Monthly Archives: December 2019

DD5LP/P – December 30th 2019 – DL/AL-167 Falkenstein – Winter Bonus points activation.

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Preparation:

As the end of the year got closer, I realised there was one more summit that I might be able to squeeze in, that I hadn’t activated in 2019. In fact, the last time I had activated Falkenstein was in 2017, so I missed the points from this summit in 2018 somehow!

Looking at the weather forecast, Monday the 30th. December looked like being a dry day and as it turned out, while cold enough that the ice and snow on the summit hadn’t melted, it was actually quite sunny.

This summit does not need a cable car to get to it. It is a “drive-up” summit, at least to about 70 vertical metres below the summit. It does have a novel access restriction however, in that the road up to the summit is a private, one-track road with tight hairpin turns and sheer drops off the mountain face at some points! The road is owned and maintained by a hotel that is located just below the summit and there is a charge of €4 for the use of the road, which is paid at a ticket machine at the start of the road by the traffic lights. To avoid vehicles meeting each other going in different directions (there are no passing spots) the road is controlled with traffic lights on a timer and cars are allowed to drive up the road between a quarter past the hour and 5 minutes to the next hour and drive down the road between the full hour and 10 minutes past. As it takes 5 minutes for the drive, the no-drive gaps of 5 minutes allow for those risking a last-minute sprint (usually the hotel supplies van).

So that I could get on-air at my planned time and return home for some afternoon shopping, I had to plan the trip precisely so as not to be delayed too long if I arrived at the traffic lights at either the bottom or top of the road, at the wrong time as that could cost me 30 minutes easily.

I decided that I would once again use the small set-up with the photo tripod and the Komunica HF-PRO2 loaded HF mobile whip. But, just in case, I would also take along my 6-metre mast and a couple of Inverted-V dipoles. My operating position is on the summit, upon a platform within the ruins of the castle. This does not allow a lot of space to run out dipole wires so it would be simpler if I could get my required 4 contacts just with the mobile whip.

Falkenstein is the highest castle ruins in Germany and it was to be another hunting lodge type castle for King Ludwig II but he was drowned in Lake Starnberg before the work could be completed. The location therefore also has a Castles on the Air and a World Castles Award designation of SWB-13014 and DL-0246 respectively.

As there is no cable car involved I decided to take both radio bags, so including the amplifier and various spare cables and things “just in case” i.e. twice as much weight as I really needed! All was packed the day before however for me it was a relatively late start at 9:45 local time for the estimated 75-minute drive. To arrive just as the road would open for traffic to go up it.

The Activation:

The drive down went well and I actually arrived 15 minutes earlier than I expected, meaning as I arrived I saw the light change from green to red. As I hadn’t paid my ticket at that point, to dash through the light would have been a bad idea. I waited the 15 minutes and then took off up the road. I have driven this road two times before but some of the hairpin bends were interesting to negotiate, as was getting past a parked truck, in use by a crew installing Armco barriers a little further up the road. In any case, I was back in my schedule when I arrived in the “day visitor’s” car park and loaded myself up with two bags and the HF-Pro2 antenna in a protective tube that I made for it.

The walk from here up the rest of the road to the hotel entrance is steep – especially when carrying the weighty bags, but the road was fairly clear of ice and so no problem to get up. The next stage after passing the hotel, on the final path and stone steps up to the ruins were more of a challenge and I stopped and added spikes to my boots, which made all the difference. Where other tourists were having some real problems with lack of grip, my spikes were cutting into the ice-covered stones and giving me good traction with my heavy load.

Upon arrival at the ruins, I found the gate open (as it’s supposed to be) and went in and up the wooden tower that has been built inside the stone walls. On arriving on the top, I was happy to see the same wooden table that was their three years ago – much better than having to put the equipment on the floor, especially as more and more people were arriving as I set-up.

The tripod and HF-Pro2 went up quickly and then it took a while to untangle the eight counterpoise wires and run them out. Once that was done, I set the loading coil on the antenna to the position for 20 metres connected the rig to the battery. I decided not to bother with the amplifier despite having carried it up to the summit, I also left the speech compressor and power microphone in the bag and stuck with the standard microphone. As I turned on the rig I wondered what I would hear. On my last two activations at this summit, QRM from the hotel or the microwave relay station behind it wiped out 20 metres on one activation and 40 metres on another. This time although there was some background QRM on both bands, it wasn’t enough to be a problem, so it looks like whatever was causing the QRM previously has been fixed.

