OK, so I have been busy and before I could read the latest posting, the Part B thread is locked because it reached 100 posts…
I did not post an Alert, but was out on VK3/VT-042.
From my perspective, it was all a little hectic.
Worked S2S:
VK1MIC/p 40 m ssb
VK2IB/3 40m ssb
JF1NDT/1 17m cw
VK6NU/p 20m ssb
ZL1ATH 20m ssb
ZL3CC 20m ssb
LZ1GJ/p 20m cw - my keyer paddle failed before I could send the reference
ZL2AJ 20M SSB
YO6PIB 20M SSB
ZL2KGF 20M SSB
Heard many more EU stations on summits but was not heard by them - I am guessing because of stronger more “local” signals.
Started packing up after 0800 as light was fading and I had a long rough drive out from the summit.
Thanks to all for a fun evening.
Cheers,
Peter VK3PF
PS: I started using a KX2 to a link dipole with the centre at about 7-8 m. After the paddle failure, swapped to an FT-817.
Edit: And, for the record, I actually really do like the auto-closing of long threads. The hundreds-of-replies-long monsters were a right royal pain in the proverbial, especially when I was trying to read them from places with slower and less-reliable Net connections.
…and I’m often sorely tempted to take sarcasm absolutely straight, but then my dad was a little prone to over-indulging his sarcastic side sometimes, and taking what he’d said absolutely straight was the best (and sometimes the only) defense.
I did enjoy the other day, typing a fairly lengthy reply to a thread on a small keyboard (the origin of fingers and thumbs?) only to have it rejected when I hit submit because someone beat me to the 100th post. And the content of their offering? - Post 100🧐
There does seem to be an increase in the number of posts simply remarking on the number of posts
At my end I certainly did not have any “local” strong stations on either 20m or 30m preventing me working DX. Both bands exhibited an unusual scarcity of signals from Europe and apart from one QSO into Slovenia on 30m and one short distance QSO (but only S7) on 20m, more or less everything else heard from EU was in the noise. By comparison, it was very frustrating to hear a string of VKs and a number of ZLs working Andrew VK1AD/2 yet not be able to get my 30 watts heard when he was not being called by anyone. The same happened with Andrew VK1DA on CW.
I am not entirely sure what was happening - perhaps an element of one way propagation?
Sorry I missed an S2S with you Peter, likewise things were quite frenetic at times and it was rather hard to keep up with rapidly changing events.
Although did not get a really high score was pleased with the results of the S2S event. 30M was the band for me with my 9M squid pole vertical.
A good number of EU CW S2S and was very happy with a S2S with LM10SOTA a special event station in Norway. Have only rarely worked Norway let alone a summit.
Sunday morning bumped into K4QS whom was on a summit on the far eastern side of USA. Quite a challenge.
Again 30M so was worth the camping overnight. Surprisingly Sunday morning was quite mild and really only re set the gear up on a whim.
Thanks to the organisers of the event and looking forward to the next S2S party.
If the goal of these events is more DX S2S QSO’s, we VK’s need to periodically stand by for “DX only” replies. It’s human nature to pick off the rock-crushing signals first, but if locals “consume” the entire opening, that goal has not been achieved. We know EU is going to be weak - that is a given based on where we are in relation to them. I once sat and listened to OH9XX trying to break through the VK wall on a VK2 for over 10 minutes. The wall never crumbled, and the QSO never happened…
73 John VK4TJ
The same comment applies to the DX end as well, I suspect. I had issues finding and holding a frequency as others simply jumped on the frequency that I had spotted. At other times, I called DX stations repeatedly with no responses heard. I also repeatedly called CQ with no response for periods. Probably partly due to low power at my end, but it all seemed to be rather crazy out there…
Apart from a couple of contacts early after setting up, I did not go back to 40 m, mainly listening for and calling DX stations on 20 m and other bands when I saw spots as well as calling CQ. I also swapped between SSB & CW when chasing. No complaints from here about my results - I am happy. Further comments will be posted to my blog in the day or 2.
Hi Peter,
With VK-EU and similar contacts, the added problem is that there may be someone on your frequency that can be heard in Europe but not in Australia and to be fair, he(or she) can’t hear you either.
With some kind of “back-channel” this information can be passed to the activator from the chasers or the other activators.
Regular in my log Peter, quite a few guys now I know their voice don’t even need to hear the callsign. You might not always be the strongest station but we usually manage to get each other in the log.
Had no real issues on Saturday apart from some European station kept calling Summit to Summit at various times but could not here me.
I just looked through all of the spotted and logged contacts and I must say I am really happy with the support that came out for this event. Despite bad weather in the UK and some parts of Europe and those damn mozzies in Australia, all but eight of the alerted summits were activated (about 14% had to cancel). Considering the conditions that still was a very good outcome.
But what really amazed me was the extra 16 summits that joined the event on the day that’s an additional 28 % !! So overall we were 14% up on the expected number of summit activations!
I wish the band conditions had been better, but despite that I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable activation - once again, from the organisers - THANK YOU for your support - you should all be proud.
For those who like looking at lists - here’s the final list (If I have you marked as not taking part and you did - please let me know):
Im not sure if this is possible ot not but an animation of all the s2s calls drawing arcs on a map would be really cool. I dont have the skills to do this but if someone did it would be fantastic
Great idea - especially if it could display them over time - then we could see how conditions changed.
I have to admit, I wouldn’t know how to start to create this either …