It’s Tuesday again already, where do the weeks go?
It’s looking like the best wx since the fun evenings started, so fingers crossed that we have a bumper turn out this evening.
Let’s have you all up your local hill and make it an evening to remember.
I would as everyone to keep SAFETY FIRST.
Even on a summers evening, things can go wrong and temperatures can plummet rapidly as the evening progresses, so please bear it mind, that just because it’s warm out there it’s no reason to get complacent.
Let’s make it a good one and chasers/spotters keep up the superb job for the lads on the summits.
Tonight might be my first Fun Evening activation as I am up the hills with the Scouts for their sunrise ceremony. Can you please remind me of the freqs and timings used.
Just back from Shining Tor SP-004. Started off in shorts & vest, then a t shirt went on, then some trousers, then a base layer. When the sun dropped so did the temp - down to 9C very quickly.
s2s with :-
Sorry to say no copy on Brian from Walton Hill, now to empty all the dead grass out of my bag - a hazard on Shining Tor. Nice to catch DH0GDE in the Black Forest on 10m/40m Im sure hes a regular in the logbook of DF2GN.
Thanks to all chasers & spotters.
Just back from Hope Mountain NW-062 after an evening of glorious sunshine, until the sun dropped below the horizon and the temperature dropped in sympathy with it.
s2s with…
MW0ECX GW/NW-015
G1INK G/SP-004
M0JDK G/WB-010
2E0KPO G/WB-010
M3SFN G/WB-004
GM4CFS GM SS-216
GW4BVE GW/MW-037 incomplete, sorry John, almost made it but condx poor.
s2c (summit to coast) with Don G0RQL in Devon on 2m-FM
27 contacts
2m-fm - 12
70cms-fm - 1
40m-cw - 2
60m-ssb - 12
Sorry to say no copy on Brian, Peter and Les although I did look for you all.
Thanks to all stations for turning out and making this the best evening yet, let’s keep it going as long as we can, the dark nights will be here soon, then we will have to stop, but next year…
In reply to GW0DSP:
What a super evening, the first time I have ever had to cope with a pileup (I had to control an urge to run and hide!)
There isn’t usually that much activity on 2m SSB of an evening, I think the word has got about!
16 SSB contacts, 3 S2S with 2E0KPO and M0JDK (using his 5 megs dipole!!) on WB10 and M3SFN on Titterstone Clee with a failing battery. Also got a summit to coast!
Played dodge with bats and owls on the way down then had a soothing (but expensive) pint at the Fountain in Clent.
Oh well! Great to see there has been so much activity, unfortunatly once again I was not there to see, hear or take part in it. Here I am stuck in work on 12 hour nights. I got up several times during the day in time to see alerts for several stations mainly John GW4BVE and Charlie G(W)0PZO and I wasted some valuable sleeping time following them from band to band and hearing absolutly nothing. This has got to be some of the worst inter UK propagation I have seen for a while. It wasn’t as if either station was too weak to work, I never heard a peep. The only two stations I heard all day on 5mHz were G0NES and GM0AXY so it looks like the skip was long.
My mood is black and everyone can call me Mr Grumpy with good cause. I am singing the blues in my head and cursing the fact that I have another two 12 hour nights to do. There is light on the horizon though because after my 96 hour of grind I am off this weekend and maybe I can feel the wind in my hair from some summit or other on Sunday and I have only 24 days before I head for the hills of Scotland for two weeks of SOTA. I just hope todays showing on HF is not a sign of things to come.
Sorry to have missed you, Mike, I was going to give a speculative call on six and then try a sloper and counterpoise on 40 (haven’t finished the beefed up Z match so wouldn’t use the doublet) but there were too many customers on two!
I’ve got quite a backlog of activator entries to put in the database (a job I really hate doing, it seems to go on forever!) I presume these none-scoring activations should go in for the benefit of the chasers?
Steve (AAV) I rather think the recent dismal conditions were made worse by the effects of a coronal hole, the pity of it is that there is still no sign of sunspots for the new cycle!
Started at 1830 exactly on 3566 CW as alerted. It was hard going at first, but eventually I was spotted about twenty minutes later and it became a little easier. Conditions seemed good, with my 100 watts finding stations all around the UK and Western Europe. Nice to meet Peter ON3WAB on-air for the first time after many e-mail exchanges. Also good to set Steffen on his way to a second thousand uniques!