I started on 40m but the band was busy and the first two frequencies where I called CQ and spotted myself were immediately swamped by splatter from stations just off frequency, so I’d hear someone call me – I’d go back to them, pass it back and then hear nothing more from them as I presume, I had been flattened by the other station. Perhaps I should have put the amplifier on? In any case, my third frequency worked fine and I got a nice series of seven contacts including one S2S contact with Rudi OE7RDI on Laber. When the calls dried up (bearing in mind, my wish to get back to the car to be there at the right time for the 10-minute window when one can drive down the hill) I decided to give 20 metres a quick try and made two contacts there before shutting down, packing up and heading back down to the car. The trip home was uneventful and I managed the planned shopping trip as well.

All in all, it was a successful activation, getting me the 4 activation points plus 3 winter bonus points and proving again that the simple loaded whip on a tripod can get a signal out all around Europe.

Photos:

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Equipment:

  • Xiegu X108G.
  • Komunica HF-PRO2 HF bands vertical whip.
  • Converted Photo tripod and counterpoise wires.
  • Battery box (2 x 5000maH hardcase LIPOs).
  • SOTA Beams linked dipole (not used).
  • 6-metre Lambdahalbe fibreglass portable mast (not used).
  • Plastic painters sheet (not used).
  • 2 Smartphones one running PocketRxTx App and USB cable as an external display for X108G and one used for spotting and taking pictures.

Log:

Conclusions:

Keeping the operation simple is the best solution and when I receive my birthday present of a slightly larger rucksack, I’ll be trying to cut back to include all essential equipment in the one bag, but not more than is required.

Overall the outing was worth it as I got my points and some time out in the sunshine.

73 ’til the next summit!

DD5LP/P – December 26th 2019 – DL/EW-001 Wank – Winter Bonus points activation.

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Preparation:

I have been wanting to get an activation of Wank mountain which lies above Garmisch-Partenkirchen in, for a while but had to wait for the cabin lift to start running again after having been closed for annual maintenance, as most are around Southern Bavaria at this time of year. The cable car was supposed to start running again on Christmas Day (25th December) but it didn’t because of high winds. I could see from the webcam near the summit that the tracks had not been used, let alone cleared on Wednesday so my trip on Thursday (Boxing Day) was in the balance until the last minute. As it was the lift would only start operation at 10am instead of the more usual 8:30 or 9am.

At least the weather forecasts said that this activation would be a nice sunny one albeit quite cold on the summit.

Given that this is a favourite tourist summit and that there are a lot of people and visitors in Garmisch who would most likely be glad to get out after two or three days inside because of the storms, I expected cramped lift cabins and a busy summit and so would not take the normal gear rather just one bag and the Komunica HF-Pro2 loaded HF whip antenna and a photo tripod. No amplifier or large tripod or large antennas on this excursion. Of course, as a backup, I squeezed the small fishing pole and the linked dipole into the small rucksack, making it quite heavy.

As usual, all gear was prepared the day before and put ready to take near the main house door.

The Activation:

After waking, I still wasn’t sure whether I would be setting off as I was worried that the drive down would be wasted if I found the cable car not running. The website now said that the lift was scheduled to run from 10am and the weather forecast did not indicate high winds, so in the end, I decided to head off and hope for the best. Leaving 30 minutes later than planned at 09:15 local time, I arrived at the car park for the lower lift station at 10:30am and was glad to see the car park was not nearly as full as I have seen it before. They still get you for the fee though. The car park costs €5 for a day and €5 is the minimum fee. The lift cost a further €22.50 so this was to be an expensive outing if I didn’t manage my needed four contacts from the summit.

After getting my ticket and heading into the lift station, I was surprised to see no queues and empty carriages, so I took the next one in the queue and had it all to myself, all the way up. The lift to the top has two stages and the cabins move from one system to another at the middle station, where at some times of year people can join the lift to go back up however as the ski-runs down from the top are not yet open because of lack of snow, the middle station is also closed to passengers getting on or off.

As I went up the lift, the temperature probably dropped about 10 degrees. At the bottom no snow was to be seen, at the top, there was lots of snow. So as soon as I got out of the lift station, it was on with the spikes on my hiking boots before setting off for the summit which is around 30 vertical metres higher up a winding track, which while compacted snow was still slippery. With the heavy rucksack and the whip antenna in its transport tube, I was glad of the extra traction that the spikes gave me. Those in just boots, or worse still, running shoes! were having more issues getting up the track.

