Inspired by Carolyn, Mike and others I will try to achieve some “long haul” qso on Sat am from local G/CE-002 Walton hill. Challenge is to achieve this with 5Watts CW (MTR v2).
Any advice / support would be appreciated.
The sweet spot start time seems to be around 5.45z …
Apart from the usual stuff I plan to take a head lamp, warm clothes, a thermo with coffee. Any thing else I should consider…?
I am planning to use a 20m EFHW and Mountain tuner on a 10m pole. Not sure if it is better to set it up as an inverted L or slightly sloping towards the SW - Long path. - tuner 1m above the ground in both cases.
An alternative is a prowhip vertical with 4 elevated radials.
Angel, there was a CME and X class flare recenty. The CME is due to arrive 12/13 September and that might make conditions on Saturday morning poor. You should check the solar news to make sure you don’t have a wasted trip.
I should be about so I’ll keep an ear out for you. After the M-Class flare a few days ago, I happened to be up all night and I snagged a few EU summits at times when it wouldn’t have been possible the last couple of months. So ya never know till ya have a go.
Maybe try the higher bands too. I did an all-nighter a few months ago after a small X-Class went off and I worked about dozen summits on 12m. But that flare didn’t have a CME screaming along behind it.
I will be out on our Saturday PM. Once I have finished on 40m I will slip up to the higher bands time permitting.
I expect I will be able to self spot.
I will be using an KD1JV ATS 4 so also qrp.
Andy, thanks for the warning, I am going to give it a try… it is just a 20min drive and some sleep depravation - Mike and Barry were successful today and the wx is ok. U never know.
I checked the sun reports yesterday and saw the reports/various indices … Having said that I have not yet developed a hard metric for go/ no go.
At least my expectations are calibrated!