Monthly Archives: August 2017

DD5LP/P – August 13th. 2017 – DL/AL-149 Blender and DL/AL-179 Weichberg (sort of).

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Preparation:

After meeting Thomas DK1TK in a local electrical retail store, where he works and realising we were both Hams, we discussed me taking him on a SOTA activation, so he could see if it’s something he would like to get involved with. He was already equipped with good portable gear and operates portable QRP with a KX2 and a home made vertical antenna on a 10m fibre glass pole.  After some discussion we decided on activating Blender (a reasonably easy summit) along with Hauchenberg (DL/AL-145). My research on Hauchenberg however showed that the location in SOTA Maps for the summit and that shown on other maps was different and so I sent a note to the last activator – Herbert OE9HRV to ask his advice. Unfortunately I only received a reply on the day of activation, when we had already decided to play it safe and make Weichberg our second summit. Perhaps we’ll do Hauchenberg next time – it will require a lot of time to climb and we were limited on time as it turned out anyway.

Equipment from my side would be the usual FT-817 plus amplifier, 6 metre pole and linked dipole.

The Locations:

Blender is located quite a long way from my home QTH, west of Kempton and north of Buchenberg. After a small diversion to pick up Thomas en-route, we got there at around the planned time. I had hoped to go to a different location on the hill than my last activation of this summit a couple of years ago but it turned out that what is shown on open street maps as a road is not much larger than a footpath, so the road up to the radio tower was the route we ended up going on and parking before climbing the last (steep)  ascent and in fact going and finding a seat across the summit from the tower, (well within the activation zone).

Weichberg, near Rettenbach is a summit I know very well, it’s “almost” a local summit for me but this time we would be approaching it from the other side along the B472 road.

The Activation:

These were not to be quick activations. The weather was nice, we set up both Thomas’s and my equipment at Blender so that we could demonstrate and compare. This was the first time I had seem a KX2 from Elecraft – it is indeed a very nice (if expensive) piece of equipment. Most impressive is the ability of the built-in ATU to tune almost any antenna. Unfortunately the front end was not able to filter my transmissions on 40m out from the 20m band (we were very close after all). From my side, it was clear the extra power of the amplifier (35w on 40m) makes a difference when calling non-SOTA stations.

Although Thomas did work a couple of SOTA stations, as well as a few non-SOTA stations (so qualifying the summit) he was put off a little by the pile-ups. English is not Thomas’s first language and this combined with the speed of the contacts took a little away from the SOTA experience. I have suggested that we look at GMA next time, while this would be mostly in German and somewhat less hectic.

We had several interested people come by either on foot or on bikes and a few stopped to ask about the hobby. One I thought was an amateur as he knew about propagation and antennas, but it seems he was more of an SWL. In any case I gave him a brochure and he went off happy.

After about 90 minutes on Blender, we decided to pack up and head off for what I expected to be a 30-40 minute drive over to Weichberg.

The drive turned out to be almost an hour, which surprised me and restricted what we could do. We agreed to just take Thomas’s equipment up to the top of Weichberg and let him have a go without interference from my station. Thomas decided to use a different antenna this time and he tied a large nut to the end of some thin silver coated copper wire and threw it up over a convenient tree branch. Again the ATU in the KX2 amazed me that it could tune this random length of wire, but it did. How well the 10w from the KX2 radiated, I don’t know but reception was good, we could hear a station from the middle east as well as stations from all around Europe. The band conditions were very good this time out. Thomas worked a couple of special event stations in France and Germany as he likes to collect their QSL cards and then we decided to call it a day.

  After dropping Thomas off, I arrived home about 90 minutes later than I had planned. A good day out, but next time I need to check better how long the drive to, and between, the summits will take.

Photos – Blender:

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Photos – Weichberg:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

SOTABeams Band Hopper Linked Dipole.

LambdaHalbe 6m Mini-mast.

Modified QAMP amplifier (35W on 40m, 25W on 20m).

