VK is holding a SOTA Party on the weekend of 7/8 March 2015.
I plan to activate VK2/SM-053 (8 points) on 20m 14.310 MHz SSB +/- QRM. I am looking for DX SOTA S2S contacts on Saturday 7 March from 0700 to 0815 UTC. I will self spot.
Sunset is 08:45 UTC, I need some daylight time to get off the mountain.
Loads of people have done it apart from Delilah. Here are the S2S logs from the award. These donât include people who did it before the S2S award scheme started. From the top of my head, the first in the UK was Robert G0PEB from Isle Of Wight.
11/23/2013 Kinder Scout G1INK Mt Taylor VK1NAM/P
11/23/2013 Kinder Scout G1INK Mt Taylor VK1RX/P
11/23/2013 Gun M1EYP One Tree Hill VK1MA/P
12/7/2013 Dungavel Hill GM4COX Tuggeranong Hill VK1RX/P
12/7/2013 Dungavel Hill GM4COX Spring Hill VK1MA/P
3/9/2014 Gun M1EYP Mt Ainslie VK1MA/P
3/19/2014 The Cloud M1EYP Mt Ainslie VK1MBE
3/19/2014 The Cloud M1EYP Mt Taylor VK1NAM/P
4/19/2014 Normanby Top G4ASA Mt Taylor VK1MA/P
8/31/2014 Shillhope Law G4WSB Mt Ainslie VK1MBE/P
8/31/2014 Shillhope Law G4WSB Spring Hill VK1NAM/P2
8/31/2014 Shillhope Law G4WSB Mt Stromlo VK1MA/P
9/7/2014 Walton Hill G6WRW Mt Dandenong VK3AFW/P
9/7/2014 Walton Hill G6WRW Mt Gawler VK5FO/P
9/7/2014 Nine Standards Rigg G4WSB Mt Randall VK6NU/P
9/7/2014 Nine Standards Rigg G4WSB Mt Gawler VK5FO/P
9/12/2014 Cheriton Hill M0IML Springbrook Mtn VK1MBE/P
9/12/2014 Cheriton Hill M0IML Tuggeranong Hill VK1NAM/P
9/17/2014 Mynydd Cynros GW4VPX Mt Ainslie VK1MBE
9/17/2014 Mynydd Cynros GW4VPX Mt Stromlo VK1NAM/P
9/17/2014 Detling Hill M0IML Mt Lofty VK5PAS/P
9/17/2014 Detling Hill M0IML Mt Ainslie VK1MBE/P
9/17/2014 Detling Hill M0IML Mt Stromlo VK1NAM/P
9/28/2014 Cheriton Hill M0IML Mt Ginini VK1NAM/P
9/28/2014 Hafod Ithel GW4VPX Mt Ginini VK1NAM/P
10/3/2014 Detling Hill M0IML Brown Hill Range VK5PAS/P
10/3/2014 Detling Hill M0IML Mt Ainslie VK1NAM/P
10/3/2014 Mynydd y Betws GW4VPX Brown Hill Range VK5PAS/P
10/3/2014 Mynydd y Betws GW4VPX Mt Ainslie VK1NAM/P
10/11/2014 Normanby Top G4ASA Mt Randall VK6NU/P
10/11/2014 Normanby Top G4ASA Bobbara Mountain VK1DA/2
10/29/2014 The Cloud M1EYP Mt Ainslie VK1MBE/P
10/29/2014 The Cloud M1EYP Mt Majura VK1NAM/P
10/31/2014 The Cloud M1EYP Mt Taylor VK1NAM/P
11/15/2014 The Cloud M1EYP The Hump VK3BYD/P
11/15/2014 The Cloud M1EYP Wingecarribee VK2IO/P
11/15/2014 The Cloud M1EYP Granite Mountain VK2YW/P
11/15/2014 The Cloud M1EYP VK2/SM-053 VK1NAM/2
11/15/2014 Beacon Batch G4WSB VK2/SM-053 VK2NAM/P2
11/15/2014 Cheriton Hill M0IML VK2/SM-053 VK1NAM/2
11/15/2014 Cheriton Hill M0IML The Hump VK3BYD/P
OK that first list was for UK stations. Here are all the Europeans who have an Europe-Australia S2S logged. There will be others which predate the S2S award.
