SOTA NEWS AUGUST 2016 - Part 2
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Short report of Tour de Bohemia – Saku OH2NOS
Last summer I made Tour de Central Finland which result was hard driving three days and eighteen summits with eighteen points. That time I wondered if I could do this another way! So when looking SOTA map I remarked that DM/BM-area was full of ten point summits – why not visit there I asked from myself?
And the conclusion was start to plan German visit. During the winter halve of summit from BM/BM-area disappeared but because Czech Republic is so close I thought to visit there too. In fact my original Tour de Bavaria expanded to Tour de Bohemia.
During the spring I got negative feedback related to batteries. At least after long discussion I decided to be flexible and accept International (IATA) dangerous goods regulations and I bought two lithium ion batteries (4.8 Ah) for ensuring my power supply during the trip. I didn’t know how well these Chinese batteries are because they were so cheap. In Finland is phase: “with cheap price you cannot get anything good”. But from my point of view excellent was that I got two extra batteries to air plan without claiming with security checking employees.
Original route was to go via Deggendorf to south (via Austria) to Cesky Krumlov and at least to Zelezna Ruda because OK-side was very attractive. Yes, we arrived to Deggendorf and I operated two first days in this area. Only problem was high temperature which was +32 C – a bit much for Finnish Iceman. But the rain in third day changed my plan. Estimation was that in south will be two rainy days but in north one only – so to north!
In the evening of third day we arrived to Karlovy Vary. In the border I spent 15 minutes searching my passport which I at least found from my luggage. Karlovy Vary is very beautiful city where I recommend everybody to visit. Summit OK/KA-004 was big surprise, in that place is big contest station and during huge pile up one local ham come to shake hands – but I copied “OK” only. If somebody knows him, please tell greetings!
Contest station on OK/KA-004
From Karlovy Vary we drove to Plzen and spent the rainy day. In the road from Plzen to Zelezna Ruda I was aiming to visit in OK/PL-034 but my navigator made surprise. We were closer than two kilometer of the summit when navigator guided us to drive over the field where was not driving capable road any more. I decided to skip the summit.
Zelezna Ruda is a small border city close Bayerische Einstein where in both side is several easily reached summits. There I made my last activations. Beforehand I thought that temperature during the trip will be between 15 to 25 C but I was fully wrong. In the two first summits in the morning temperature was +7 C with high wind – so I was fully frozen with wrong clothes. The last day was reserved for travelling only and before Munich Airport we visited in Passau too.
Operating on OK/PL-013
As a summary for SOTAmates I can say that please, do this kind of trips if you have possibility. They are nice and teach very much. We didn’t have any problems during the trip. For next one (one day) I learned that do not underestimate travelling between summits because there can be whatever (road work etc.) and climate in abroad is different than in your home country – learn it a bit more beforehand. Now I eat as much summits as I could – twelve summits with 116 points – especial thanks for patient chasers! Next time I should reserve more time for operation. For batteries I am more than satisfied.
If somebody is willing to know more about my visit (summits, hotels, batteries, etc.) do not hesitate contact to me!
73, Saku OH2NOS
[oh2nos (at) sral (dot) fi]
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CHANGES TO FRENCH ASSOCIATION – Bob F5HTR
Dear OM,
Here is some news from France:
France is a very big country with a big number of references, 11 different regions & about 2500 listed summits. A lot of foreigners visit our country this year and activate summits. That is really great, France is a so nice country, with all types of landforms. Of course, errors exist and we have seen topics about French duplicate summits and other issues.
SOTA in France has not the same enthusiasm as it has in Switzerland or other European countries. There are about 12 regular activators and the same number of chasers. It has happened sometimes, when I activate summit, I do not copy any French stations.
SOTA France is in a little crisis these past months and we have decided to take control of it. F6ENO, creator, F5AKL, Co-creator and F5NEP are in agreement with these changes.
The first step will be to define a new team of RM around a new AM.
Bob, F5HTR is ok to take the lead and will organize as soon as possible a new team around him.
Of course if some French OM are ok to help SOTA France, it would be with great pleasure. They can contact F5HTR directly.
So, it is planned to propose a new team of OM mid August to the SOTA MT. It will be the first step to go. Then, we will work on valid or invalid references in each French region. If some of you detect any anomalies, just write me an email, and we will treat it in the next revision that I would like to propose to SOTA MT next January.
Activity in France in July was much more than usual, about 115 summits have been on the air! A lot of foreigners on holidays in France took opportunity to activate summits. This is the period of holidays, and a lot of OM mix trekking and radio.
