Trans-Atlantic S2S QSO Party - 7th November 2020

I got out there kind of late, around 4pmUTC. I didn’t manage any S2S DX stations, but did get a regional S2S between VA and NC. POTA seemed to be dominating the airwaves. In the hour I was out there, I worked 11 stations, jawjacked with my buddy, and had lunch. Only 6 of those were for SOTA, the rest was from chasing POTA activations. I tried working ON5VN in Belgium (not SOTA), but he wasn’t hearing me over the pileup. I also made an attempt at a station in Spain, but he too didn’t hear me. Oh well. The weather was nice and it was a nice hike there and back. There are worse ways to spend a day.

Chris

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Hi Eric @F5JKK, it’s the DXHeat website at DXHeat | DXCluster & DX Research Tool

73 Ed.

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Windy day in Tombstone Arizona, worked England, France, Belgium and Sweden and lots of US stations, pretty good day for my QRP set up until a blast of wind sent my dipole flying!
Fun day,
73,
Dale

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Correction on my call sign… KR7RK instead of K7RK. (You did show it correctly in your uploaded log).
Thank you very much for the S2S Jens @HB9EKO !
73,
Keith KR7RK

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I’m sure glad I got out. I didn’t know that I would until last night.

A preliminary count gives 64 QSOs, 39 on 20m CW, 20 on 20m FT8, and 5 on 40m CW

Many entities in the log
Austria 2
Belgium 2
Czech Republic 1
England 9 with 4 S2S (counting Tom twice for 2 modes)
France 4
Germany 6 with 2 S2S
Hungary 1
Iceland 1
Ireland 2 (counting Declan twice for 2 modes)
Netherlands 1
Russia 1
Scotland 1 with 1 S2S
Slovenia 1
Spain 6 with 1 S2S
Sweden 1
Switzerland 7 with 2 S2S
Ukraine 1
USA 17 with 2 S2S

The band conditions were great. :slight_smile: I was hampered a bit by high noise at the summit (sorry if you called and I couldn’t dig you out) and a battery crash in the middle of a QSO.

73 all, stay safe,
Malcolm VE2DDZ

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Your SOTA activating callsign surprised me again today and I wasn’t able to recognise you while we were in QSO. Your callsign sounded familiar to me but I didn’t manage to mentally associate it to G4OIG and Gerald.
Next time, hopefully…
Thanks for the S2S and for organising this nice party.
73,

Guru

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I forgot how busy bits of countryside with a name and a car park get during lockdown, but found a parking spot at G/CE-001. Was there later than planned, not starting 'til close to 1500. On 20M all afternoon, inverted V, 10W, SSB.

Kicked off with a S2S with @CT2HOV. But that was my only one. Smattering of EU chasers, then after 50 minutes with nothing in my log I was chased by KR7Q from Western Montana! I was a bit cold and half asleep and gibbered a load of stuff at him, pretty excited as it was my first UK-US SOTA contact.

I just about heard another US station and a Canadian, but they could not hear me.

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M5OTA.
I seen your spot but you were at my noise level, otherwise I would have tried you.

I just got in the door, numerous EU stations in my log but no EU S2S.

Malen
VE6VID

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Hi Malen - it was you I could just about hear, tried a few times when you came up a little in the QSB, but we’d of probably both needed the Force to actually complete a QSO! Worth a shot for a trans-Atlantic S2S though :smiley:

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I decided to do something a little different this time and walk from my home QTH direct to my nearest SOTA summit Claife Heights G/LD-053. It is visible from my home QTH (well, the summit is in woods but the woods are visible) but on the other side of Lake Windermere so I had to take the ferry to get there.

I combined SOTA with the RADAR challenge which was kind of fun but didn’t really work in together.


FT817ND, 5w, SOTABeams QuadBand 20/40/60/80 and homebrew Inv-V 10/12/15/17m)

It was good to have a play on 17m and also to get some EU S2S but I was too early really for NA activators or chasers before having to move on.

I walked for 11 miles and played a lot of radio with two additional stops, so all good. Next event I may well play more traditionally again, you’ve got to try things to see if you like them! The weather was lovely in the Lake District today.

