Preparation:

After the problems at the last two (same day) activations (Weichberg & Auerberg) I had been wanting to get out again both to test the repaired equipment and to bag some more activator winter bonus points before it is too late. The weather had different ideas however with some storms and heavy rain. In winds gusting up to 140 km/h on the lowlands, I didn’t fancy my chances on a summit!

I was watching the weather forecast and Tuesday 17th. February was supposed to be fine, between two storm fronts coming through here. I had my doubts on Monday however which was supposed to be raining all day and was totally dry and sunny. Could the weather forecasters be out by one day again? I had originally planned to get to my first summit in time for the grey-line window to Australia & New Zealand but scrapped that idea and decided rather go later so that I could see how the weather was. The plan was then to head to Eisenberg and activate, followed by having lunch at Schlossbergalm, whose private road, car park and footpath I use for accessing this summit. This Tuesday was their first day open after a staff holiday break, so this should fit well. After “re-tanking” myself at the restaurant, it’s only a short drive over to Falkenstein (another castle ruins on a summit), where I could make my second activation.

I do have a new rucksack which I am trying to set up in such a way, that I can operate the rig (and amplifier) while they are still in the rucksack. To do this I have bought some plastic drawers which fit nicely into the bag. Unfortunately, I ran out of time in this work, so I decided it was best to use my normal “2-bag” set-up, which I prepared on Monday. For antennas, I decided not to take the surveyors tripod and 10 metre mast this time, rather to just take the 6-metre mast and strap it to the fence post which I know is available on the lookout platform at Eisenberg and while space is limited at Falkenstein, I packed my photo-tripod / Komunica HF-Pro2 combination for that activation.

The Activation:

I woke to rain and wind at 6:30 am. It looked like my activation may not be possible but by 8:30 am the storm had passed and I was on the road by 8:45 am. The drive to Eisenberg was a little blustery en-route a couple of times but nothing too bad.
On arriving at the restaurant car park just before 10 am, the place looked deserted (they are supposed to open at 10 am but this being the first day back after their break, someone probably slept in!) – they were there doing good business when I returned from the summit at around 1pm.

The walk up to the summit is quite steep and took a good 15 minutes but it is nice to arrive at a summit, knowing where you will attach the mast, lay out the plastic sheet etc. I was on the air just before 10:30 am local time (0930 UTC) and 40 metres was very busy – I thought there must be a contest on or something – but on a Tuesday? No – just good (short skip) conditions. After about 10 minutes working a few stations, (just running the 20w rig without the amplifier) snow started to fall but it was only light and didn’t last more than 15 minutes and afterwards, the sun came out. About this time I had to move frequency as the frequency that was clear when I started using it, now had another station right next to my frequency causing QRM. So I moved and re-spotted myself to be greeted after a couple of CQ calls with a pile-up of 30 stations that kept me busy up until 11 am local (1000 UTC). Before moving frequency I had already worked 6 stations and had the summit “activated” in any case.

I decided to give 20 metres a try but couldn’t get even one SOTA chaser to call me although the band seemed quite active. At 1010 UTC I decided to pack up and head down to the restaurant for something to eat. As I had got all the radio gear packed away and was about to start on the antenna, I got an email from Ernie VK3DET saying that he had listened for me on 40m & 20m but not heard anything, but that Mike 2E0YYY was now on 14.290MHz and could I give a listen! I wondered whether it would be worth it, and considered saying it was too late but as the antenna was still up I decided to unpack everything and connect it all up again to take a listen. Well, once I was on frequency, I could hear someone at a reasonable strength but it wasn’t Mike in England, rather it was Ernie VK3DET in Australia! The next station I heard was Ian VK3YFD – both were S4 or S5 signals – this was a surprise. They were a lot stronger than the 3-3 signal I started to get from Mike. I tried calling both the Australian stations and Mike had them listen for me but it was not to be. I even dug out the amplifier to take the signal up from 20w to 70w – then I couldn’t even get a response from Mike although his signal had come up a little – so I thought there must be something is wrong in the amplifier (This turned out later to be operator error – I had the low pass filter switched to 40m although I was on 20m). I switched back to just 20w and no amplifier in circuit and Mike could hear me again. The next surprise was an Indian station Patel VU2XO who called in on the frequency, worked the two Australian stations, then swung his beam around and I think worked Mike. I could actually hear him off the back of his beam when he first called in and when he was calling Mike. He couldn’t hear me though.

By 1110 UTC the 20m band had closed and I packed everything up again. By staying so long at my first summit, my schedule was out for the second one and the batteries both for the rig and in my mobile phone had been drained a lot, so I decided to not go to the second summit and rather get something to eat at the restaurant and then head home.
After walking back to the car park from the summit, I could see that the restaurant was full, meaning I would most likely have to wait 30 minutes before getting served, so I decided just to eat my pack-up while driving home.

The journey home was straight forward and I was home mid-afternoon – just in time to take the dog out for her afternoon walk.

When I came to test the amplifier later in the day, I realised what I had done wrong with the LPF setting!

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment:

• Xiegu X108G.
• 70-watt portable HF amplifier.
• DYC-817 speech compressor and Clone Yaesu microphone (not used).
• LambdaHalbe 6m mast
• Battery box (2 x 5000maH hard-case 4S LIPOs).
• Photo tripod with clip-on radial wires (not used).
• Komunica Power HF-Pro-2 loaded vertical antenna (not used).
• SOTABeams Band Hopper linked dipole (now with 1:1 SOTABeams balun fitted).
• Thick green plastic painters sheet.
• Smartphone with PocketRxTx App and USB cable acting as an external display to the rig.

Log:

Conclusions:

I was lucky that the weather was, apart from a 15-minute snowstorm, cold but dry and sunny. I was nice to have so many people come up and ask what I was doing so that I could promote the hobby. One couple I think were really interested and we may see another retiree joining our ranks soon.

Deciding to put the gear back together, despite making no DX contacts, hearing the Indian station and the two Australian stations was a thrill and worth the reschedule, even though it meant I had to drop the second activation.

• Positives
• hearing both Australia and India (India for the first time for me) from the summit.
• the repaired linked dipole antenna after it breaking on the last outing CERTAINLY works and perhaps the addition of the 1:1 Balun has improved it.
• the diodes in my voltage-dropper arrangement did not de-solder themselves despite the heavy usage of the 13.8v supply at 20 watts.
• I was visited by about 8 people (4 couples) and was able to pass some information on about the hobby. The 6 dogs who also called by didn’t seem that interested!
• Negatives
•  the silly mistake on the amplifier LPF setting meant that I didn’t check whether I now have the RF feedback problem resolved, nor did I have a chance to try out the external dynamic speech processor.

73 ’til the next summit!