This month, we can send a big congrats to F4CJP (Claude) and DM1LE for their really nice performance on Mont Blanc (F/AB-001) at 4810 meter on Tuesday 19th of July. Bob, F5HTR climbed onto 3750 m (F/AB-027) in front of Mont Blanc the same day! Also, the traditional tour of Mercantour have been done from F6HBI, F5LKW and F5HTR. It consists of trekking 5 summits other 2500 m in a day (F/AM-256-242-264-258-280). André F5UKL has done many activities from south west of France. He is the specialist of Pyrenees Mountains. Much other activation has been done from F1REI, F4ESK, F6HHK, F4EGG, F/JG1XMV/p, F5UBH, F6FTB, F4GLD, F8AAD. F8TMQ
French chasers are not numerous, but we can still hear Daniel (F5SQA) who is very busy on air.
I inform you that Union Française des Télégraphistes (UFT) will organize an expedition to the summit of Mont-Blanc end of August. It is planned from 19th to 21st of August. Gérald F6HBI will keep us inform about the exact date on the reflector.
I wish you good SOTA activity, nice holidays if you decide to spend them in France.
I stay at your disposal for further info.
Bob
F5HTR
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Half a Mountain Goat - Geert PA7ZEE
My first SOTA activation was during a Holiday in 2008 on DM/SX-008 Pöhlberg. After some nice QSO’s and coming home, I found out that I had activated a SOTA summit. In the years after this first activation, I was occupied by working as a volunteer teacher in schools promoting our Hobby and giving courses to become a Ham. Since 2014 I have more time and I am more active with SOTA and became fully addicted.
At first I was activating all alone but later I activated together with other Hams. This is nice on the long car drives from the Netherlands to Belgium or Germany. It also gives the opportunity to exchange experiences about technical equipment and operational skills. Last spring during our yearly vacation in Gran Ganaria, I activated every week one or two summits. This gave my activator points a boost.
At the end of July 2016, I made a trip to DM and OK together with my grandson Samuel PA4SAM. He was 12 when he passed the Novice exam and later he got his Full License. Now he is a student at the Technical University and during this summer holiday he had some time to join me. We had five fantastic days together altough for the weather and HF conditions, there was some room for improvement; rain and poor conditions made that we could not realise what we had planned and Samuel had on a few summits no QSO’s.
We both are very grateful to all the Chasers who worked us and esspecially for all the Spots they placed on SOTAwatch. For Samuel this was a new face of our Hobby. He likes very much the combination of Radio, hiking, nature, some meteo, adventure, orientation and creativity to build the best antenna in every situation. The low cost of a hotel and a meal in the Czech Republic, compared with Germany and the Netherlands, is one of the reasons to come back. When we left the Netherlands, I had 477 activator points. Coming back and filling in my log, the Database showed that I had passed the 500 points, in other words I am now half a Mountain Goat. The question remains which half?
Another question for me is, taking my age of 76 years in account, will I collect the other half in this life?
We will see what future brings for me.
Samuel DL/PA4SAM/P during his first activation on DM/SX-109 Steinberg
73 de Geert PA7ZEE
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SOTA ON TOP BAND - Mark G0VOF
Hello everyone & welcome to this month’s edition of SOTA on Top Band.
Two activators ventured onto Top Band this month, and with both on summit at the same time a rare 160m summit-to-summit contact was made.
First this month was an over night activation of G/NP-008 Great Whernside carried out by John G4YSS (GX0OOO/P) over the weekend on 2nd – 3rd July. This has become something of an annual tradition for John with contacts made in VHF National Field Day as well as for SOTA. With the better conditions available on the low bands at night this is also an opportunity to activate on Top Band with more chance of success.
After setting up station for VHF/UHF MF & LF on the summit & working several stations in VHF NFD John commenced on 160m after dark & was rewarded with good conditions, although here was a lot of QRN from Thunderstorms around the UK.
John made a superb 15 QSO’s (8CW/7SSB) with stations as from as far as Scandinavia & the Netherlands. Approaching midnight John retired for the night, although he didn’t get much sleep.
The following morning John was again QRV on 160m & despite conditions being much poorer than the night before a further 7 QSO’s (5CW/2SSB) were made on Top Band before John changed to 80m followed by a further stint operating in VHF NFD.
A superb report on this overnight activation can be found here:
G4YSS: G/NP-008 VHF-NFD Campover, 2&3-07-16
John was again active on 14th July from G/NP-001 Cross Fell, this time during the day & I took the opportunity to activate one of my local summits G/SP-007 Fair Snape Fell in order to attempt a summit to summit on 160m.
John had a very successful day with 6 QSO’s (3CW/3SSB) including S2S QSO’s on CW & SSB with me G0VOF/P on G/SP-007 Fair Snape Fell. My day was not as successful as I ran into serious antenna problems, so although we did make the S2S, that was the sum total of my operating on Top band for my activation. Fortunately I had a spare EFHW for 40m-17m so I had no trouble qualifying the summit on HF.
