DL4MFM's Amateur Radio Blog
Amateur Radio Activities
Hike to the watermill (first mention 1253 CE), 4000 years old hunebeds (Dolmen) and the Wittekindsburg (castle ruins from the early middle ages / Saxon Wars, sadly no WCA reference) and operating from the bush in TERRA.vita Nature Park (GMA DA/NI-280, GMA Castle DAC/NI-001, DLFF-0125). The temperatures were about 25°C, sunny with a short rain break. In the log are 20 QSOs.
After three month of renewed massively reduction of SOTA references in DM I wanted to take a look back at the SOTA activations. Is it just as predicted that nothing will change? Or do the deletions of the many references effects?
From the GMA log the trend is clearly read. In February everyone has probably visited his local mountains. A fabulous activity can be seen with the February peak
From March, the GMA-members are not so often QRV from the DM mountains (blue line), but DA mountains experienced an unbroken popularity and reach in May 2016 even a peak (red line), DL mountains (Germany Alpine SOTA Association, green line) continue to play almost no matter.
The SOTA year 2016 began excelling. In the same period in 2015 there was an increase by 80% (!) of activities.
(Blue = German stations, Orange = foreign visitors)
In the period after the big cutting it looks a bit different. The SOTA activities decreased by 23%, the activations of German operators by 30%. The number of participants has declined by 20%, the share of German Activators even by 33%.
Because of the excellent start to the year 2016 compared to 2015 looks positive.
Here the share of German Activators January-May …
Here the share of German Activators March-May ..
In DA-references (that’s valid for GMA only) it looks like that the number of activator remained unchanged (January-May 2016 compared to 2015), but the number of activations increased to 40%. The Chaser have logged a total of 2,425 different DA-activations of 247 different stations on 375 different DA references.
During the same period 933 activations of DM references were via SOTAwatch published with 153 activators on 457 summits.
(Sources: http://www.cqgma.de, http: //www.sotawatch.org)
In early May I (M0GQY) was on a trip to North Wales for operating from SOTA summits and for a little bit sightseeing. I stayed at Mike, GW0DSP, and his wife Anne, who were fabulous hosts. Thanks again! The wx was quiet good, sometimes very windy on the mountains. HF conditions were sadly not so good. Steve, G1INK, joined us for the most time and we also met Mike, 2E0YYY, on G/SP-010, where we set up 3 stations.
The flight was from Bremen to Manchester and back. Of course, there was again a special security check because of the radio equipment, but everything was okay and the inspectors as usual very friendly.
Here some impressions from the trip:
CASTLES ON THE AIR-DAY 2016: okay- my decision was „Burg Hachen“ . WX was very cold and misty. I made some QSO as DM7N on 40m CW and then qsyed to the hot coffee
I was today the first time this year qrv from Piesberg (DM/NS-108 / DLFF-0125) Windchillfactor: ICECOLD. Station: 20w, 5 ele Yagi
Karte von OpenStreetMap – Veröffentlicht unter ODbL
07-FEB-2016: Hankenüll, DM/NS-058, JO42CC. This is a typical landscape from the Teutoburg Forrest. A small ridgeway and on both sides it falls steep down. This was the last SOTA activation from this summit, meanwhile it is deleted. 50 QSOs within one hour, 11°C, heavy winds, 25w output to a linked dipole and a lot S2S (Summit to Summit) qsos.
Die vermutlich letzte, für SOTA gültige, Aktivierung des Hüggels. Zum 1. März 2016 werden hunderte Gipfel aus der deutschen SOTA Liste gestrichen, weil auch im Mittelgebirge die Maßstäbe der Hochgebirge angewendet werden: 150m Schartenhöhe. Das bedeutet, hier in der Osnabrücker Gegend bleibt nur noch der Dörenberg übrig … aber zum Glück gibt es ja „GMA„, bei dem keine Schartenhöhe angewandt wird, sondern der Spaß im Vordergrund steht.
Für den diesjährigen 10m Contest habe ich mich für die 2x CW Klasse entschieden. Station: FT-817 ND plus 25w PA, Delta Loop ca. 26m über Grund, 350m ü. NHN. Im Log landeten 41 QSO, das ist weniger als die Hälfte, die ich sonst in SSB habe. Score 1400 Pts, das kann ich jetzt nicht einschätzen, wo man da landet … einfach überraschen lassen. 73 von den Bergen, Mario
Like some years before, I activated on the last day of the year the Agri Bavnehøj in the Mols Bjerge (OZFF-0002). Exactly this 2 hours of the activation we had rain during our holidays.
Only 25 QSOs came into my log. Again, I have a feeling that the QSO number (from SOTA-referenced summits) is steadily decreasing, while the effort of the station becomes larger again. No more QRP, dipole antennas instead an MP-1 portable antenna.
Summit Activation #503
Ein weiteres Mal war ich von meinem Hausberg, dem Piesberg (DM/NS-108 in JO42AH), qrv. Gestern hatten wir Herbstwetter mit Sturm und Regen, aber heute war das Wetter für eine kleine Bergaktivierung geeignet. Etwa 2 Stunden war ich qrv und habe nach neuen und bekannten Stationen gesucht. OE, Österreich, habe ich noch nie vom Piesberg gearbeitet. Das wäre was … und wie immer im Marconi Contest waren die OK Stationen (Tschechien) mit starkem Signal in Osnabrück zu hören. Mit Tom, DL1DVE, hatte ich eine S2S (Summit to Summit) Verbindung mit DA/SX-224 in der Nähe von Dresden für 426km. Dann hatte ich Glück und habe OE5D gehört und auf Anhieb erreicht. ODX heute war G7RAF auf der „Isle of Wight“ für 668km. Station: 25w output, 5 ele Yagi (DK7ZB).
Again 144MHz from my Hausberg „Piesberg“ DM/NS-108 in JO42AH: Yesterday we had autumn weather with rain and storm, but today the wx was okay for some QSO. So I was nearly 2h qrv hoping for new stations. OE is missing from here. As always in Marconi Contest the OK stations were very strong. With Tom, DL1DVE I had a S2S (summit to summit) QSO into Saxonia for 426km. Then I worked luckily OE5D 😀 ODX was G7RAF from the Isle of Wight for 668km. Station: 25w, 5 ele Yagi (DK7ZB).