Mark M0NOM

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And yes Joe @OE5JFE it was great to get you in the log on the second attempt! You were barely readable first time round, and clearly I wasn’t enough to get the full callsign, second attempt 58-59!

Wow! What a day!

I usually activate Buckden Pike each November as I attend a Memorial Service at the site of a crashed WW2 bomber. The sole survivor of the Polish crew, Joe Fusniak erected the memorial cross in the 1970’s as a tribute to his fellow crewmen. Each year a simple wreath laying ceremony takes place. This year an official ceremony could not take place but an informal ceremony was held and the wreath was laid as usual. Whilst I was at the site, I was passed on a message from Joe Fusniak’s son via an attendee that said ‘73 from G3TFX’! Richard Fusniak is aware of me and my exploits!

The weather was perfect for the ceremony and 14 (socially distanced, as appropriate) people including myself were present.

I made my way over to the trig point, about 20 minutes away from the memorial cross and I was on air by just after 1200utc. I used my home brew 14MHz ground plane antenna and newly recommissioned QCX. I’d built the QCX for 30m initially, but I recently decided to upgrade it to current spec and change the band to 20m. I have also built the QCX CW amplifier and suitably modified the QCX to drive it.

I stayed on the same QRG for 2 hours, in that time I managed 97 QSOs of which two were dupes.

I had 11 S2S QSOs, including 4 transatlantic -

VE2DDZ on VE2/ML-005
N1ZF on W1/MR-001
AC1Z on W1/NL-006
N1AIA on W1/AM-300

I worked 22 transatlantic QSOs in total -

K3TCU
VE2DDZ (S2S
N1ZF (S2S)
AB4PP
VA3NQ
AC1Z (S2S)
K8LJG
W8BUD
N1AIA (S2S)
KB9ILT
K2VV
ND0C
VE1WT
WF4I
WD4CFN
W8MRH
K0LAF
W0MNA
KR7Q
NW7E
W4JL
K6YK

I think I broke all of my records today! Absolutely awesome. Contact of the day was K6YK for me, I’ve never worked California before.


Battery lasted for the whole 2 hours, much to my surprise. I need not have taken the spare!

73, Colin

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Correction on my call sign… KR7RK instead of K7RK. (You did show it correctly in your uploaded log).

There’s always the one typo in the post that you don’t see before sending:-)

73 Jens HB9EKO

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Short summary from Arizona…just got home.

69 QSO’s total
9 EU QSO’s on 20 and 17M into DL, EA, F, and ON.
Two s2s contacts in Germany… DL4FO and DL3TU
A bunch of NA s2s contacts
Two 1296 QSO’s back into the Metro Phoenix Area
Had fun, but it got very windy and I bailed out around 1800.

thanks to all…

Had Fun!

73

Pete
WA7JTM

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Unfortunately it was a failure this year Pete despite me sending 50W your way at 17:30z. I couldn’t get through your run of US contacts and by the time the frequency had cleared enough for you to get something of my call, signals were not as good as they had been. Oh well, maybe next year. :confused:

73, Gerald G8CXK / G4OIG

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From Romania, from YO/EC-380: there was 4 hams (YO8TEE, YO8SST, YO8SFF and YO8AZQ).
We worked about 3 hours. Personally, I worked 16 QSOs, with 10 S2S.
We couldn’t hear any stations in NA; maybe in next year. Equipment in HF: FT847, Inv-V.
Good weather but cold.

Ady/YO8AZQ

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Incredible band conditions, lots of activity and nice weather made this event most enjoyable.

The summit (DM/BW-110) was really crowded, so I set up a bit below at the slope facing NW. This seemed to work well. 20 QSOs with chasers went into the log (9 x EU, 11 x NA) and 20 S2S (9 x EU, 11 x NA)
17 m was the most productive band with 20 QSOs, followed by 20 m (17 Q’s), 60 m (2 Q’s) and 15 m (1 Q). Didn’t try 40 m and 30 m as the focus was on Trans-Atlantic QSOs.
The bands were still open when I had to pack up, but it was already getting dark.

Thanks to all for the QSOs. It was great fun!
73, Roman

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…unfortunately, I didn’t - so that one is only in the SWL log for me!