John has posted a superb report here:
G4YSS: G/NP-001 With Sasha on 14-July-2016
A short report on my activation can be found here:
G0VOF/P: G/SP-007 Fair Snape Fell 14th July 2016
Congratulations & well done John.
At the time of writing, these were the only Top band activations during July that I am aware of, if I have missed any others please let me know.
On 2 July, John GX0OOO/P (G4YSS) Activated G/NP-008 Great Whernside & made 15 QSO’s (8 CW / 7 SSB)
On 3 July, John GX0OOO/P (G4YSS) Activated G/NP-008 Great Whernside & made 7 QSO’s (5 CW / 2 SSB)
On 14 July, John GX0OOO/P (G4YSS) Activated G/NP-001 Cross Fell & made 6 QSO’s (3 CW / 3 SSB)
On 14 July, Mark G0VOF/P Activated G/SP-007 Fair Snape Fell & made 2 QSO’s (1 CW / 1 SSB)
As always, If you do have any suggestions on things that you think should be included, or if you wish to contribute tips, ideas or anything else that you think may help others on the band please email them to me at mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
Until next month,
Best 73,
Mark G0VOF
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CW REPORT FOR JULY 2016 - Roy G4SSH
The month started with Marko OH9XX continuing to activate numerous high scoring summits in Finland, and Slavko TK/S53XX continuing his expedition from Corsica Island.
Special anniversary call S5100IF was again active from Slovenia during the first weekend.
Emil DL8JJ/p was active with his usual strong signal from Germany, calling CQ SOTA at 34 wpm, and there was also a welcome return to SOTA by Vlad Z35M.
Nick GD4OOE, Victor GD4ONL and Dave GD3TQQ were busy activating all five summits on the Isle of Man, followed by Rob and Audrey GD4RQJ a few days later, when both expeditions suffered from poor propagation and poor weather. Paul DL6FBK was activating summits in Austria and Liechtenstein, and Bob F5HTR with Gerald F5HBI activated a round of 5 x 10-point summits on the 7th. Liechtenstein was also a popular destination for Tom HB0/HB9DPR. Chris F/ON6ZQ was on one of his regular expeditions around France.
The weekend of the 9th saw expeditions in to Czechia by OK/OM4WY, Mike OK/OM4AA and Igor OK/OM3CUG, whilst Jürg DL/HB9BIN commenced a week-long expedition to the DM/RP region of Germany. Saku OH2NOS was active from summits in Germany, Austria and Czechia, and Kurt F/HB9AFI was on an expedition in France.
Special anniversary call S5100IF was again active over the weekend of 16th-17th and 23rd -24th.
The 80m band was alive with SOTA HB activity during the Swiss “76th Mountain Day” on the morning of the 17th July.
Conditions on the HF bands continued to be poor up to the end of the month, with deep and rapid fading affecting SOTA stations. There were many occasions when contact was lost with an activator mid-way through a contact.
During the last week of the month Geert OK/PA7ZEE was busy activating numerous summits in Czechia and Germany, accompanied by his Grandson Samuel PA4SAM (SSB). Sake was active from Belgium as ON/PA0SKP and Fred was also active from summits in Czechia as OK/DL8DXL.
Finally, Phil GM4OBK activated a few summits in the Scottish Borders and Hans was heard operating as M/PB2T.
As a footnote, I was temporarily grounded on the 28th, when as part of the ongoing investigative tests at the local hospital I was asked to swallow a capsule containing two colour video cameras on a silicon chip, powered by two tiny batteries, a light source, and a wireless transmitter. The capsule then took four images per second for eight hours, transmitting the photographs to a data receiver worn around my waist. I advised medical staff that I was a Radio Ham, generating up to 200 watts of RF and they were alarmed and intrigued because nobody had previously raised this situation with them. As they were unsure of any problems I was advised that it would be prudent to suspend SOTA chasing for the day. It was a bit unnerving swallowing a capsule with a bright flashing light, but all went to plan and ended well.
