As I had written in a previous post, I was unsure about activating because of the cold temperatures and the wind, but the day looked not too bad at all in Pamplona at about 0900z with rapidly moving clouds and big blue sky opennings:
So, despite the temp of about 9ºC and a cold Northerly wind, I headed to my usual Transatlantic S2S event 1 pointer summit for zero points today, as I had already activated it this year. I chose this summit because it’s only 24Km from my QTH, it’s a drive-up, it has an hermitage at the top which can be very helpful to provide shelter from the Wind and it has a good take-off towards the North-West.
I had initially alerted to start by 1300z, but right before leaving home, I realised I would probably be ready slightly later than that, so I editted my alert and changed the start time to 1330z.
My antenna setup was a vertical 10m long endfed wire to a 9:1 unun and a 5m long counterpoise wire on the ground, which I had already tested successfully a few days earlier, with my recently acquired 10m long telescopic pole by DX-wire.
Here you can see the set up seen from my operating position a few meters away from the antenna, close to the stoned wall of the hermitage, well sheltered from the cold North wind and facing South, which means I was sitting in the sunshine to help keeping me warm. From the unun to the rig, I had a length of about 14m of RG58.
The rig used was FT-817ND at 5W with MFJ-941B antenna tuner.
Paddle was Palm MP-817.
Standard hand microphone from the FT-817 with DYC-817 Speech compressor.
I calculated very well my timing because I was on air just a few minutes before my amended alert start time and my first QSO was logged at 13h28z.
I started working on 20m CW, where I logged 14 QSOs in nearly 30 minutes, 5 of which were S2S. Three were EU (IK2LEY/P, HB9CDH/P, IZ3NVR), one was USA (WB2FUV) and one was Canada (VE2DDZ). Great! that was a very good start!
I was checking SW3 where several spots were being displayed at such fast pace that it was difficult keeping on screen the ones you were interested on at a certain moment, forcing you to be constantly scrolling up and down the screen.
At 1400z, I saw a spot of Fredi FM/HB9BHU/P on 10m CW, so I immediately QSYed there and gave him a call, which was quickly copied and replied. By 1401z I had my third trans-Atlantic S2S of the day in my log.
Then, I saw Roman DL3TU/P spotted on 17m CW, so I QSYed there to bag a S2S with him, after which I moved to a clear frequency and started CQing. This brought 2 more EU S2S (HB9EVF/P and SP9MA/P). A couple of regular chasers were logged after these S2S and not having any more calls, I QSYed to SSB in order to bag a S2S with Stephan HB9EAJ/P. The partial total for this 17m band pass was 6 QSOs in 25 minutes, 4 of which were S2S with Europe.
At this point, I saw Ingo DH5ST spotted on 20m CW, so there I QSYed to bag a S2S with him. After this QSO, I found a spot for M0RWX/P on SSB and I QSYed there to bag a S2S with him. Then a spot for DL4FO/P on CW, so QSY again and another S2S in my log. After this, I found a clear frequency and started CQing, which produced 9 more QSOs in 15 minutes, 3 of which were S2S, one with M0WIV/P and the other 2 were trans-Atlantic ones with VA2EO and N1AIA.
Some time earlier I had copied very well VA2MO signals making S2S on 20m SSB with some European activator but it wasn’t his frequency and I didn’t have a chance to chase him. But after a few unresponded CQs during my 20m CW activity, I saw Eric VA2MO spotted on 17m SSB, so I QSYed there for another trans-Atlantic S2S. It wasn’t easy as Eric was copying me with a very weak signal of 22. However, I think the basic exchange was made and I logged the QSO. Despite my several repeats, Eric seemed to miss the /P at the end of my callsign EA2IF, which he copied perfectly. It looks like the rarely used /P suffix in Northamerica is something quite unexpected by them and not easily picked up on the air during an SSB QSO with low signals.
And now it came the nasty surprise which may well explain the very low signal report I received from Eric VA2MO: with my 10m long telescopic pole being constantly shaked by the wind, some of the sections had collapsed and the total length of the pole has shortened to about 2/3 or less, so quite a lengthy part of my antenna wire was forming loops while swinging between hanging down pulled by the gravity force and pushed Southbound by the wind. This clearly forced my immediate QRT in order to set things back up again. I took the pole down, layed it horizontal on the grass to pull out all the collapsed sections and re-straighten the antenna wire attached to the pole with velcro straps. When I had the pole vertical again and started tieing it to the wooden structure you can see in the picture above, I heard some of the sections collapsing again, so I had to repeat the whole procedure again. After this second procedure was completed and while I was tieing again the pole to the wooden structure, the bloody pole intermediate sections collapsed again and this was enough for me. I was tempted to call it a day and dismantle everything, but my eagerness (“ansia” in Spanish) made me forget this idea and setup my antenna as a sloper instead. The sloper bends the telescopic pole, thus applying a constant tension to it towards one direction and this prevents it from collapsing.
You can see following picture of this sloper setup.
The problem now was that in order to keep the antenna wire in the good orientation towards the North-West for NA, I could no longer operate sheltered by the hermitage stoned wall, but, fully exposed to the increasing wind from the North with the lowering Sun and the dropping temperature.
I started my operation with 2 trousers, 3 layers on my body and my SOTA whool hat. At some point I added 2 more layers to my body and one more hat to my head.
After the pole collapsing problem, when I changed setup and operating position to an exposed to the wind one, I added a 6th layer to my body, a really thick and warm one, and a 3rd hat to my head.
I was feeling warm and well protected, so I re-started my operation after nearly a 45 minutes stop with a new trans-Atlantic S2S with N1FJ on 20m CW. Then I settled on a clear frequency and started CQing, which brought 6 more QSOs in about 12 minutes. Two of these QSOs were S2S with EA2BD/P and MM0OAT.
With the Sun very low already and exposed to the cold wind with no gloves, my feet and hands were pretty cold with my fingers really numb, so I decided to QRT before it got dark and I got any colder.
Here you can see my full log with 41 QSOs, 20 S2S and 7 of these were trans-Atlantic.
You can see it on the map:
I didn’t make a single QSO on 15m. The few times I QSYed there to try some S2S I had seen spotted on SW3, I couldn’t copy anything. [edit: the exception was at the very end of the activation, when I copied George KX0R CQing and I called him for S2S without success]
I couldn’t make S2S with Gerald G8CXK/P. I saw him spotted on 17m at the beginning of my activation, but I went to the frequency, copied him once and then nothing, so I had to leave with empty hands. I’m sorry for not having had my S2S with the organiser of this fantastic event. I’m also sorry for not having made S2S with so many other activators, but there are many activators and quite little time, so I guess missing some of the activators is something we can’t avoid.
Once again, it was a great event which I enjoyed very much. Thanks to the organiser and mainly to all participants.
73,
Guru
PS: after uploading my log to the database, I realised that all these S2S made today put me over the 5000 S2S score. I recently crossed the 50.000 chaser points. I think it’s time for me to gather the around 90 remaining activator points in order to achieve MG, i.e. 1000 points.
before hiking down.
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), well they’re in the movie.
