Yes John. The magic has been working on 10M around 1600Z these last weeks. Glad to make the s2s, RST 559.
73!
Mike, WB2FUV
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Made 68 HF QSO’s today, Seven of them into Europe… all into England, Spain, and France.
Two s2s contacts into Spain, one on 15 Meters and the other on 10 Meters.
Ten Meters was the best here with 5 Europe contacts…15 Meters next with 2 EU QSO’s.
All Europe QSO’s between 1557 and 1706, so about one hour into Europe from here in Arizona.
Lots of stateside s2s contacts, and some local 1296 action also, so well worth the effort.
I had fun as usual.
thanks to all!!! 
73,
Pete
WA7JTM
W7A/MN-106
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Today was an unusual weather for the time of the year, it was like summer, just over 20C but very windy.
I used an 66’ inverted-L efhw and a KX2 at 5 or 10watts.
A total of 8 DX S2S, LZ1GV, IK2LEY, GM4OIG, EI9KY, HB9CEV, EA2GM, G0KYS and OE9HRV.
Also, 17 more European chasers in the log.
Thanks for participating to this special event and see you next spring.
73, Eric
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Great time on w2/GC-011. Thanks to all the chasers and the s2s with @CT2IWW ,@oe9hrv, @G4AZS ,@g0kys,@mw0pje and I just saw the earlier thread, sorry to @MM0VPM i just couldn’t pull you out, didn’t have headphones.
I was running 50w into a ny4g 40efhw and a Yaesu 891
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I normally avoid operating in the rain but in my neck of the woods – NW England – the weather often switches to rain whilst I’m out. This time I knew it was going to be heavy rain and strong winds [remnants of Hurricane Martin] but not having done a SOTA for five weeks I was itching to do this transatlantic event.
I was alright in my waterproof clothes plus biscuits and flask of strong hot coffee but I had a lot of concern about my precious KX2 inside a repurposed see-thru toilet bag. With the bag lying on its side, I had the zip open to let the antenna feeder and headphones cable out and also so I could key the twin paddles on the KX2.
It was very foggy at the summit (G/LD-052) despite the strong winds and in no time, rain was on and running off the toilet bag. I found it hard to concentrate on the weak transatlantic signals whilst worrying about the rig. I apologize to any chasers about my receiving and sending, I’m not used to iambic keying with a bag zip touching my fingers.
In about half an hour on 12m and 15m I got 7 QSOs, 3 in EU and 4 east coast USA including 1 S2S @AC1Z on W1/NL-014. I was trying for 10m when I noticed several patches of condensation on the inside of the KX2 display panel, so decided it was time to quit.
Sod’s Law: the rain had lessened to drizzle on my walk down.
Good experience and I enjoyed it despite the weather.
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The ‘problem’ with long antennas relative to the frequency that get deployed randomly is the pattern is not that predictable. It often looks like a hedghog’s backside with spikey lobes pointing anywhere and everywhere. Sure it will work and if a lobe happens to point in the right direction then result! But it can be hit and miss.
Mine is exceptionally docile. It always has a nice match no matter what ground it is above. It seems to work when there is propagation. My setup needs a tweak to make deployment easier but it fits on a 5m mast so it’s not massively unwieldy. The full info for mine is on here (Delta loop antenna on higher HF bands - #30 by MM0FMF), the setup should be omni directional and vertically polarised. You do need a length of 75ohm cable to make the match section.
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Sitting on Shining Tor G/SP-004 , transatlantic S2Ss were a bit sparse. Just a Canadian one VA2MO. However we did get a few USA chaser QSOs and the icing on the cake was a Brazilian Chaser PY2VM. 42 QSOs with 18 S2Ss
As you can see from Dave’s M0JKS post above conditions were horrendous, with high winds and continuous rain. We had three antennas up, as the rain waterlogged one, we moved onto another.
