Hi Guru, Which is the lowest band that TEP can take place on - will it be possible on 15m?
I think so, Ed, but I don’t know much about it.
To be honest it’s going to be a completely new field of experimentation to me.
10, 12m strike to me as the most likely ones to have success, but 15m may also give some surprise. I’m not too optimistic about 6m but it needs to be given a try, I think.
73,
Guru
What I see in your alert, Ed, is your activation will start a bit too early for the afternoon TEP (aTEP), for which the optimal times are between 15h-19h local time, which is for us in EU, between 14h-18h utc.
Should you be able to extend a while your time in the summit, you may be able to give aTEP a try.
Cheers,
Guru
P.D. March 25th. (Continental Europe and UK) clocks go FORWARD an hour, which means right in the middle of the TEP WW SOTA WEEKend, so, TEP activations planned for Sunday March 25th, will have to bear in mind that local time will be utc+2, not anymore utc+1. I’m going to correct my alert 
Whoops misread the times UTC vs local. I thought you were saying 15-19UTC - That would have been a problem for me on the 23rd. as the last lift down the mountain is at 16:30 local (15:30 UTC) and I would need to pack up at 1500 UTC - but if it’s 3pm local, I will change my schedule. I still wont be able to stay very long though.
Is TEP affected by MUF - If so you may have issues on anything above 21Mhz (even that could easily be above the maximum usable frequency).
Of course, as always we’ll never know unless we try.
73 Ed.
My understanding is that traditionally published MUF predictions are referring to classic propagation, but the TEP seems to be based on a different phenomena and I believe those predictions don’t apply much.
When Toru @JH0CJH wrote this:
I’m wondering what frequencies did they experience such good conditions, as that may very well have been TEP contacts.
Although the chosen week for the event is theoritically the optimal, this doesn’t mean that we may find ocurrences of good TEP openings in any of these days before and after the equinox.
As you very well stated, Ed, it’s a question of giving it a try and I will.
Cheers,
Guru
Spring season has officially just started and we have a temperature of +1°C right now with all the mountains around, even the smallest bumps, covered with snow.
I fear not being able to make it to even a drive-up summit this weekend.
Forecast is for a slight max temperatures raise, reaching 2 digits maximums on Thursday and Friday, but also for rain on Friday and Saturday.
Not very promising for my TEP WW SOTA WEEK event planned activations…
Has anyone got something to report about contacts made via TEP this week?
Thank you.
73,
Guru
Sorry Guru, I wont be staying around for possible TEP contacts in my activation on Friday (if it goes ahead at all), we’re getting more and more snow at the moment and I’ll just be doing a quick activation as temperatures are expected to be under -10°C (minus wind-chill effect). Here’s what the Laber summit looks like at the moment from the webcam:
It’s in the cloud cover.
Let’s hope it’s better by Friday…
73 Ed.
It’s a shame, Ed, but fully understandable. Such low temps and lots of snow are not any minimally safe conditions to enjoy some time Searching and Pouncing on different bands.
We had a mainly clear sky here today with temps varying from 2 to 7°C, but quite windy, thus making the real feel much colder. The snow in the mountains must have got very frozen today.
We’ll see what we have for the weekend, which is when I should be able to activate, but current WX and the forecast doesn’t make me feel too optimistic.
73,
Guru
P.D. Mike 2E0YYY told me he will also try to be QRV this Friday on 10m from GW/NW-070 Great Orme.
I carried out my alerted activation of Mt. Saint Martin EA2/NV-151 this afternoon, looking for TEP contacts.
I selfspotted and started CQing on 10m CW, where I only got the call from 3 hams in Pamplona.
Then I QSYed and called CQ on 20m CW in order to assure the 4th qualifying contact, which came immediately after my first CQ call, followed by a DX from the USA and 4 more stations from Europe.
More CQing on 10m CW followed by scanning the band on the CW and the SSB segments didn’t let me copy any single signal at all.
Similar situation on 12m, where I didn’t selfspot nor called CQ, but the scanning of the band revealed it was totally quiet, dead.
Ignacio EA2BD informed me that a ZS6 station was coming with pretty good signals on 18.140, so I QSYed there.
Unfortunately, Dior ZS6DJD had quite a pile-up with many strong stations calling and making QSOs with him, so it was totally impossible for me to draw his attention and have what it would have been my only TEP QSO of the day.
After about 40 inutes trying my QSO with ZS6 without success, I returned to 20m CW, where I selfspotted again and started CQing.
One more DX USA with pretty weak signals and strong QSB made it to my log, followed by 2 more Europeans.