I found my way to the very summit, behind the cross where several other radio installations are located (thankfully none causing any interference as far as I could tell) and set my station up on my piece of painters sheet on top of the snow. The small tripod and HF-Pro2 antenna went up easily and I ran out the counterpoise wires in all directions. I decided to start on 40m so I set the antenna to 15 which is the position I have calibrated it with my antenna analyser at home, for 7.100 MHz. I think connected up rig, battery box and Smartphone acting as an external control panel for the rig as the X108G’s OLED display was totally unreadable in the sunlight.

As I tuned 40 metres on this Thursday morning, something suddenly became clear. The band was full with contest stations (it turned out later, that the DARC – the national society in Germany had decided to pollute a weekday with their contest rather than sticking to weekends – which is the usual situation). Having good contest operators who follow the “DX code of conduct”, it would just have been an inconvenience finding a free frequency but with the “wanna-be”, un-skilled contesters in this contest, my patience was going to be tried. During my activation, I had to change frequency five times. I ALWAYS check whether a frequency is clear before starting to call CQ – it seems this is not the case for DARC contest operators – they just chose a frequency and call, whether or not there’s a station there. Worst of all is that these same twats start calling CQ in the middle of me having a QSO – now I could perhaps excuse the crocodile station for not hearing me, but I am SURE they heard the chaser station!

In 50 minutes, I managed 7 contacts around Europe, so the station was certainly getting out but all of the chasers commented about difficulties in hearing me due to over modulated contest stations splattering all over the band. After about an hour on the summit, I was getting a little cold and more and more tourists were finding their way up to the summit area, so I decided it was time to pack-up and head home. At least I had some good mountain air, some great views and even some sunshine – as you can see from the photos below.

For once all equipment worked as expected.

The trip home was uneventful and I had another 9 points towards my activator totals.

Photos:

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Equipment:

  • Xiegu X108G.
  • Komunica HF-PRO2 HF bands vertical whip.
  • Converted Photo tripod and counterpoise wires.
  • Battery box (2 x 5000maH hardcase LIPOs).
  • SOTA Beams linked dipole (not used).
  • 6-metre Lambdahalbe fibreglass portable mast (not used).
  • Plastic painters sheet.
  • 2 Smartphones one running PocketRxTx App and USB cable as an external display for X108G and one used for spotting and taking pictures.

Log:

Conclusions:

Contests bloody CONTESTS! I should have guessed being a public holiday, the contest virus would have spread to spoil this day also for “normal” radio operators. This appears to have been an 80m & 40m only contest, so I could have tried getting enough contacts on 20 metres instead of going onto 40 metres. I was more concerned as to whether the summit was going to be accessible at all, than worry about the incompetent contest operators.

Overall the outing was worth it and I got my points and some time out in the countryside.

I also proved that the lightweight, small configuration of just the photo tripod and HF mobile whip plus the 20w X108G does work well enough to get the contacts (in this case despite the DQRM).

73 ’til the next summit!

DD5LP/P – December 18th 2019 – DL/MF-082 Schwarzerberg – Winter Bonus points activation.

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Preparation:

As the weather forecasts said that this activation would be a nice sunny one with being scheduled to start late morning and run over noon, what could be better?

Tests being carried out by Mike 2E0YYY, Ernie VK3DET and I seem to prove there is a short path window from UK/EU to VK around 1100 UTC (noon with me here in Germany).

To increase my chance of a contact into VK using this window, I would take along my portable 50/70 watt amplifier and my new dynamic speech compressor – normally I would also include the directional VP2E antenna in the equation as well however as I was already including two “unknowns” I decided that I’d stick with the known linked dipole. As for a summit for the tests, most of my local summits I have already activated several times this year and those that I know and I haven’t yet activated this year need a cable car or seat lift to access them and all of those lifts are stopped for maintenance before the ski season starts just before Christmas. Schwarzenberg however, is a drive-up summit and although I had activated it only six weeks ago, that was before the start of the winter bonus points for activators, so by re-activating this summit, I would gain 3 activator points for what is normally only a 1 point summit. If I activate it again in the new year before the winter bonus stops, it’ll be worth 4 points then. I for normal activation plus three winter bonus points. This summit is also close to another amateurs QTH who I wanted to invite along but unfortunately, as it turned out, he wasn’t well enough.