Thick plastic painters sheet

Screw-in sun-umbrella base

Log Blender:Log Weichberg:

No log for DD5LP. DK1TK/P operation only.

Conclusions:

Although the GPS Navi only let me down once on this trip (en-route to Weichberg from Blender), I knew the suggested route was wrong (probably shorter but using farm roads) and was able to quickly correct the route. There are a few summits, not far from Blender that I have either never activated or not activated this year. I would like to go back to the area and combine two or three into a day. I MUST however check driving times very carefully and also plan for rapid installation and pack-up to fit them all in.

At the moment 40m is still the “money band” but 20 metres is getting better again. The luxury of a short antenna and speedy installation may have me using my 15/17/20m J-pole antennas again next time.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP/P – July 15th. 2017 – DM/BW-348 Gehrenberg (group activation).

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Preparation:

This activation was planned in conjunction with a trip to the HAM RADIO event in Friedrichshafen. After the last revision of the list of DM/BW summits, there is now only one practical summit near the HAM RADIO show which is Gehrenberg, a summit I have activated twice before.

The overall plan came together via the SOTA reflector and it was possible to build a “SOTA Day” for the Saturday of Friedrichshafen. This started with the regular 12 noon meet-up at the QSL wall followed by the afternoon lectures, then came the SOTA group activation and finally I also organised the (very well attended) SOTA dinner in the evening.

Equipment packed to support this group activation was my usual SOTA kit.

The Location:

Gehrenberg should be about a 45 minutes drive from the “Neue Messe” in Friedrichshafen, where the HAM RADIO event takes place. I was lucky enough also to find a restaurant for the dinner, not too far from the summit also, so things would not be to bad a drive for all taking part.

The Activation:

My in-car GPS is a couple of years old now but has just had new maps added and I was confident from previous outings that I could rely on it bringing me, and my two passengers (Gerard VK2IO and John VK6NU) to the summit without any problems. I was so wrong! The GPS Navi tried to take us first of all up a farm road that simply came to an end (I suspect there “may” have been a small track up to the back of the summit previously but it’s certainly not there now). After resetting our plans and looking at some on-line maps and asking some directions, we ended up at the Gehrenberg look-out tower. This however is NOT on the SOTA summit and hence another back-track was need and eventually, based on my memory of what some of the roads looked like from last time, we arrived at the parking spot about a kilometer from the summit, unpacked and started the walk up the forestry track, only to be passed by two other amateurs in their cars, who said there were no driving restriction signs. I had not checked, there were some signs the year before. In any case upon arrival, one group had gone to the absolute summit, so I decided to set-up in a spot by the radio transmitter tower, that I had used the last two years as I knew was well within the activation zone. This was a good hour and a half after leaving Friedrichshafen, so time was against us, if we were to get to the restaurant on-time.

A group of Czech Hams had walked further along the track, to be clear of the other stations. As we were setting up Juerg HB9BIN joined Gerard, John and I and we all shared my dipole antenna. We all managed the required 4 contacts, before pulling all the equipment down and heading back down the hill to the car.

Even though the activation was different from what I had planned – I had hoped to have two stations in place before the others arrived and have them simply rotate through to get their 4 contacts for the 8 point summit – it all worked out in the end and it was followed by a lovely evening with good food and chatter at the restaurant for the SOTA dinner, where Luc ON7DQ was awarded the prize of a WSPRLite unit for the most original SOTA clothing.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

SOTABeams band-hopper linked dipole.

LambdaHalbe 6m Mini-mast.

Thick plastic painters sheet.

Log:

Conclusions:

Do not assume the Navi is going to take you to the best access point for a summit, take printed maps as well.

I have already been asked if I will run something similar next year. I am considering it, but it would be nice to go to a different summit. That would however need a lot more time, so perhaps I’ll just organise the dinner as I have done, the last two years and leave the activation out of what was quite a busy day.

73 ’til the next Summit!