Since I was looking for TEP QSOs today, I installed my sloper endfed wire and the counterpoise wire towards the South on the Southbound slope from the summit, so it wasn’t a favourable orientation for EU and NA.
In summary, I can say that no TEP today but TAP (Trans Atlantic Propagation) contacts 
This is today’s full log.
Thanks dear chasers for your calls and QSOs.
73,
Guru
Hi,
Today I activated I/LO-191 on 20 and 30 meter band cw.
I calling also on 15-12-10 cw, without any contact, on RBN I didn’t see any spot.
the only signal via tep I heard was ZS6TVB on 12meter ssb s5 qsb.
73 iw2obx Roberto
After my 2nd activation in a row looking for TEP, I can say again that no TEP but lots of TAP.
Today, I activated Mt. Ezkintza EA2/NV-148.
It was very windy and slightly raining when I started to setup, but luckily there’s an ermitage in the summit and I found a stone walled very well sheltered corner, which protected me very well from the North-West wind and the horizontal rain falling only from time to time.
I started by a selfspot on 10m CW and Jorge EA2LU was the 1st one in my log.
Despite the spot, further CQing on 28.060 didn’t bring any more chasers.
At one point I QSYed to scan the band searching for possible stations from across the equator. Nothing at all on CW was heard and just a few stations on the SSB part of the band.
Then I QSYed to 12m and again, nothing at all heard.
On 15m CW nothing and just some Brazilian stations in contest on the SSB section of the band. I called some of them but they never seemed to copy me.
With just one QSO in my log and the 10, 12 and 15m band in such quiet conditions, I decided to QSY to 20m to collect at least the 3 more QSOs I needed to qualify.
25 minutes after having logged my 1st and only QSO on 10m, I selfspotted and called CQ on 20m CW. I got such a nice stream of chasers from North-America, USA and Canada, that I finally opted for staying on 20m and enjoying the DX with North-America, instead of going to the quiet higher bands to search for some stations.
When the Sun had already gone and it was starting to get dark, I was informed by Ignacio EA2BD that George @KX0R was CQing just 1Kc up from where I was CQing, so I QSYed and had the great pleasure to make a S2S QSO for the first time with my TOP chased activator KX0R. There was a quite strong QSB but I copied George very well.
This definitely made my day!
It was so dark by then and I was so cold and shivering that I switched off my rig packed up quickly and descended with a smile.
All in all, 25 QSOs in the log, 13 of which are DX with North-America and 1 is my very 1st S2S with George KX0R.
This is the log:
And here is the S2S log:
This was my setup today:
Thanks for the calls, the spots and the QSOs.
Very special thanks to George KX0R for this great S2S, which may also be his first S2S QSO with Europe, according to something he recently posted in this Reflector about not having ever had a S2S with EU.
73,
Guru
Musing on this from 52 degrees north. Thanks for your detailed post and your obvious dedication to something that is outside my range of possibility…always learning something new.
73
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And for those of us at 55.9N it’s even harder 
I had alerted a new activation for Sunday March 25th in the frame of the TEP WW SOTA WEEK, but I deleted my alert because WX was a bit rainy and we made plans for lunch in family at a local restaurant.
When we got back home after our family lunch I saw there was still a good chance for me to go out and activate, given that we had just changed time one hour ahead the night before and thus we would still have one extra hour of daylight.
So I changed clothing, grabbed my SOTA kit raised my previously deleted alert, and headed for Mt. Iriberri EA2/NV-116.
This summit can be almost reached by car after some driving on a mountain dirt road used to service the several windpower generators there.
The bad side is the big QRM this windpower generators produce, particularly on 20 and 30m.
I started CQing on 10m CW, as I’ve done all these previous days and Jorge EA2LU chased me first. He spotted me and after some minutes CQing with no responses at all, Jorge showed up back to tell me that the band was totally closed, as none of my CQ had been received by any of the RBN skimmers. So I decided not to waste any more time and QSYed to 17m, where Jorge spotted me again.
After a few CQ calls with no response I QSYed to 40m to try to QSO with some EA friends looking for me.
There I got chased by Ignacio EA2BD and 6 more EU stations. At that point, it started to rain and I announced QRT, but it was a short little rain shower and soon stopped, so I decided to return.
I returned to 17m and after a spot sent by Ignaco EA2BD, I got a call from an EA1 station in Logroño, just about 60-70Km to the West of me. No more calls on 17m and I returned to 40m CW, where I was chased by 6 more stations from EU.
After 40m, I QSYed back to 17m and scanned the band searching for any potential TEP contact and I found 7Q7EI from Malawi, working SSB in split listening 5Kc up. I prepared my FT-817 for the split operation and gave him my call at everytime he was listening 5 up.
