Looking at George KX0R’s yesterday activation log, a brief pass of 11 minutes on the 20m band at the very begining of his activation was enough for us to log some DX SOTA contacts. Thank you!
Guru
Hi John AK4AT, I have worked split for US operators with band limits. Works fine.
73 de Geoff vk3sq
Hi Guru,
As I mentioned in a private e-mail I was somewhat surprised to work you at 2020Z, so long after your sunset. But this was 30m not 20m. (I had posted an alert for 20m, forgetting there was a contest that made 20 cw impossible for SOTA.)
It’s always a pleasant surprise to have my CQ answered from Europe.
73,
Al N1AW
Hi Al,
I also was nicely surprised when I saw your spot for 30m, went to the frequency and found that I was copying you very well. It clearly was the right time for us on 30m and you surely wouldn’t have been copied here on 20m at that time. I have been following KI4TN and WX4TW today while they activated on 30m and it was too early so I couldn’t copy them
Later, they both showed up on 20m, but it was too late for me and I couldn’t copy them:
However, Jorge EA2LU managed to chase KI4TN and possibly WX4TN too, although with some difficulties, so the QSO is unsure and he’ll have to check the activator log.
Bob AC1Z, George KX0R and Leo K4LPQ showed up on 20m today well earlier than these other two and we could chase them with very good signals:
I, unfortunately missed Leo because I wasn’t looking at SOTAwatch nor whatsapp while working on trying to fix a broken desk-top lamp needed by my daughter for her studies.
George KX0R did a second pass on 20m but his signals, although still workable, had notably decreased compared to those in his first pass 1h 37 minutes earlier:
Finding the right time for each band is key.
I’ll be looking forward to chasing you many more times.
73,
Guru
I finally had an opportunity to activate a summit here in Colorado really early in the morning – 1500z. My friend from Montana (AE7AP) was out visiting family and wanted to do a local summit by sunrise. What a great pileup I had on 20m! I made 63 contacts including EA2LU, EA7GV, EA2IF, EA4CWN, EA2BD, F4HZR, F6GCP and DJ5AV. Many thanks to all the EU chasers that worked me today. Of course, I also worked all my US and Canadian friends as well ;-).
I’ll continue to start on 20m if I do a lower peak that doesn’t take many hours to drive to and climb. The peak I did today was only a 25min drive and a 15min hike.
73, Brad
WA6MM
Congrats for your 63 QSOs and all those DX QSOs.
Thank you very much, Brad, for the activation and the QSO. Thank you for showing up early on 20m CW. Our CW QSO was very comfortable. A totally different thing it was when I had to chase your activation mate AE7AP on SSB. I was copying him really well, but he didn’t seem to copy me that well and I had to repeat and repeat many times my callsign and later my report until he copied my callsign correctly. He initially copied me as EA2LF and I think I finally made him understand INDIA FOXTROT by saying INDIANA FLORIDA.
In spite of some difficulties on this SSB contact, I can say it was a good day today regarding Northamerican activations chased:
Guru
Hi Guru,
AE7AP and I use the same Elecraft KX2 rig and power level. So, you can directly see the difference between using SSB vs CW first hand! But it’s good to know you heard him fine. You had a decent signal into Colorado. I look forward to many more contacts my friend!
73, Brad
WA6MM
Yes, I heard him better than the average SSB Northamerican activators. I think it’s due to the time you guys showed up on 20m
The difficulties I had with this SSB QSO were mainly my fault, because I currently have my remote station setup with a manual antenna tuner set to provide perfect 1:1 SWR on the CW part of the 20m band, therefore my SWR on 14.3 is pretty high 3:1 and the output power foldback protection circuit in my rig surely made that my real output power was rather low. One of my Christmas gifts will be an automatic antenna tuner and it will go immediately to my remote station setup, so I should perform a bit better on 20m SSB after Xmas.
It was the perfect time when you showed up today, the Sun was low but still on. As soon as the sun sets, conditions start to degrade quite rapidly. Our sunset was at 16h37z today. Signals from K9OZ were still OK for me but already very difficult to copy for another EA friend of mine (EA4CWN) as he told me through whatsapp at that time.
Finally, the QSO with Ron KI4TN was a bit of a miracle because his signals were extremely weak by that very late time, but Ron had very good ears and picked me up well in spite of some other chaser QRM calling repeatedly even after he requested EA? and EA2?.
I’ll also be looking forward to many more QSOs in the near future.
73 and Merry Christmas,
Guru
That can be a bit frustrating. Sometimes in a pile-up you can only get a letter or two so I try to send the part that I heard with a question mark so that only that station will come back. But sometimes even that doesn’t work as two or three stations will still try to keep calling. Thanks for being patient, Guru: I finally pulled your call out. 
Guru:
Thank you for the QSO - it was very exciting to work you. We had a fun activation. It was a bit of a sunrise party on the summit with Brad, 2 of my sons, Barb-AE7AP, and two other friends. I was able to make 26-qso’s and 3 EA DX qso’s in addition to lots of NA and W7M friends. I was hoping to do some CW, but I had to leave early. I felt a little bad leaving Brad alone on the summit - but it looked like he was having a good time!
Merry Christmas & 73
Rob - AE7AP
I would like to thank Guru and the other folk who started this thread.
Today the weather forecast in Alberta was not great, snow starting in the early afternoon and high winds.
Rather than stay at home, we were inspired by this thread and left early. Even with a 2 hour hike, we were on the summit and on the air by 1730z, or 10:30am local time.
I started right away on 20m ssb, and was amply rewarded. 26 contacts in 30 minutes, including 4 in Spain and one in Germany!
A great day in the mountains, and we got home before the snow started!
Thanks to all the chasers, especially for your patience in working all the contacts, some of them very weak!
Ian VE6IXD
Thanks for this info! I’ll keep this in mind for my upcoming activations.
That was the perfect timing, Ian, as our sunset was yesterday at 17h32. However, conditions are changing as we move forward in time and the band conditions still held yesterday not only for our QSO at 17h47z but also for my 116th SOTA chase to George KX0R as late as 19h54z.
I’ll be looking forward to chasing you again soon.
73,
Guru
I didn’t realize this until it was brought to my attention last year. Since then I always start on 20m and have really bumped up my EA contacts. Kind of a win win for both sides of the pond.
Thanks for posting the updated sunset times for your QTH. I have been getting on the road before dawn (it’s a two-hour drive to most close summits for me) to try for some DX. The sunset times are changing more rapidly than I had considered. Now I can relax my wake-up time a little 
It’s always a gas working DX during an activation, especially S2S. Thanks for the QSO last weekend!
73, Jim KK0U
Here you can see how much our sunset time has changed since January 1st up to date.
The times shown here are utc.
Guru
Ian (VE6IXD) and myself activated this morning. This was an early activation for me. I had 1 contact to EA land which was nice for a change.
Malen
VE6VID
And you almost got 2. When I first called you, you seemed to copy me but instead of sending my report right away you asked me to confirm my callsign and then the QSB/QRM made the rest to ruin our QSO. What a shame…
Later I chased Ian @VE6IXD with no problems.
I’ll keep looking forward to chasing you again soon.
73,
Guru
@W1PTS was copied on my tribander yagi and chased at 15h38z.
@KK0U was not copied on my multiband inverted vee dipole:
Guru,
I just could not hear your full CS.
I have been using a different radio as of late and yesterday it seemed deaf.
Back to my KX2, that thing has awesome receive.
Malen
VE6VID
