Preparation:

To be clear, this was not to be my 100th activation of this summit, but rather the activation by many different SOTA activators to get to the “Magic 100”. This would be my 30th activation of the summit, which is the second closest to where I live.

The activation was also to serve as a comparison of radio gear. As I would be travelling to the UK, the following week, I needed to see how effective a 5w radio and simple loaded vertical antenna would be compared to the 20 watts from the G90 into the linked-dipole on a 6-metre mast.

Preparation was easy, in that I had both sets of equipment already in separate bags, ready to go. I only added the Surveyor’s tripod to the equipment to make it simple to put up the dipole.

Ernie VK3DET had said he would be available to listen for me from Australia, so this would be an early action in order to be on this (Drive-up) summit before the long path closes to Australia.

The Activation

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

The drive down is a route I have taken many times before. On arriving, I went to the large car park, where I could back up the car to the edge of the field and next to the seat. (they don’t get more “drive-up” than this summit). This car park is within the 25m vertical activation zone and provides space for larger antennas than would be possible on the very summit which has a large church sitting on it.

I first set up the large tripod and mast, followed by the linked dipole and then laid out the new development, an “EMF Screen” or “Faraday Screen” copper and nickel coated material and sat my HF-PRO2 loaded whip on a magnetic base on top of it. I had tested this configuration on the antenna analyser at home with good results so I was now hoping to try it out on-air.

For transmitters, I unpacked both the G90 (20w) and G106 (5w) radios and attached each to their antennas -the QRP radio with the simple loaded whip and the G90 with the linked dipole.

A short message to Ernie and he was on frequency and we exchanged 54 7 53 reports on the “large station”. This was not going to be strong enough to be able to switch to the other system although it was receiving fairly well the same stations as the large antenna was.

We decided to give propagation 30 minutes to improve and in the meantime I spotted myself and got calls from ZL4NVW from New Zealand and 4Z4DX from Israel but no other calls from around Europe so the skip was long but signals were low – not the best environment to be comparing antennas and radios under.

After 30 minutes, I called Ernie VK3DET again and the signals in both directions were the same as earlier, so the band was not improving and with time marching on, the QRM from stations close to the frequency was getting worse.

So I decided to call it a day on the testing and said 73 to Ernie and then moved over to 40m to get the needed 4th contact to qualify the summit for its 100th time.

Once people found me of course there were lots more than the one needed contact and after half an hour, there were 22 contacts in the log.

All of this time, the temperatures were below 10°C and so as testing on 40m would also not be practical with the overloaded nature of the band, I decided to call it a day and plan to go out just with the simple system and the QRP radio on one of the following days before making my mind up as to what equipment I will need to take on the plane.

Photos:

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg:

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Equipment taken:

• Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
• Xiegu G90 radio.
• Xiegu G106 radio (only used on Rx).
• Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna with a Faraday screen as the ground plane under a mag mount. (not used)
• Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast and Surveyors tripod.
• SotaBeams linked dipole.
• 4 Ah & 2Ah Eremit LifePO4 batteries.
• 4 Ah LiHV battery(not used).
• Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
• Gardener’s kneeling pad.
• Lightweight headphones (x2).
• Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

 

100th activation !!!

Conclusion:

• The radio conditions although good on 20m, were not good enough to be able to do radio and antenna tests between DL and VK and trying to test on 40m with so many stations on was also not practical. 

73 ’til the next summit.