Preparation:

In preparation for my trip to the new Salzburgerland region in Austrian HEMA, I wanted to check that all the equipment that I would be taking (space limited by other people and a dog in the car) were working so I decided on an activation of a combined HEMA and SOTA summit (this is actually also a World castles award and COTA location as the summit has some castle ruins on the top of it).

Recently the long path to VK has been opening around 0630 – 0700 UTC so I would need to start early to drive down into Southern Allgau and to the parking spot at the restaurant before the steep walk up to the summit and then set up and try for a contact with Ernie VK3DET who had kindly offered to listen out for me. Mike 2E0YYY (or 2R0YYY for May and June) was also heading out to a SOTA summit to be there from 0630 UTC. So my alarm was set for 05:30 am local time to make this all happen and I put the fully packed rucksack ready to be picked up after having my breakfast on the following day (Wednesday).

For a change, the weather forecast was for a warm sunny day.

The Activation

Eisenberg – HEMA DL/HBY-036 and SOTA DL/AL-171.

The drive down I know very well but there have been some changes in the last year with one village having been bypassed completely using a tunnel and some very recently opened road sections. There were also diversions for some other closed roads in the area but nothing that affected my route luckily.

I arrived at the car park and was the second car in the (small) car park, so someone was up and about earlier than me! Most likely a local who was taking in the morning air. Also active when I arrived were about 20 cows, who came right up to the fence to the car park to see what was happening.

After “donning” the rucksack and rather than putting my waterproof jacket on, I strapped it to the outside of the rucksack as it was already turning into a warm day, I started the walk up the gravel track and it wasn’t long before I was stopping to catch my breath. I think “Rucksack bloat” has occurred with more things being added to it “just in case”. The result is a 12-kilogram rucksack which should really be about three kilos lighter!

Once I got to the castle ruins, I headed out to my usual spot on the wooden platform at the far end of the ruins, which is closest to the actual summit. It has not weathered the storms this last winter very well and several of the boards had broken or come loose from the metal frame below it. This will need to be repaired soon if someone is not going to break their ankle in a hole or worse still, fall right through as the wood gives up completely.

For my usage on this day, it would suffice in any case. I spread my painter’s sheet on the ground, strapped the 6m mast to a post on the side of the platform and put up the linked dipole with the link disconnected to enable 20-metre usage.

I was expecting some visiting members of the public as the weather was so nice, so I also got out some brochures on amateur radio to give them but the few people who did come by simply ignored me and carried on, on their way.

I spotted myself first on HEMA and called CQ a few times and first in the log was Don G0RQL from Devon in England. Soon after that, I saw that Mike 2R0YYY was spotted as out with another amateur – Dom 2E0KIO so I worked both of them on the “Gun” SOTA summit and then tried for my planned sked with Ernie VK3DET. Sure enough, there he was but only at a strength S4 signal where he will often be S8 or S9 when I am out portable. In any case with 54/44 reports in the log, it’s a contact that would not have happened from home as, even though I am in the countryside at home, the local noise level is often up to S4 or 5. Looking at all the other contacts that I got, it’s fairly clear that the skip was running short and while this is good for inter-Europe contacts, it’s not good for DX. In fact, I did not hear any other VKs on the band at all.

When I finished up with Ernie I put out several more CQ calls and spotted myself again and got a call from a station who was actually mobile in his car running just 40 watts to a mobile whip. Dave G0ODH/M was driving in North Staffordshire (UK) and putting a good S8 signal down to where I was close to the German / Austrian border.

That was 5 contacts in the log and enough to Qualify the HEMA summit DL/HBY-036, so now I spotted myself on SOTA and started calling CQ SOTA. As always there are a lot more SOTA than HEMA chasers and I soon got to better than one contact per minute, even with my “chatty style”. After “draining” the 20-metre callers, I switched the antenna and radio to 40-metres for a lot more chasers. When this flood calmed down, I looked at my watch to see it was just coming up to 10 am local time and the restaurant where I had parked my car would just be opening up, so it was time to pack up, head back down and then pop into the restaurant garden for a leisurely Weissbier before setting off home. The ideal way to end a successful activation. 

Below is a map of all of my contacts.

 Photos:

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Equipment used:

• Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
• Xiegu G90.
• Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
• Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
• Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
• SotaBeams linked dipole.
• Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole antenna (not used).
• 4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
• 4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
• Painter’s thick plastic sheet and gardener’s kneeling pad.
• Lightweight headphones.
• Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms. 

Logs:

Eisenberg

HEMA DL/HBY-036

SOTA DL/AL-171

Conclusions:

• Band conditions at the time of this activation were short skip not as good as they have been.
• Most importantly however, the radio / mast / antenna combination worked without any problems and hence is ready for the run of activations in Austria next week – the question is, dare I remove the backup antennas from the rucksack to reduce the weight?

73 ’til the next summit.