Preparation:

Having not been out portable for some time, I was eager to return to nature. The problem is the sub-zero temperatures that we have here in Bavaria in January. Given that it is allowed to operate from a vehicle in the POTA scheme (not so in HEMA, GMA or SOTA), I decided to see if I could activate from the car, just with the HF-PRO2 loaded vertical antenna on the car roof, so that the only action outside (apart from taking photos) would be attaching and detaching the antenna – everything else would be prepared the day before inside the car (on the passenger’s seat).

Looking for a location, I have two POTA entities close by. One is DE-0663 Pössinger Au Park and the other DE-0791 Lecherlebnisweg Trail. At a few points these combine (such as when within the animal park south of Landsberg am Lech. The problem is that no cars are allowed in the “Wild Park”. However, at the southern end of the Au (forest), a small car park fits my hopes of combining the two entities into a “2-Fer” as it is still in the “au” and on the “weg”.

It was only the day before the planned activation, that I read some comments on Google Maps that the car park is private and only for use of residents of Pöring, where it is located. I did have a reserve location but I decided to go and see for myself and if there were any issues, then drive to the alternate location – which was in the park but not on the trail, so it couldn’t be a 2-Fer activation.

The equipment was all packed into the car and set up on Monday afternoon for an early start on Tuesday to catch the 20m long-path propagation opening to Australia (somewhere around 0730-0800 UTC).

The equipment would be the ever-reliable Xiegu G90 and the Komunica HF-PRO2 antenna on a magnetic mount on the car roof. I planned to operate only on 20 metres.

The Activation

POTA DE-0663 & DE-0791

The weather was not nice—around minus nine degrees when I set off on the 10-minute drive to the parking spot. Thankfully the small country roads were not iced over as they had been a couple of days previously. The trip to the spot was uneventful and when I arrived the small (perhaps 5-car,) parking spot was empty. There were no signs restricting its use only one saying please leave space for two fisherman’s cars. This spot has a small ramp and (as you’ll see in the pictures) a few dingies moored in the water. The footpath that leads from this spot goes to the well-known “Devil’s Kitchen” restaurant and I suspect the issue is that in summer, the fishermen can’t get to the ramp for cars parked here by those walking along the river to the restaurant rather than using the (further away) allocated restaurant car park in the woods. In winter, it seems, people park here and go for walks, with or without their dogs. So no problem with my using the spot.

It was literally a 5-minute set-up time and then I found a spot on the (empty apart from Russian amateur stations) 20m band. I got no replies to start with. Then John EA5JMN called from 80km west of Alicante in Spain, with a very British accent he was a good 59 signal and gave me a 58 as we chatted for almost 10 minutes. He was not a POTA chaser and had just heard me calling and wanted to let me know I was getting out. What a gentleman. So the day started with an ex-pat to ex-pat contact! The contact with John was followed by two more Spanish and one French contact before things went quiet again – at this point Ernie let me know that he was heading to his shack and 5 minutes later we tried for a contact but while I could give Ernie a 52 report, he could not hear me. The third of our merry group, Mike 2E0YYY/P was setting up on Merryton Low (a GMA summit in the UK) but as he was also suffering the cold weather he would also operate as I was doing from inside his car (coincidentally also a Peugeot). At 0813 UTC we managed an exchange at 31 both ways, the band certainly had not opened up fully yet. 4 minutes later however I had a contact into eastern Cornwall to Steve G4BVB in the Taemar valley with 59 +10dB signals both ways – indeed I was off the back of his beam! it looked like conditions may be getting better so at 0825 UTC I managed to contact Mike 2E0YYY/P and Ernie VK3DET at 53 all around. Mike had some of his club members on frequency, who wanted to try for a contact with Ernie, so I said my goodbyes as I still needed several more contacts to “qualify” the park & trail. Ten contacts are needed in POTA whereas only 4 are needed in the mountain award schemes. It could be worse the WWFF scheme needs 44 contacts!

I managed another 6 new contacts in the following 10 minutes, so with a total of 12 different contacts in the log, I went back to see how Mike and Ernie were getting on. The band had really changed now and both were good 59 signals so I called again to say I was closing down and heading home to the warmth but to also say that 0845 UTC rather than 0745 UTC now seemed to be the best time to get onto 20 metres for some SSB contacts half-way around the globe! Next time I should try for 40m Greyline into New Zealand first as the greyline should once again become useful for DX contacts and it is less affected by solar storms.  

Photos:

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Equipment taken:

• Xiegu G-90 radio.
• 6-metre mast and linked dipole (not used).
• Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna.
• Three magnets, car roof antenna mount.
• 8 Ah LifePO4 battery.
• 2 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery (not used).
• Plastic painter’s sheet and seat pad (not used).
• Lightweight headphones.
• Smartphone for spotting.

Log (same for both POTA entities):

DE-0663 Pössinger Au & DE-0791 Lecherlebnisweg 

Conclusions:

• Operating from the car does work fairly well, once set up, especially in sub-zero temperatures.
• 0845 UTC is when I should have been starting, not 0745 UTC.
• There needs to be a better map showing all POTA trails – at the moment, they are only shown as one dot, somewhere along their length.

73 ’til the next activation!