A good day on The Cloud G/SP-015 today. Like Gerald @G4OIG I fielded lots of enquiries from interested passing walkers - who I’m happy to report seemed even more interested after learning what I was up to.

One passer-by was Robin M7AQX who was ascending from Timbersbrook with his XYL for a 2m FM handheld activation. I set myself up in the middle of a vast expanse of heather just north-west of the main rock outcrop on the hill. This allowed me to site myself - and my aerials - all well away from the several paths on the hill.

I took the 20m GP for the main event - the Trans-Atlantic S2S QSO Party - and the Bandhopper 4 linked dipole, set for 80m for the last day of the November Flavours Challenge week. I set up the radials of the 20m first to guy the SOTA Pole, which meant this would be in situ ready for when I wanted to switch antennas. First up though, was the 80m dipole.

Here’s the summary of what I worked:

103 QSOs:

80m FT8: 11
80m SSB: 10
80m CW: 4
20m SSB: 17
20m CW: 42
20m PSK31: 1
20m FT4: 10
20m FT8: 2
2m FM: 6

27 S2S:

IW3AGO/P - I/AA-215 - 20m SSB
M1BUU/P - G/NP-009 - 20m CW
IV3GVY/P - I/FV-130 - 20m SSB
CT7/K9PM/P - CT/AL-002 - 20m CW
VE2DDZ - VE2/ML-005 - 20m CW
E70AA/P - E7/BO-049 - 20m CW
OK2MUF/P - OK/MO-039 - 20m CW
YU1CA/P - YU/ZS-048 - 20m CW
M7HUD/P - G/SP-007 - 2m FM
S56KVJ/P - S5/PK-037 - 20m SSB
HB9DST/P - HB/AG-012 - 20m CW
M0OAT/P - G/NP-007 - 20m CW
AC1Z - W1/NL-066 - 20m CW
EA2GM/P - EA1/AT-208 - 20m SSB
YO6PIB/P - YO/MC-160 - 20m SSB
OE5JFE/P - OE/OO-075 - 20m SSB
LZ1WF/P - LZ/RO-144 - 20m CW
2E0NRL/P - G/SP-004 - 2m FM
HB9EKO/P - HB/ZH-020 - 20m CW
EA2IF/P - EA2/NV-151 - 20m CW
VE2DDZ - VE2/ML-002 - 20m FT8
MW7LCX/P - GW/NW-076 - 2m FM
KR7RK - W7A/CS-006 - 20m CW
VA2EO - VE2/QC-005 - 20m CW
N1AIA - W1/AM-300 - 20m CW
KG6CIH/P - W1/MV-003 - 20m CW
K2JB - W4C/US-001 - 20m CW

12 SWL:

N1ZF - W1/MR-001 - 20m CW
OE5EEP/P - OE/OO-346 - 20m CW
G6PJZ/P - G/TW-001 - 20m CW
NE2P - W4C/EM-022 - 20m CW
LZ1GJ/P - LZ/RO-144 - 20m CW
K7EEX - W4V/RA-003 - 20m SSB
KF7NP - W7A/MN-143 - 20m SSB
AA7OY - W7A/CO-133 - 20m CW
K6ARK - W6/CT-157 - 20m CW
KX0R - W0C/SR-052 - 20m CW
WA7JTM - W7A/MN-154 - 20m CW
G8CXK/P - G/CE-004 - 20m CW

NA QSOs: 19

NA S2S QSOs: 8

Great fun! Thanks to all.

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Hi Pete,
I started my activation on 14.062 but after some time and several QSOs, I had the impression there was another activator CQing on my same frequency but he was far too weak on me and I wasn’t able to copy any letter of the callsign. Then I decided to QSY to 14.066, which is were I stayed for the rest of the time. I remember that, while I was CQing and logging QSOs from time to time, you arrived to this frequency and started CQing. I copied you weak with some QSB, but well enough to get your full callsign in 2 of the first times you sent it. I called you back after 2 of your CQ calls, but didn’t seem to copy me unfortunately. I guess you were running higher power than I. After a few CQ calls, you were never heard back again. I guess you went QSY and I continued CQing on that frequency. I would have loved making a S2S with you in AZ, but it wasn’t possible this time. Hopefully next year.
Best 73,

Guru

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