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.
Hi Ian. If you want to make any QSOs with Japan, the best time is between 0700 and 1000 UTC during the winter. And very rarely between 2100 and 2200 UTC.
I’ve done several night activations trying to contact EU and it didn’t go too badly — in fact, my very first experience with EU turned into a mini pileup! I guess that was the reward for enduring the cold.
In my experience with EU I only have two S2S, and I’m sure both were during winter. Meaning: one side has to climb to the summit in the dark, and the other side has to descend in the dark…
S2S is a bit more difficult since activators operate in somewhat precarious conditions and often QRP. But if you’re only looking for QSOs with chasers, it’s definitely possible as long as you go out during those time windows.
Good luck!
73 de JP3PPL
Also remembering the signal path direction aligned with timeslot is worthy knowledge to new DXers. You don’t need a directional parasitic antenna to take advantage of this. For example you can position a dipole more suitably or go on the downslope of a summit towards the intended path
For example you’d expect VK to come into the UK on the long path on 20m in the morning ( roughly 240 degrees azimuth. JA slightly lower around 220-230 degrees. This path tends to peak around January / February time
Last weekend 17m was open on the short path from mid day until the evening to JA with some healthy S9 signals. Despite the SFI being around 100.
Also read about the great circle effect. You can be beaming north west on a low band and still end up in the pacific over the north pole. I’ve also experienced enhanced long skip conditions on the low bands during auroras earlier this year.
Propagation is a fascinating subject and these little tricks allow you to be infront of the radio at the best times and chances of success
Oh dear replying to myself. Japan is workable on 15m/17m around UK lunchtime. Today with a piece of damp string (20m EHFW rigged as inverted 7, 49:1, KX2 tuner) I was able to work JH1MXV and JS1IFK on 15m CW with 10W at 1130Z +/-.
Just get out on the right band, right antenna and right time Iain to work interesting stuff.
Conditions yesterday and Friday were absolutely mega (in my experience anyway). Every band I went on produced gold.
I wasn’t fortune enough to work .jp, .au or .nz, BUT if you look back at my RBN for yesterday and Friday, you’ll see I was heard in New Zealand, and at a reasonable clip for QRP too.
That was a first for me. When I saw that I secretly hoped someone from JA/VK/ZL might come through but alas no luck.
Wrote about it here if anyone wants to see what happened:
I’ll keep working at it. Hopefully I will get one of those three some day.
In the past we have had EU - VK/ZL/JA S2S events which have had some success. I operated in a few and worked quite a few VK summits, though ZL and JA summits always evaded me.
So, is there any interest in reviving these? From my experience in setting up the Trans-Atlantic S2S events, all it needs is someone with a long term commitment to head it up by setting suitable dates with a core operating period agreed… usually early for EU, but I have always enjoyed walking up hills in the dark. Certainly less daunting than coming down in the dark.
Maybe we could start a new thread to discuss this…
Followed GM4LLD onto every frequency and failed to hear him at all, plus most of his Chasers were way down in signal strength. Other Activators in Eu were noticeable by their unreadable signals (strength that is!)
I think the Sun is playing foul up here too - long haul (Asia) was fun though
