First, I want to thank Bill W4ZV, Fred KT5X, Steve WGØAT and a couple of others for encouraging me a couple of years ago to include SOTA with QRPTTF, and leading me by the hand to understand the workings of SOTA. It has been a great experiment and I think it’s a keeper. Whether you make the effort to go “To The Field” (TTF) or scale a summit, we all want plenty of activity for our efforts. You can’t beat getting on the air at the same time for that.
There has been lots of discussion past few days about how to make it a better union next year. Here’s my thoughts, and I wanted you to hear it from “the horse’s mouth” (I’ve been called worse).
I’d like to move QRPTTF next year to the first Saturday in May to coincide with International SOTA Day. That should foster enhanced activity and promote us both, plus plenty of advanced notice.
A poll of participants indicates they would also like to move QRPTTF up a bit (not back) for hopefully more mild weather than April. Due to two American holidays and the Dayton Hamfest in May, it would be problematic to choose other than the first weekend, maybe the second.
I will realign the contest times to be more compatible for European stations. Both SOTA and TTF have the same requirements in that for safety, most stations want to end their operation before sunset. Therefore, somewhere between sunrise and sunset for us all. We’ll figure it out.
I’ve never had a Pacific/Asian participant in QRPTTF … and a KH6 only once. Therefore, priority is for Europe and North America involvement, not the Pacific.
I’ve only received a few SSB logs so far, but I will keep SSB for next year.
This year’s TTF scoring seemed quite favorable with SOTA stations counting for two SPCs … their country/state/province, plus the summit ID counting as a separate SPC. That adds a little serendipity to the final score, and an extra incentive to work the SOTA stations. And, plenty did.
I don’t think any of the above will interfere with the long-term traditions of QRPTTF, except improving activity. At this rate, we could own the ham bands next year!
I am receptive to any comments you may have to make this joint event as fun and rewarding as we can make it. Needless to say, I never envisioned QRPTTF/SOTA as an international event, but excited about the prospects. I will continue to work with the above named NA SOTA contacts for continued direction, or anyone else from the SOTA structure I’m not aware of.
My biggest task now is how to schedule some good propagation for next May -hi. It’s a long QRP haul to Europe from the deserts of New Mexico and I don’t want to be left out!
Thanks to all who participated, and start planning now for 2014.
Great stuff Paul. I think your proposals are mainly positive and sensible. My comments:
International SOTA Weekend is actually defined as the weekend preceding the first Monday in May. So in some years it would actually be 29/30 April if 1st May is Monday (May Day Bank Holiday Monday here).
There is another Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May (weekend predecing the final Monday in the month), when (theoretically) the weather should be even milder. But there may have been a reason why this was avoided for ISW.
It is difficult to keep everyone from California to Central Europe in daylight! But ultimately, SOTA stations are responsible for their own safety, so individuals plan for this themselves. Perhaps two hours earlier (1300 to 0100) would be better, but I don’t think there’s too much wrong with the times as they stand as it covers that prime transatlantic DX period.
But on the other hand, it could be argued that there never will be many Asian/Pacific participants if the times do not suit them. So perhaps a 24 hour event is the answer, but I think the 12 hour event was about right myself. Actually, there were plenty of JA stations appearing later on in the event, so I guess there would be a DX window for most global participants at some stage in the event.
Why not combine, so that the final score is the sum of the CW and SSB scores? Or disregard the mode distinction, so CW and SSB QSOs all go into the same log and treated the same?
Yes, the scoring system worked well and delivered your objectives. The scoring was one of the many things that was right about this event. Not much actually needs changing!
My concern is that three days is too long for this event. Cetainly tailor made those who do not have to work at weekends or bank hoildays, giving then a chance a amass a shed load of points. However, this is not an option for many activators.
You can see why worldwide contests run over such long periods. One reason is to make it worthwhile to set up a big station and the other is so that everyone gets a fair chance of working all the possible paths. So maybe, you cannot produce a time for a short (12hr) event that pleases everyone. This solution is to have a few events, one favouring Europe/US times, another favouring Pacfic/Asian times. You’ll get a few stations who may try to be QRV for the awkward times possibly by camping out etc. With a few events you can cover all bases. Of course it assumes there are enough stations wanting to take part to justify the other events.
The thing which made this event work was there was a critical mass of stations diversely scattered. So from an EU perspective there was the tantalizing thought of DX S2S contacts to be had. But if conditions were poor, there were enough EU stations QRV that you could still work your usual chasers and have some EU S2S contacts. Likewise for US stations there were enough stations that even without EU-DX, there were enough other stations to make the event worthwhile. So no matter what propagation was like, you were going to have some fun.
In reply to NA5N
I climbed my summit VK5/SE-001 in the dark last weekend hoping to make some contacts to USA in the QRPTTF but mostly got wiped out by the JA contest so the “pacific” was QRV in the contest. So I hope someone will consider us seeing more of VK SOTA Regions are coming on the SOTA steam, and we will also try to fit into your time period for the get together.
73 de Ian vk5cz …
Major Kudos to you for trying Ian! You’re a beacon in the VK3 sea of 7 MHZ SSB only operators.
I believe AD5A worked you a few weeks ago…were there other NAs? Propagation looks good for 28 MHz after 22z, but I realize that requires you to be on a summit very early. Perhaps this weekend you can choose a summit that can be activated early.