I couldn’t copy the callers from Europe, but you can easily guess there were many, many stations calling him. Of course, I was unable to make my tiny 5 watts signal copied.
Later I tried to make QSO with a 4X station on that same band and mode (17m SSB), but he was not able to pull my callsign out from the noise floor he had.
Before leaving, despite the S8 permanent QRM I was having on 20 and 30m from the windpower generators, I decided to selfspot and call CQ on 20m. Jean VE2JCW called me with very strong signal and he was the only one I was able to copy. I don’t know if there were any other stations calling me but the S8 permanent QRM didn’t let me copy anybody else.
After some more CQ calls with no responses copied, I decided to call it a day and went QRT.
Here you can see my setup today. I attached my fishing rod to this tower.
Here you can see how close the windpower generators are. This one to the North is not the only close one, there were others pretty close to the West.
And this is the log:
Thanks very much for your calls, spots and QSOs.
73,
Guru
Hello all,
Let me remind you that the 2nd event will take place on the week of September 21st.
It will start on monday the 17th up to sunday 23rd.
Re-reading the above posts will help you remember how the whole thing was planned.
73,
Guru
P.D. I can’t edit now the original post but after the inclusion of some new associations in America this paragraph should now say:
Zone #3 sub-event: for the Westernmost hams in our World we’ll have VE/W/XE/TI/KP4 contacting via TEP with CX/LU/VP8. Other trans-equatorial areas may be reached as well. Activators will also be allowed and are encouraged to S&P to make contacts with any other Country across the Equator, even if they do not yet have set up a SOTA association.
And this:
Sub-evento en Zone #3 para los radioaficionados más al Oeste en nuestro mundo tendremos VE/W/XE/TI/KP4 contactando via TEP con CX/LU/VP8. Países en otras zonas trans-ecuatoriales pueden llegar a alcanzarse también. A los activadores SOTA se les permitirá y se les anima a trabajar S&P para hacer contactos con cualquier otro país al otro lado del Ecuador, incluso si en ese país no se ha dado de alta todavía asociación SOTA ninguna.
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Hi Guru
Tnx for reminding. Distributed to JA SOTA members.
17 is national holiday in JA, then someone will join from JA summits.
Toru K
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The 1st event this year 2019 will again take place on the week 12, starting March 18th (Monday) and ending on the 24th (Sunday).
>El primer evento este año 2019 tendrá otra vez lugar en la semana 12, empezando el 18 de marzo (lunes) y finalizando el 24 (domingo).
73,
Guru
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Hi Guru,
Hey, Hey, this is already NEXT WEEK!
It looks from the logs above that late UTC afternoon is the best time to be out - is that right?
73 Ed.
Hi Ed,
It depends on what the actual target is. Since the actual target was and still will be having QSOs with stations accross the Equator, a conclusion about what was the right time according to my logs last year seems hard because none of my QSOs met that expectation.
However, I’ll try to be on air at about the same time as last year, following the recommendations for HF contacts via TEP, which is what I’ll try to have, although I admit I don’t hold much hope given the poor propagation conditions and last year results.
Since I remember copying 7Q7 and PY stations but not being able to make my 5w copied by them, I might take my IC-706 up for the first time on my SOTA activations record in order to have a bit more power in case it’s needed.
I’ll see how things go at home for some TEP activations over the week 12. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. My toes too…
73,
Guru
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Hi all,
We are finally on the week 12, so it’s the time to look for Trans Equatorial Propagation.
Unfortunately, after the nice warm temperatures we had last Saturday afternoon, the cold and the North wind are back and we have even got fresh new snow on top of the nearby mountains, which doesn’t make it too attractive for spending some afternoon-evenings playing radio on a 1000m a.s.l. summit.
It’s Father’s day here today, so I’m off work and I may give TEP a try this afternoon if so family duties permit.
A quick look at Reversebeacon shows that some TEP existed yesterday on 10m in the American continent as you’ll see in the highlighted in red spots between XE and CX:
Even on 12m we can see TEP in America between YV and CX and we also see crossed continental TEP between NorthEast Asia (JA) and SouthEast Africa (5R)
On 15m we see some TEP between Eastern Europe and South Africa:
17m also shows some TEP conditions between the Caribbean (KP4) and SouthAmerica (CX), between Europe (LZ and DL) and Africa (5X) and also within South-America between YV and CX:
Let’s us know here, please, your plans and experiences over the TEP Worldwide SOTA week,
Thanks and 73,
Guru