After about thirty-five minutes the stream of callers dried up, so I moved 100kHz HF. There was a scout station on 3665, so I found a clearish space just HF and called CQ SOTA. Despite repeated calling, and a precautionary frequency change just in case, I made zero QSOs. As I have commented before, when I do a CW-only activation I often get adverse comments for “excluding” SSB chasers. However, whenever I “make the effort” to give them what they are demanding, the same people are conspicuous by their absence!
Anyway, the main objective of the evening was participation in the RSGB 4m contest. The south-east is not a real hotbed of VHF activity at the best of times, so I was pleased to double my usual score by contacting two stations with my 10 watts and quarter-wave vertical!
Glad the rest of you had fun. I did take a quick look on 7032 but heard no activity. I didn’t think of trying 5MHz which looks like it took the brunt of the traffic. At least the weather was good, although it did get chilly quite rapidly. Only two cyclists seen on the adjacent track, but a couple of deer came quite close to have a curious look at me before running off into the woods.
Sounds like you really enjoyed yourself last night Brian and that’s what the idea of Fun Evening is all about, it beats the heck out of Coronation Street etc.
You should have used your doublet and tuner with 5 watts, the same as you did with your FT-817, because 5 Mhz was in reasonably good shape last night. All good stuff anyway.
Just one point, did you try 2m-FM? It was decided that the format on Fun Evening was to be 18:00utc-18:30utc 2m-FM then 18:30utc-19:00utc 2m-ssb then after that anything goes, band and mode.
We really need to stick to that format because most hams have at least a 2m-fm handie, also, so that we all know where to look for s2s contacts and the chasers/spotters will know where to find us.
On the database entry, I also find it a pain in the neck, but personally, I would put all activation entries in , even if only one QSO took place, so that the chasers get their asterisk and confirmation of the contact.
Great job Brian and I look forward to catching you next Tuesday.
It only started a couple of months back when I had the silly idea of the Sota Fun Evenings.
The idea was to get up your local summit and simply have a bit of fun, the added benefits would be to raise sota awareness and try to re-kindle the wider use of 2 metres FM and ssb for sota operation.
The consistant poor wx has taken it’s toll on the event, but when the sun shines, as it did last night, the results speak for themselves.
So, every Tuesday evening it is, until the nights start drawing in towards the Autumn.
Just check the alerts page every Tuesday to see who is where. Better still, get on your local summit, the more the merrier.
Thoroughly enjoyed my first Fun Evening with about 40 QSOs in the bag including 4 S2S. Stuck to freq plan as best I could but 2m SSB still appears to be a waste of time. Best DX was Whithorn southern Scotland hardly any great distance. Yet he gave me 59+10 so unless there is some strange propogation barrier at the border which we havent discovered yet then there must be some other reason why my 59+10 was not heard in England! (maybe beams pointing wrong way) Or maybe it was and I am deaf - if anyone heard me please let me know or I will be leaving 2m SSB off of the agenda in future.
Another amazing evening Mike. I sat and listened on 5MHz noting the pattern of the propagation. Signals that were in the noise came up to over 9 within ten minutes, then faded away. It was a case of holding nerve, wait and then pounce. Unfortunately similarly missed out with John BVE.
Seems like I missed out on 2m - kit still in the backpack from my DC activations. It will be out in good time for next week!
Great evening. I finished on GW NW-007, Aran Fawddwy at 17:22, and realised that if I legged it I could get onto Glasgwm , NW 015 in time for SOTA fun evening. Although it was 18.35 when I opened I opted for fm as my FT390 had dead batteries and up came Steve on his way up Shining Tor so we arranged to sked later when he got to the top.
I’ve not seen summit to coast before - do they have to have sand or pebble underfoot to count? I did speak to MW3SIM LLanbedrog and GW8NCU at Borth - both on the coast but in their shacks - I guess this doesn’t count.
Mnay thanks to all for a very enjoyable evening, particularly Steve G1INK who nudged me in the direction of some S2Ss.
Don’t drop 2m SSB off if you’re out next week Glyn - there will be plenty of stations active in the 2m Activity Contest. Pleased to make the contacts with you on 5MHz and 7MHz this time around.