QSOs on Bands is interesting
10m 8 QSOs - Super Antenna
15m 2 QSOs - Linked Dipole
17m 2 QSOs - Linked Dipole
20m 29 QSOs - Vertical/Linked Dipole
40m 1 QSO - Linked Dipole
Radio Xiegu G90 20w
Brazil and Canada were both on 10m
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Good result for the Trans-Atlantic QSO Party. Operating QRP with the Yaesu FT-817 and a vertical, 4 DX S2S on 15 meters. No luck on 20, 17 and 10 meters bands. I had to get off pretty early. Nice fun day, (140 qso, 53 S2S) Thank you all!
73 Fabio
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Awful weather on G/TW-004 Bishop Wilton Wold but Dave G3TQQ/P and I still had a good time under our tent with several s2s qsos including a couple with the USA and one with Canada. We also had short skip on 18 MHz working Martin 2E0BIA/P & David M0JKS/P on Shining Tor and Colin M1BUU/P on Whernside also we heard Gerald GM4OIG/P working Eric VA2MO just before we did.
Picture shows Dave G3TQQ/P in action!
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Looking at all the pictures with tarps/tents, I’m kicking myself for not climbing into my Bothy bag I had it with me! Doh!
My Transatlantic S2S event activation yesterday was a wet one - and a cold one - here’s a picture of me from the webcam on DL/EW-001 Wank mountain at over 1700m ASL above Garmisch-Partenkirchen near the Austrian/German border in Southern Bavaria.
Yes, Snow on the ground (it arrived 36 hours before the event) and in the clouds with occasional snow/sleet/rain storms. At least I had the bench to work from.
As for contacts - I only got onto 20m SSB and all contacts were from within Europe with one S2S contact into Spain. Nothing from the other side of the pond. For the hour that I was on the summit, the few NA stations spotted were running CW (which I don’t do), perhaps the SSB activators came later in the afternoon, but after an hour in these conditions, I had to call it a day.
I’ll be putting my report together over the next couple of days and post it on my blog at dd5lp.com
And here is a link to my report: DD5LP/P – November 5th 2022 – DL/EW-001 Wank. | DD5LP / G8GLM / VK2JI blog
73 Ed DD5LP.
UPDATE: Here’s what that very same spot looks like 24 hours later 6/11/2022 …
“What a difference a day makes”
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Andy, thank you. You might recall I built a delta loop for 6m recently. The original had a piece of plastic pipe holding the top side of the delta horizontal with the feed point at the bottom apex. You suggested turning this the other way round and using guys to spread it. I subsequently used this from a summit and it worked well although I did only use FT8 which probably wasn’t much of a test. 
I’ll now look at making one for 10m according to your design you linked to.
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I decided on GM/SS-192 Craigowl Hill, near my birthplace of Dundee, as we were visiting family there this weekend. Mo dropped me off at the bottom at 1130 and I had until 1615 to get back to be picked up. Or Else!!
It was an easy ascent up a tarred road to reach the heavily masted and heavily fogged summit. As it was raining, I first put up a tarp (for only the second time ever on an activation) and then erected an antenna farm to rival the resident one.
the mast behind me is lost in the cloud
¼ wave for 10 m
Delta loop for 15 m (untested)
Inverted V EFHW as a back up for 40, 20, 15 & 10 m
2 m slim g
I also had my 20 m up and outer but it stayed in the bag as I’d run out of masts.
antenna farm
I was using my Elecraft KX2 (with s small linear at times).
It took me 40 minutes to put that lot together, so I started later than planned. 10 m SSB was great at first, with Nova Scotia, California and then a host of Europeans. I then switched to 15 m and worked California again, then lots of EU, including a few summits. Great to see that many activators were equipped for 15 m.
20 m was OK for EU but not for DX, using the EFHW.
As far as I could see, there were only @G4OIG Gerald and @MM7MOX Andy out on GM summits. I worked them both on 15 m and then worked Andy again on 2 m FM. It was like Gerald was standing next to me. And shouting!
