Nice work Pom. VHF will never be dead as long as ops like you use it from the summits! Respect.
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And ops like you, Tom! See you on a Tuesday nightā¦ hopefully!
Ahoi
Pm
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More evidence collected in support of my claim in this thread title.
Tuesday evening SOTA activation on The Cloud G/SP-015 - 1905 to 2356z:
155 contacts, all on the 2m band.
19 on 2m FT8
103 on 2m SSB
1 on 2m CW
29 on 2m FM
3 on 2m C4FM
(these 32 C4FM / FM contacts all after 2230z)
DXCCs worked: 9 (but no EI, F or GI)
DL: 1
G: 126
GD: 3
GM: 4
GW: 13
ON: 1
OZ: 3
PA: 3
SM: 1
ā¦but zero on Gun yesterday.
This is true. I put nearly as much effort in too. Botheration. 
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Sounds like a case of right place, wrong time 
Contest QSOs during lift conditions? A fine comparison between oranges and apples with the result expressed in marmosets/acre of forest giving completely unrealistic numbers.
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2m is a sleeping giant that will wake a little for a contest or an opening and perhaps a little light award work, but even the club nets are fading - its great days as a ragchew band are gone.
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This is the basis of every amateur radio discussion anywhere, ever.
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Iād love to get out and play. My local SOTA summit is an easy walk, its car park at night appears to be a den of iniquity used by drug users, alcholics and other āscheme goblinsā. The carpark is fine during daylight. Just make sure you avoid the syringes etc. on the ground.
Again, no QSO to JO42. Weāll have to change this! 
Ahoi
Pom
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And at least 1 S2S
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I do enjoy this little game. Admittedly on this occasion, with a contest on and enhanced conditions, I made it a little too easy for my opponents. That was why I made a point of mentioning that 32 FM QSOs were all outside of the contest period.
Nonetheless, I get less argument when Iām out āOn Tourā and qualifying summits all over the country with my handheld. Andy @MM0FMFās point is on the money though - non-participation is probably the biggest factor behind non-activity.
This. This a million times. The UKAC has been brilliant at getting more activity on the bands. We did the same when we did 12m for a year at sunspot max. I hope the flavours challenge persuades people to try things they normally wouldnāt bother with.
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Only on the 1 day each month for the band in question.
Iām not sure I agree with that Stewart. I think the UKACs are encouraging general VHF activity outside of the contests too.
I started doing the VHF contests as I was interested in doing SOTA on 4M. Doing this when a contest was on assured me of getting the required contacts.
Since the 4M contests were only on the 5th Tuesday of the month, there were not to many to go at during the year, so I started looking for other options. That led me on to 23cm and 13cm. I doubt I would have got going on those bands without the combination of contests & SOTA.
Somewhat surprised that someone else is as mad as me and sits out on a summit for 2.5+ hours on a winterās night! Do you take a tent or bothy bag - or just sit it out in plenty of layers?
BTW, last few days - several SOTA activations just with 2m HT while out on tour.
G/TW-005 - 2 QSOs. Had to get back to Doncaster for rehearsals at 1200 so very limited time - plus had already collected the point for this one in 2019, so the number of QSOs was irrelevant. But if Iād had stayed longer Iād have got more Iām sure.
G/NP-032 - 4 QSOs
G/SP-004 - 6 QSOs
G/SP-015 - 2 QSOs + 20 on 2m SSB with FT817+SOTA Beam
G/SP-013 - 4 QSOs