70cms News
Last month the preparation of a report was rather a rush as it came just before a trip to Kefalonia in SV8. I did not intend to activate the island, but took the opportunity to check out quite a number of the summits, some of which look to be reasonably accessible, others not so. I also managed to slip the Standard C710 triband handheld into the hand luggage and did a fair bit of monitoring, but heard absolutely nothing on 70cms FM. Contacts on 2m FM were also hard to come by. I suspect that was due to the fact that my Greek is near to zero and I have no skills in QSO-speak in the language. I did manage to make contact on 2m FM with Stavros SV0FM who spoke fluent English and Alex SW3ORU who braved the language barrier to provide another QSO. I intend to pack the 817 next time, but I am still no wiser as to whether 70cms will be a possibility for activating from the island. Maybe someone can enlighten me, but I suspect it is a 70cms black hole…... or should that be white hole with white noise emanating from it?
Due to the time away, the 70cms report this time cover logs submitted for activations between 19th July and 30th August. I was pleased to note a number of new entrants into the database for the band and will mention these as I go along. The main activity has again been in the UK and Slovenia, though I had some surprises as I read through the data.
Trends
For my trends section this time, I thought I would have a quick look at how activations on the band compared with previous years. Slovenia of course has only been active in SOTA for less than 2 years, so the comparison has been made in Germany (DM – Low Mountains) and the UK with reference to Slovenia for 2008 and 2009. The number of activators in other countries is too small to consider to provide a viable comparison. I suppose that this highlights the nature of 70cms operation particularly FM which can just be a case of a casual look on the band at the end of an activation. I have also combined the UK areas since many activations take place outside of the activators home area.
Year / UK (combined) / Germany (DM) / Slovenia
2005 -------------------- 53 / 34
2006 -------------------- 56 / 32
2007 -------------------- 51 / 42
2008 -------------------- 52 / 50 / 10
2009 to end August --- 49 / 15 / 35
This highlights the rapid decline in activations in Germany with the revisions to the summits, though I must say that recent HF activations may be going some way to slowing this trend down. However, it is clear that a steady rise was cut short in its prime. Activations across the UK have on the other hand stayed fairly stable.
Slovenia
As a large proportion of the S5 activators rediscovered their 70cms rigs this month, I will start with the activations from Slovenia. There have been 45 activations between 19th July and 30th August that have included QSOs on 70cms. FM was used without exception throughout this period. For this report I am trying out a date based approach rather than an activator based one, so please let me know if this makes more sense to you or whether you prefer to see how many times a specific activator has been out.
Having said all that, I would like to start by noting 3 new activators on 70cms – S52TC activated Kepa S5/KA-003 on 29th July and Stol S5/KA-001 and 12th August. Marijan S56IAA activated Košutnikov turn S5/KA-004 on 15th August and Danilo S56SFZ activated Velika Raduha S5/KS-012 on 23rd August. None of these activations made more than a couple of contacts, but Danilo’s is worthy of particular mention as it was a first time SOTA activation.
So to the diary…… on 19th July, Milos S57D and Sabina S57BNX.activated Gora (Sveti Ahac) S5/RG-038 making 7 contacts between them. Two of those contacts were S2S with Jurij S57XX on the summit of Gradišce (Njivica) S5/KS-020 from which he made a total of 6 contacts. There was then a period with no activity on the band until Milan S58MU made 2 contacts from Malenski vrh S5/CP-009 on 27th July. Milan was out again on 29th July from the summits of Koprivnik S5/CP-005 and Mladi vrh S5/CP-006 making 4 and 7 contacts respectively.
On 30th July, Zvone S57PZ (formerly S57OPZ, congratulations from the Summitsbase team) activated Vrtaca S5/KA-002 with 2 70cms contacts in his log. Lukas S7LU was on the same summit and carried out a dual activation as the summit is also Wertatscha OE/KT-070, logging 3 contacts for each.
Now to August – the month started with Andy S53MN activating Hochstuhl OE/KT-063 and Marjan S57JAZ activating Rjavina S5/JA-009. Marjan qualified the summit on the band. Almost a week later on 7th August, Miha S54KM was out for the first time since April when he activated Sveti Trije Kralji S5/TK-025, a single contact being made on 70cms. There was more activity the next day which was a Saturday when Zvone S57PZ carried out a dual summit activation of Hochstuhl OE/KT-063 and Stol S5/KA-001 with a total of 11 contacts. The same day, Darko S57AX was on Altemaver S5/CP-001 making 5 contacts, Bojan S56LXN activated Kepa S5/KA-003 with just one 70cms QSO in his log and Aco S52Q managed a creditable 7 contacts from Kladivo S5/KA-006. Also to make a significant number of QSOs was Milan S58MU who made 8 contacts from Gabrška gora S5/CP-017 on Sunday 9th August.
The action continued when Zvone S57PZ activated Koschutnikturm OE/KT-079 and Košutnikov turn S5/KA-004 on 12th August making 5 contacts. The next day Marjan S56JAZ was on the summit of Razor S5/JA-005, his log showing a single 70cms QSO. Bojan S56LXN was out activating on 15th August on Košutnikov turn S5/KA-004, with 3 contacts being made on the band. Also active that day was Andy S53MN on Kalški greben S5/KS-007, with just one contact made and Milos activated Mangart S5/JA-003 from which his log included 7 contacts.
Sunday 16th August saw no less than 4 activators using 70cms - Andy S53MN made 4 contacts from Skuta S5/KS-003, 3 of which were S2S. Miran S56UBS was on Veliki Javornik S5/BR-005 from which he made 5 contacts on 70cms. Darko S57AX and Jurij S57AJJ both activated the dual summit of Hochstuhl OE/KT-063 and Stol S5/KA-001 with 11 contacts between them.
During the following week, Aco S52Q activated Prisojnik (Prisank) S5/JA-008 on 18th August with 2 contacts and two days later was on Storžic S5/KA-005 when he made 4 QSOs. The following Sunday saw Danilo S56SFZ make the SOTA debut already mentioned and a further 4 activators were out on the summits. Darko S57AX was out once again, this time on Govca (Govešca) S5/KS-015 with 2 contacts,and Aco S52Q was also out again making 3 contacts, this time from Velika Raduha? S5/KS-012. Bojan S56LXN activated Vrtaca S5/KA-002 and Wertatscha OE/KT-070 with 4 contacts and Jurij S57AJJ made 2 S2S contacts from Govca (Govešca) S5/KS-015.
The activity shown on the database includes an activation of Begunjšcica (Veliki vrh) S5/KA-007 by Lukas S57LU on Friday 28th August. On Sunday 30th August, Zvone S57PZ activated Slatnik S5/JA-035, qualifying the summit with 4 contacts and Marjan S56JAZ made a single contact from Skuta S5/KS-003.
Gerald, G4OIG
V poročilu ni vključena včerajšnja aktivacija Milana S58MU z Golega vrha.
73, Miloš S57D