Analysing my own QSOs and other’s reports it seems the East side of Ireland and West side of UK mainland where were enhancement was strongest.
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He was /p.
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That’s where lift was predicted to be the strongest: Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV
Here’s a screen shot what is looked like late Sunday: © 2025 William R. Hepburn
And courtesy of https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/ , here’e the path we managed between G/DC-001 and GI/MM-006. By then, I’d switched to my FT-65e. 255 miles. Thanks for chasing @MI0SRR 
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Shame, I had to fix broken gear like 70 cm mast preamp at daylight. This took all day on Saturday and Sunday. I guess, nobody was still out in the hills after sunset.
From the DL perspective, yes.
I worked south-G and EI on 70 cm SSB on Saturday night and some IO93 and F stations on 2 m SSB. Cracking signals from IO93.
I would have loved to chase a UK summit station. However, you guys may be lucky. Lift condx in the UK seem to last until 70 cm activity night.
GL & Ahoi
Pom
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/P near Larne? Was it S2S to Agnew’s Hill GI/AH-005?
That diagram is very inaccurate… no Earth bulge. So it doesn’t convey just how much tropo enhancement there was. Normally you’d expect somewhere 220-260km for those heights and normal propagation. So your 408km path is 60% more than typical, which is nice.
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i was out on my motorbike on Saturday and went up Danby Beacon, nice views, on top of the NY moors. I heard West Yorkshire, Ayreshire and a welsh station from my yaesu HT. I only managed to work Consett and a 2/2 reported qso with GB2MAY in Otley chevin. got me thinking of getting out on radio more with the use of my motorbike 
.
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So good to see folks having great success. Lots of 270 DX (I am envious of that EI to Austria QSO on 70cm!).
It’s made me look in to a whopper 10el Yagi for some reason. If I can get a PB on 2 meters (cheers Andy!) with 5 Watts and a Slim G, I imagine what, say, 25 Watts or so and a juicy Yagi might do on a good day!?
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Nope, it wasn’t S2S.
Wasn’t just 2m.
I was only playing from home (Wigan - the darkest depths as far as VHF and UHF are concerned) with FM and a White stick but managed some good distances on 2m over the weekend.
On 70cm FM managed down to Didcot (145 miles). Despite regular CQ calls, nothing else in the log other than 2 local stations which was a surpise, I did think , whilst not as busy, there would be some activity on 70cm.. I didn’t even hear (or see on the waterfall) any little squiggles in the SSB portion.
Why is always the day after I’m allowed out on a summit?
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I called a couple of times on 433.500 while I was out but got no replies.
There were a few on 70cm FT8 when I tried but not many.
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it’s like that round here. if you call cq you get no response but then if you go a radio club night half of the guys will say they heard you call CQ! Used to happen to me. I no longer use 2m from home, only from portable or SOTA now. seems more people listen to the bands that use them sometimes. I did enjoy how busy 2m was during the 145 alive at the weekend. Being at height i could listen in to a bunch of stations all over the country but my small HT couldnt make many DX’ QSO’s unfortunately.
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I just don’t think people listen on either of those frequencies for random QSOs lift or not. Times have changed and few people actually monitor the way we did before clusters etc. Now people use clusters or KST to find others who are QRV or have special Whatsapp et al. groups they use when they go out to play.
Calling CQ in CW even in a lift on .050 is unlikely to be effective any more.
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My Triumph Sprint ST955 is transport of choice for my Summer M/C SOTA activations.
Get to play with two toys in one day, what’s not to like. Just need to remember to keep enough left in the legs for the ride home after the hill.
Andy
MM7MOX
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I’m hoping enough folks will get interested enough to change all that. Particularly here in EI. I made some WW2 and UK Public Information Film-inspired posters - using AI, to be transparent - for my campaign).
MAKE 270 CW GREAT AGAIN! 
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I always call CQ SOTA on 2m FM as it indicates my intention i.e. I’m not hanging around for a long rag chew. But perhaps just calling CQ would be more effective as some may ignore CQ SOTA as they think they must be a SOTA chaser to reply (or have no idea what SOTA is). Thoughts?
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I hate using the BNC on the front of my FT817, which means I use the rear connector. I committed a sin by chopping off the BNC from the SB270 feeder cable and fitting a horrible PL-259 to it. Why does the SO-239 still linger on, on our >HF gear?
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Vicious circle of ignorance in many cases. There’s no reason why the main manufacturers couldn’t fit N connectors for example on HF rigs. Apart from the intense whinging they would receive from all the GUM who would have to start using them and complain about having to change cables.
You’d hate the FT-290MkII. It only has one connector and that’s a BNC on the front panel a la 817. The one I just acquired has the clip on battery box only, I don’t know what was fitted to the clip on 25W linear that was available.
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Argh - well, sometimes that doesn’t go to plan. I’m always grateful for the QSOs, but my experience this year (starting the year on 2m-fm only) is that you end up having a good chin wag with stations.
PS That was at least true for some G/SC stations with a view to Wales, as well as activating Pen Y Fan.
I’m always polite and in a way I like the more relaxed way of doing things on 2m-fm, but I don’t think everyone gets it.
That said, if your first contact is a speed dating style QSO (RS + exchanging callsigns), I wonder whether anyone else would tune in?
Seems to me SWLs are there… so a good QSO helps attract them, and they may jump in after your QSO has ended.
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Cracking. It’s my new avatar.
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