As usual, all gear was prepared the day before and put ready to take near the main house door.

The Activation:

I set off from home at 9:30am local time expecting to arrive at the parking spot at 11 am local, as it turned out the 90-minute trip didn’t take that long and I was there by 10:45 local.

I carried all the gear up to the same spot as I used last time and was set up within 30 minutes. As I was setting up I got an email from Ernie in Australia to say he had already worked Mike with 4-4 reports both ways.

As soon as I was set-up I took a listen for Mike 2E0YYY/P on a HEMA summit – “Mow Cop” – I could hear him strong enough to work him but call as I did several times he just kept calling CQ, so as he confirmed later he wasn’t hearing me. As we were both running 50 watts to inverted-V dipoles, this would perhaps point to the X-108G receiver being more sensitive than Mikes FT-857D but, more likely, his local noise level could have been higher than mine. I emailed Ernie back to say I couldn’t get Mikes attention but that I would call him down 10 kHz on 14.310MHz. Ernie didn’t hear me but I could hear something in the noise on the frequency, which I believe was Ernie calling me. But he was too weak to work, even if he could have heard me. Ernie was running 400 watts into a 3 element beam I believe.

When I went back to Mike on 14.320MHz he had sunk into the noise – I could tell he was there but not make out what he was saying. Twenty metres had taken a dive and it stayed that way until 1100 UTC when it opened up as if someone had turned the light switch on! By that time, unfortunately, both Mike and Ernie were gone.

In any case, I now had another problem. My cell phone signal was never great on this summit on either of the two main networks but I was receiving and sending emails, so it was at least working giving an Internet connection. The problem was that the SOTA spots that I sent whether via data or via SMS were not appearing on SOTAWatch so I couldn’t attract the chasers attention to work me on 40 metres, where I had now switched to. I tried calling non-SOTA stations on 40m with no success for a good 20 minutes. This was crazy – I must get 4 in the log or I wouldn’t get the winter points. Luckily then, Jon, EA5INS/P had spotted his activation and I could hear him and we managed a summit-to-summit contact.

After this though … nothing. As we were approaching noon local time (1100 UTC) when I was hoping for the short path window to VK to open I re-set the linked antenna for 20 metres again and switched back. As I was still unable to spot myself, I was lucky that Lars SA4BLM heard my CQ calls and came back to me. He was an armchair copy and not only became my third contact in the log but also helped me with testing the amplifier and speech compressor. He then spotted me. Upon completing my QSO with Lars, I had a run of VERY strong chaser calls on 20m (the band had opened up but just around Europe, it seems).

To finish off the activation, I saw that Rudi OE7RDI had spotted he was on 40 metres on a DL summit so I once again switched back to 40m and we had a nice S2S contact to close out my activation before packing up. Unfortunately during pack-up, I managed to stand on the antenna wire and it broke at one of the links.

Without being able to self-spot it’s difficult to work anyone and hence continuing on would have been difficult. I also needed 30 minutes to pack up and get back to the car and then a possible 90 minutes or more drive home (actually it was another good run only needing 75 minutes). In any case, once I got home I looked into why my spots were not getting through and it appears it was a password issue in my SOTA Spotter App configuration. I reset the password and re-tested and everything worked fine (at least from home).

Photos:

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Equipment:

  • Xiegu X108G.
  • Leson amplified microphone & FA DYC-817 Dynamic Speech compressor.
  • Portable 50/70W HF amplifier and cables.
  • Battery box (2 x 5000maH hardcase LIPOs).
  • SOTA Beams linked Dipole at 8 metres AGL.
  • Surveyors tripod.
  • 10 metre DX-Wire fibreglass portable mast.
  • Plastic tablecloth as ground cover.
  • 2 Smartphones one running PocketRxTx App and USB cable as an external display for X108G and one used for spotting (or trying to) and taking pictures.

Log:

Conclusions:

I managed enough contacts to grab the 3 winter bonus points that would otherwise have gone to waste but it would have been a LOT easier had I been able to self-spot. Hopefully, that problem is now fixed.

The broken antenna wire is already soldered up and ready for the next activation.

I am still not convinced that the portable amplifier is giving me the boost that it should do.

Lars’ comments around the audio punch seemed to infer that I might be getting RF into the audio path or that some audio stage is being overdriven – I will need to investigate this further.

73 ’til the next summit!