I went to the database, picked a country from the Summit to Summit Roll of Honour, listed the logs of the top few folk, and eyeballed the tables. Took, oh, twenty seconds to find enough data to disprove the âonly YYYâ hypothesis, and a minute or two more to find that the list of EU folk whoâve managed S2S contacts with VK isnât that short. I figured Andyâd be in a better position to produce an actual list, thoughâŠ
Right !, But that is not exactly how Andy has managed to draw a complete list. He may have other tools, access to raw data which provides a much better overall picture.
I had thought with the amount of s2s data it wouldnât be so clearly visible on a per call sign basis. Clearly this demonstrates the elegance of the databases organisation.
As I say it was just something I recall reading at some point - I wasnât stating it as fact that YYY was exclusive to having achieved this, more of a ponder - a hypothesis as you mention.
The tools from the web view on the DB are limited to what has been implemented. They provide the commonly needed views. Thereâs always room for more limited only by my time to implement them.
In the second list presented it was:
from every userid in the s2s data (gives activations with an s2s qso)
join up the the users data (gives callsign of user and home association)
join up the summits (gives summit ref and name)
join up the chasers (gives QSO partner call and his summit)
join up the associations (gives continent ref)
Then show only people who have Europe as the home association continent who worked someone with a call starting VK when their summitref didnât start VK. Simples! The reason for checking the activator summitref doesnât start VK is because Ed DD5LP was VK2JI. His log contains lots of S2S contacts with VK summits from when he was in VK which we donât want. But his user records correctly identifies his home an now in Europe, so the query needs a tweak to ensure we get accurate answers. Itâs only when I saw how many VK S2S contacts I realised we need to exclude some of the QSOs.
Itâs one of the reasons SQL is so much fun, you donât write a procedural request saying how to find the data (you can) but you list a functional requirement that says this is the result I want go find data that matches. And for that reason itâs one of the reasons why SQL is such a right royal pain in the nether regions.
[quote=âG2HFR, post:11, topic:10338â]not exactly how Andy has managed[/quote]Andy has the keys to the database and can look inside. The rest of us just get to look in through the windows.
The ideal 20m DX window from Europe to the east coast of Australia is in the period 90 minutes leading up to VK (East Coast) sunset. I started making EU SOTA contacts in November 2013, from there the VK to EU S2S opportunities grew.
Yes Mike YYY is a regular S2S contact but so is Herbert OE9HRV with my first S2S contact to Lichtenstein HB0/LI-004 and Barry M0IML activating G/SE and G/SP peaks. Regular chasers include Don G0RQL, Mike G6TUH, Frans ON5SWA, Geert PA7ZEE, Manuel EA2DT and Viktor HA5LV plus many more.
Join in on the SOTA chase, give me a call Saturday morning UTC.
John VK6NU can recommend the timing window for the west coast of Australia.
Hello Andrew,
Will listen out. Sol numbers have been dreadful in the last few days aided by solar storms so hopefully it will clear soon. Here plagued by strong wind, rain/sleet. If the wind abates will put the mast up to improve chances to hear you. Lock down here right now.
Good luck in any event.
Cheers
Mike
What do you mean you donât want my S2S contacts in VK - I want them! Joking apart (I do realise Andy was referring to the list). I was very happy to be able to bag some EU-VK contacts from SOTA summits quite soon after I moved to Germany from Australia, and the S2S contacts were icing on the cake. I had no home station possibilities so itâs amazing what can be achieved from a summit with low power and the commited crowd of chasers we have in SOTA!
As regards next Saturday - It doesnât look good for an S2S from my end (sorry Andrew) both the weather forecast and the fact that I caught the stinking flu bug thatâs going around means Iâll most likely be at home. If things change, Iâll see if I can get out perhaps to Irchenhausen (no winter bonus points for this one but it is my closest summit).
A new challenge: what about the QSO with Phil @G4OBK for an EA2 <->G Long Path QSO?
Could be this the âever forever everâ QSO distance record?
Ok, I know that Philâs callsign does not start with VK, butâŠ
Perhaps I could also try to contact myself on good DX condx⊠But sadly, I guess it would not be valid, being both operators on the same AZâŠ