Just wondering, if anyone has worked all the continents (including Antarctica) during an activation of a summit?
With current band conditions, this would be a tall order right now.
YYY
No but I did manage to do it during the Eurojam special event station I helped operate for 10 days. GB5EJ down at highlands park back in 2005. I got Antarctica on psk31 and asked for an ssb contact he jumped onto ssb, completed the contact then disappeared back to psk before a pileup started. I had saidd to my fellow ops it was my aim that week to work all 7 continents. I had the 6 for days and Antarctica was my last one. That’s my first and last Antarctic qso’s to date.
To operate all continents on one activation you would need to stay on the summit from dawn till dusk to get the DX from both parts of the world. I remember from the GB5EJ days that Australia came online in the morning with usa and south America coming in on the evening.
We did enjoy a 7 element beam (at least 3 ele on all bands it was resonant for) on a tall mast trailer with flat surroundings to the horizon running 100w.
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I’ve done the six a few times Mike, but I’ve never worked Antarctica to this day.
If trying to achieve this I would without doubt focus my attentions on FT8 and CW as the most likely to succeed. If you pull this off with SSB, it will be an impressive achievement worthy of note.
I assume you’re going to attempt this soon - GL.
I think it’s just a question of arranging skeds with sufficiently well armed station chasers, which is not an easy task, then staying in the summit for nearly 24 hours and finally having the propagation gods in a good mood.
Trivial… 
73,
Guru
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Getting Antarctica is the tricky one, Guru. I’ve worked all the continents from GW/NW-070 Great Orme, all ssb, however, only six in one day. Antarctica was worked on an activation some 10 months earlier, therefore, don’t really count.
Having said this, there can’t be too summits, from which all the continents have been worked.
73 Mike
Can’t be indeed. I guess it would just be a case of noting the handful from which Antarctica has been worked then checking for the other six.
Great Orme is clearly one; I wonder how many others there are, if any?
Well, for anyone who fanciesr taking on the Challenge of working all the continents on a single summit activation, I’ve done some searching thru my logs for GW/NW/-070 Great Orme and these are what I think are the earliest contacts I’ve worked all the continents…
Let me stress, these were done on different activations, nevertheless all Great Orme, using its awesome take-off, combined with the undisputed king of SOTA antennas for DXing, the Antron-99.
05:40z YU1AB Europe
05:50Z VK3AFW Oceania
05:53Z KA3RCS North America
06:54Z RI1ANT Antarctica
07:52z JA1RKL Asia
08:58z 7X2ARA Africa
09:43z PY7AHA South America
This is a theoretical example of how, with the blessing of the radio gods and given a following wind, it would be possible to work all of the continents in just a few hours. However, in reality, it will be much, much tougher.
Finding SOTA firsts, gets more and more difficult each year, however, this one appears to still be up for grabs.
YYY
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that would be some activation if they were all on one activation.
Indeed Tony, not easy.
One of the VK Activators messaged me to say, South America would be a headache for them.
Same for EU too, I guess. In better conditions, I’ve worked quite a few North Americans around 0600/0700z, however, South America is fairly rare at that time from a summit.
YYY
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I’ve worked the 6 continents (but not Antarctica) again on this morning’s activation of G/SP-015 which is now drawing to a close.
Would be great if RI1ANT suddenly appeared before I go QRT…. But I’m still pretty happy!
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Was that the new antenna?
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No, that is still awaiting its debut after it got inadvertently left in the car before heading up to Gun G/SP-013 yesterday (there, I’ve reported on it).
This morning I was looking for JA S2S in the JA SOTA QSO Party, so with those sort of aspirations, only one antenna is reliably up to the job - and that’s the 20m quarterwave vertical with groundplane. Having said that, I didn’t manage to work any JA S2S anyway - but I did work plenty, including lots of DX and S2S - and the aforementioned all-six-continents-but-not-Antarctica.
(My 20m GP also needed a summit test having been partly refurbished, partly remade by me at home this week. No major problem with it, but it had become rather battered and bruised and was developing some ominous-looking weak spots! That’s the trouble with my antennnas - they get A LOT of use!)
83 QSOs
20m CW: 42
20m SSB: 23
20m FT4: 8
20m FT8: 9
2m FM: 1
6 continents, 27 DXCCs
Africa: EA8
Asia: JA, UA9
Europe: 9A, DL, EA, EU, F, G, HA, HB, I, IS0, LY, LZ, OE, OK, OH, RA, SP, SV, SV5, UR
North America: V3, W
Oceania: VK
South America: YV
7 S2S:
EC2AG on EA2/BI-027
EA3HP/P on EA3/BC-065
EA4HCF on EA4/GU-014
EA8/M0KVI/P on EA8/LA-026
HB9AFI/P on HB/VD-037
SQ9MDF on OM/ZA-046
SV5/DL2DXA/P on SV/AG-053
So while the main objective (working the JA SOTA QSO Party stations S2S) was not met, it was still a fun activation with plenty of S2S and DX activity. The highlight was undoubtedly around 0645z when three VKs were worked in as many minutes on 20m SSB. Really strong signals with great audio too.
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I’m glad conditions up there were better than those down here 
your signal was fading in and out constantly, I had to use the narrowest filter available to copy you.
I managed to record a short video of you disappearing during CQ, I hope you don’t mind: https://youtu.be/psncUOYXKSQ
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Thanks for the video Carlo. I don’t mind at all! In fact I’ve taken the liberty of sharing the clip on my social media - so I hope you don’t mind that. Thanks for calling in - great to work you.
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