. Last month, I bought a 100 watt Tokyo Hi-Power, and the new plan is a KX-3 at five watts into the new amp into the Heath. Twenty metres SSB only. 1,000 watts. Lots of clip-on ferrite chokes to avoid the feedback that hurt the last attempt (I hope).
Elliott, K6EL
ZL3/WC-241 Mt Arthur, and ZL3/TM-046 Iron Hill, both offer excellent sites to sling an EFHW for 2200m.
The big advantage is for S2S, that is, Summit to Subterranian contacts. They lie over a massive cave system.
Points can be awarded for vertical distance.
Even my local ZL1/AK-023, I can probably manage an S2S, not to mention ZL1/WK-210
So a bias Tee into overhead electric lines would be ok then?
*bias Tee or filter that would keep 12KV out of your radio.
Would make a brilliant (!) antenna for LF
That would be incredibly irresponsible.
Here in ZL1 we prefer to unbolt and insulate a pylon, and use it as a vertical whip.
Even though I haven’t done SOTA activations on HF yet (only some WWFF and POTA), permit me to add my 2 c worth:
SOTA on 80 m might not be that much of a challenge. It should be manageable in a number of places, at least as long as you can put up a suitable antenna. There are wooded hills where a wire can be hung in the trees, on other more “touristic” summits it may be possible to tie one or two portable masts to benches or railings. A barren rock summit might be another story, but I guess it would pose difficulties for any sort of HF operation except on the highest bands. Perhaps a mag loop could help?
Also, the chance of QSOs on 80 m in daylight is not as low as some may believe. Judging from contest participations with QRP and a low-hanging wire antenna, it should be possible to work quite a number of stations in the mornings (until around 10:00 local time) even with very modest equipment.
160 m seems to be more challenging indeed, although not hopeless, either.
The challenge in this case might be drumming up enough stations to work.
I know, it’s an old story. Some participants seem to be blessed to live near or to be able to regularly visit areas with a large number of active VHF and UHF operators. Unfortunately that does not apply everywhere, and might even be the exception in my experience. Otherwise I might have had a few more activations in my log. 
I have called from a several SOTA and GMA summits and other elevated points, but have only been met with stony silence (except in contests). Do people expect everything to be announced these days? 
Well worth a try! I have activated several times on 160m, using a full half wave dipole. I’ve chosen rocky summits rather than boggy ones, thinking that getting the wire high above ground is not so necessary. While trimming the dipole to length, I found that it is worth keeping the ends above ground using walking poles, but letting the centre sag to near ground level is much less of an issue.
The antenna will work lying on the ground too:
Jan, I can certainly confirm that—and my statistics back it up—even though I have greatly neglected the 80-meter band in recent years.
The “Rest” of the activity was on 630m, 6m und 23cm.
73 Chris
I would be very interested in one!
ZL has 60. VK however does not.
I have around ten activations on 80 m. The reason I didn’t continue activating on this band is because I’m much more interested in DX. But most of those activations were done on forested summits where it’s practically impossible to install a dipole or any wire antenna. For that reason I used my “Frankenstein” antenna, combining the JPC variable coil, the HF‑P1 coil, a 5.2 m telescopic element, and two 10 m radials. In every activation I managed to make QSOs over 400 km.
AM mode? Not efficient but I’d would think most radios have it except HTs. Just throw it in there
My request to the MT is to make an announcement of whatever the future challenge might be at least a couple of months in advance of the starting date. If it is an underutilized band/mode, some of us might not be suitably equipped and it would be good to have some time to pull gear together. Part of the fun for me is building stuff or assembling bits and pieces and that usually takes some time.
Cheers and 73,
Mike K6STR
I completely agree with you Mike. An announcement only a couple of weeks before the start of the year / challenge is too little.
Cheers,
Peter VK3PF