73 Roy G4SSH
(I’m glad to hear you had no problem swallowing the wireless transmitter Roy, I suppose the 5 element Yagi & 60 foot tower were a but more tricky Hi! – Ed)
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SOTA ACTIVITY REPORT FOR JULY 2016 by Kevin G0NUP
Mode: CW on 24MHz: activity for July
DF3MC/P, HB9BIN/P, HB9CGA/P, JH0CJH/1, OK1MLP/P
Mode: CW on 28MHz: activity for July
DF3MC/P, DL6FBK/P, F5HTR/P, F5UKL/P, HB9/F5HTR/P, HB9BIN/P, JP3DGT/3,
OE6PKF/P, OE6TTD, OK/OE5EIN/P, OK1MLP/P, OK2PDT/P
Mode: CW on 50MHz: activity for July
CT1DBS/P, EA1AER/P, F5HTR/P, F6HBI/P, JF1NDT/1, JI1TLL/1, JJ0RBX/0,
JJ1SWI/1, OE/HB9DQM/P, OE1WED/3, OE3IPU/P, S5100IF, WG3K, WW7D,
YO/HA8BJ/P, YO/HA8LLH
Mode: CW on 1240MHz: activity for July
K7ATN, NS0TA, WB9KMW
Mode: FM on 28MHz: activity for July
Mode: FM on 50MHz: activity for July
HB9ZCW, JN3PDF/3, N6MRW, VK3CAT/P
Mode: FM on 1240MHz: activity for July
JO1PHL/1, JS1GRO/1, K7ATN, WW7D
Mode: SSB on 28MHz: activity for July
CS7AGH/P, CT1DYH/P, CT5JLD/P, DB7MM/P, DL6FBK/P, DO1DJJ/P, F/LX1KP/P,
HA5OT, HB0/DH7FK/P, HB3YNY/P, HB9/OE9TKH/P, HB9BIN/P, HB9DQM/P, HB9FVF/P,
HB9RDD/P, IZ1OQU, JO3ALU/3, MM3ZCB/P, N6MKW, OE/HB9DQM/P, OE3HPU/P,
OE9TKH/P, OM1WS/P, S57D/P, S57MS/P, SQ9MDN/P, SV2OXS/P, SY2BIK/P,
VK1AD/P, VK1MA, WB7ENX
Mode: SSB on 50MHz: activity for July
9A/OE5JKL/P, AG5CQ, CT2HTY/P, EI/ON4TA/P, F6HBI/P, F8TMQ/P, HA5OT,
HB9CKV/P, HB9DQM/P, HB9PMF/P, I1WKN, IW2NHE/P, JA1KHZ/1, JF1NDT/1,
JF8LPB, JG1LPK/0, JG1LPK/1, JH0CJH/1, JH1EWV/1, JI1IHV/1, JI1TLL/1,
JI1UPL/1, JJ1SWI/1, JL1BWG/1, JM3GVH/3, JM3URG/3, JO3ALU/3, JR1NNL/1,
JS1UEH/1, JS1UEH/7, K3JH, K5RHD, K7ATN, KB1HXO, KD7WPJ,
KK6TMN, OE/HB9DQM/P, OE/S57MS/P, OE1WED/3, OE3IPU/P, OE9TKH/P, S52ON/P,
S55KM/P, S56LXN/P, S57MS/P, VK1AD/2, VK1AD/P, WA2FON, WA7JTM,
WG3K, WW7D, YO/HA8LLH
Mode: SSB on 1240MHz: activity for July
EI/ON4TA/P, K7ATN, KC5CW, NS0TA, WB9KMW
Regards
Kevin J Prince G0NUP
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SOTA News is normally published on the last day of each month, but there will be occasions when the Editor is not available at this time, in which case it will be published as soon as possible afterwards. It can only be as interesting as the items submitted, so if you think your particular field of interest is not being covered then please submit an article by the 25th of the month.
Have you a favourite SOTA? favourite mode? favourite rig, antenna, or favourite band? How did you find your first day / month / year as an activator or chaser? Your comments and experiences will be read by enthusiasts all across Europe, the USA, Australia and beyond, in a total of 114 different SOTA associations worldwide. Your input will be most welcome.
We receive many e-mails during the month containing details of activations, milestones reached and general SOTA news. Unless advised otherwise we will use this information in the next edition of SOTA News. It is important therefore that you advise us if any information is not intended for publication.
For ease of processing, please submit your input by e-mail direct to the addresses below and not via the Reflector. Items sent to Roy G4SSH should also be sent to Mark G0VOF.
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Roy G4SSH
SOTA News Editor
g4ssh@tiscali.co.uk
Mark G0VOF
Assistant SOTA News Editor
mark@brownhill.demon.co.uk
U.S. and Canadian reports to:-
Fred K6DGW/7 [aka “Skip” on the radio]
Canada/US SOTA Reporter Dude
Sparks NV
k6dgw@foothill.net
Australian input to:-
Allen VK3ARH
VK Reporter
VK3ARH@wia.org.au (note the recent change)
New Zealand input to:-
Warren ZL2AJ
warren@zl2aj.com
Japanese reports to
Toru JH0CJH
jh0cjh@jarl.com
South African input to:-
Dennis ZS4BS
zs4bs@netactive.co.za