Leith Hill, G/SE-002 is the closest summit to me, roughly a 30 minute drive away. It’s a well-known local beauty spot, and as such can get very busy, especially during weekends and school holidays. It has become a tradition for me to undertake an early morning activation once a year during the summer months before the summit gets busy.
I usually bring along the Super Antenna MP1 vertical for this activation. Not the most efficient antenna of course, but it is something I can set up easily whilst keeping away from the footpaths, and it always seems to work well enough for me to get the activator point.
For this year’s edition I arrived just after 5.30z (6.30 local time) and decided to try some cw on 20m. I had noticed from the spots that Ian, @vk5cz was also activating on 20m, so had a quick listen on his spotted frequency. Possibly something there, but couldn’t really make anything out, so started calling cq on the key. I had brought my ICOM-7100 along and decided to crank up the power to 60W. Just in case!
After working a few stations I could hear a very faint “S2S” calling. Could this be Ian? Unfortunately someone else started calling CQ on the same frequency, which made it impossible for me to hear the faint station.
After qsying, I put some more calls out, and then noticed Ian had put another spot on with the comment “S2S G op pse”. Maybe this was going to be my lucky day. I went to Ian’s spotted frequency, but couldn’t hear anything. It turns out we were both chasing each other up and down the band as when I went back to my new frequency he was there, and we managed to work each other!
My first ever amateur radio QSO with Australia, and as an added bonus, a S2S! Many thanks, Ian, for your patience and perseverance today. Was delighted to make contact with you. An activation to remember!
Thanks of course to everyone else worked today. All contacts as ever were appreciated.
That is epic Matthew! Great job! Kudos to Ian too of course!
That looks like a really nice location too. What’s the story with the tower? Still waiting for the day I bag my first qso’s in Oceania. Same with Japan and countries around that way. It’ll happen one day hopefully.
During daytime hours you can climb up to the top of the tower. I wonder if any SOTA activators have ever taken a handheld up and made some QSOs from there?
I hope my story gives you encouragement not to give up!
HF propagation is very predictable in a statistical manner. All you need is:
right band
right antenna
right time of day.
With those 3 things it’s “easy” to work some DX (for various definitions of easy!)
I find I normally work JA stations around UK lunchtime on 17/15m. I’ve worked VK several times on 15/12 but at the sunspot peak when propagation is much better than normal. Otherwise VK/ZL is best on 20/17/15 during common dawn/dusk periods. i.e. dawn in EU dusk in VK and vice versa.
A 1/4GP or other vertical is probably the best portable antenna. You don’t need QRO either, 59+ reports from VK2 on SSB using my old 817 at 5W.
Read up some books on propagation. And remember things are sort-of grey rather than black/white.
I recall my first contact with VK from a summit. Had I sat on a chair, I would have fallen off it.
That summit can get very busy indeed especially during weekends and holidays with dog walkers and runners.
