Pat, I don’t see any alerts for the W4G gathering. My wife doesn’t have anything on my calendar so far, so maybe I can sneak out to a summit near me with the hopes of having several S2S qsos. What day and time would be best for me to get out for a couple hours?
Second question: in the past I’ve seen that you’ve spotted youself in the top band, any plans for that? Does an activation need to be done at night? Just curious. I’ve had success activating on 80m with an EFHW about six feet off the ground.Would a similar antenna for 160m yield anything beyond NVIS distances? I’d be in NY.
First, I do realize that you had asked Pat about 160m ops, so not trying to be rude and cut him off. I had asked a similar question a while back, and our friends in G-land answered in that month’s SOTA News. The link is:
Again, not trying to be rude to Pat (ok, maybe a little since I have to work and can’t make the camp out and am a bit jealous - HI!), but thought the additional 160m info may be interesting.
Kevin: I think we are planning on playing it pretty loose and figure out who’s going where and with whom at camp. We will probably have to drive up to a high point to post the next days alerts once decisions are made. I think Friday-Sun will have the most activators on the air, but I know some people will be activating on their way to camp on Thursday as well. With most of the summits being close to camp I would imagine there will be lots of mid-morning activations and continuing on during the day.
I think a night-time 160m activation could be very cool and I will bring it up to the group. If that happens, it will probably be Friday night since we are planning on eating out that night and can maybe do a drive-up after dinner.
Mike: Thanks for the link and ideas for some 160m antennas. Definitely need to come up with something better for top band.
Awesome, this will be a fun experiment. It’s actually easier for me to do a night activation, and Friday is good for me. The W4G-gathering folks have an advantage in that with multiple activators so close together, you’ll make 160m contacts through ground wave. Furthermore, 40m ops will be enhanced compared to daytime. Your efforts shouldn’t be wasted, you’ll make contacts.
Mike, good info, thanks for chiming in. I’ve got 500m of antenna wire from Sotabeams, making antennas isn’t a problem. Design is. Thanks for the link.
The idea of a nighttime ops on 160 meters has me really thinking now… There are several possibilities my only problem is I need to design an antenna to use!
I’m new to SOTA and local to Roswell, GA. Im curious if this would be a good event for a beginner activator. Im an Intermediate camper in good shape for climbing hills. Love the mountains of north georgia. I have enough gear to support myself, kx2 with a buddipole and enough camp kitchen essentials for backpacking. I have zero cw skills, so ssb or maybe digital?
I work through the week so would drive up Saturday later in the morning.
73
-Dana
This would be a perfect opportunity to get out and activate. You can always tag along with an experienced activator if you want to have kind of a no-stress activation and get some tips. Looks like the weather should be nice and hopefully condx will follow.
Yes! Come on out. We will be constantly monitoring 146.52FM and the W4WCR 443.150 pl127.3 repeater throughout the weekend. I may have extra space in my pop-up trailer and there will be at least one person back in camp all weekend.
There will be several SOTA newbies all the way to SOTA goats and in between. I fall in that in between category.
Ryan - WG4I