46 QSO’s in all, 14 Summit to Summits, all within Europe. Three North America ground stations, so a decent haul in a 2 hour stint.
45 minutes to pack everything up and a quick jog back to the car park. The cloud finally started to lift as I was coming down.
Craigowl Hill
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Hi Fraser,
Nice antenna farm that you setup. Thanks for our first S2S 
But I think you had some QRM from the commercial antennas?
Btw. for
if you mean John KI6EAB/W4 then he is operating a remote station in W4 (so US East coast - Florida as far as I know)
I worked him too on 15m. Great contact with a bit of small talk.
73 Joe
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Hi Ed
Very commendable working in those conditions! We just had the usual East Yorkshire rain - hi hi!
73
Nick
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The current commercial arrays are not a patch on what they were in the past. Everything is getting replaced with fibre leaving radio for the hard-to-fibre areas.
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Thank you for our first S2S Joe. Long time overdue!
No, I don’t think so. There wasn’t much noise on 15 m or 10 m. I’m sure the KX-2 filters are up to the job. I used a sotabeams filter on my handheld and that made a notable difference
Yes. I didn’t check his location. So, no California then. However, I had my first SOTA QSO with a Canadian, so a small win.
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It was a rainy day on HB/ZH-003 (and also HBFF-0308), but I still wanted to do this activation. It was also so planned long before. I took my KX3/10W with Inv-L (2 masts). I was active from 13z to 16z. Despite the rain it was really fun. I worked a total of 21 transatlantic QSOs on cw, eight of them s2s and two p2p (park to park WWFF). When nothing was going on I was entertained by a cat who always wanted to play with the radials 
… Thank you all very much .
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CAT controlled radio?
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I was joined by Eric AD6VT, his YL Lesley, and dog Sage for an activation of Red Mountain W7A/CS-018 in Northern Arizona. We got a late start to avoid the coldest part of the morning but it was still chilly.
We set up two independent stations. My first QSO’s were not until almost 1630 UTC so I may have missed some Trans-Atlantic opportunities, But the log began with some great S2S including @G4AZS on 12m cw from G/WB-005. Shortly after that, I worked @EA2GM on 10m cw from EA1/AT-314. Many other nice 10m contacts including chasers from France and Spain. A bit later I worked @EA2GM again but this time on 10m ssb. The high bands were hopping with additional EU DX from Spain and Germany on 17m. It was a lot of fun to work the pileups and also some nice S2S into VE2.
Final tally was 19 S2S, 8 Trans-Atlantic DX, and 64 total qso’s in my log during two hours on the air. I’m not sure yet what Eric’s results were but I know he also had a great time.
Thanks all and see you on 10!
73,
Keith KR7RK
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I was planning to activate High Willhays (G/DC-001), but the weather forecast for Dartmoor was for rain and winds gusting up to 50mph! I thought better of it and opted for Staple Hill (G/SC-004) - only a short easy walk from the carpark, and the summit sheltered by trees. I used my ‘big’ end-fed inverted L for the first time - 28m long, help up by a 10m telescopic pole, which was also supporting a slim jim for 2m. The rig was an FT818 with 5W.
I could hear NA base stations on the high bands, so I started spotting and calling first on 10m, then 12m, but got no replies. Then on 15m I was called by two EAs, and then nothing. I then reverted to my standard activation pattern, and tried 2m, working G6TEQ. Next I tried 20m, and had a good run of 13 EU QSOs, including 5 s2s.
I then checked the higher bands again to listen for NA SOTA stations. I could hear KF7NP on 10m, but he could not hear me. I then found VA2MO, and successfully completed my first ever transatlantic s2s. This was followed by a second s2s with AJ2I. It was getting dark at this point, and I really should have started packing up. However I thought I would have a quick go calling CQ, and this brought a third transatlantic s2s when I was called by VA2EO.
I packed up quickly in the fading light, and walked back to car park feeling very satisfied!
Bob G0KYS
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