Preparation:

As my wife wished to visit an art gallery in Kaufbeuren, this gave me a chance to activate the 2-Fer POTA park and trail on the outskirts of the town. This time, this would be a real portable activation, not from the car (PLOTA), if the rain held off long enough. We had had rain every day for two weeks and this Thursday morning looked like it might have a gap in the rain, at least in the morning.

All equipment was put into the car on Wednesday. To be safe, I also loaded the three-magnet antenna base and the HF-PRO2 antenna, so should the weather forecast be wrong, I could always operate from the car.

The Activation

POTA DE-0888 and DE-0963

I’m glad to say that the drive was uneventful and the weather stayed dry right up to when I planned to pack up. (The drive back home was through showers.)

I decided to start on 20m with the slim chance that I might still get a contact or two into VK, but at almost 11 am local time (0900 UTC), the long path had already closed. Despite that, I did get a good quantity of contacts from all around Europe (see log below). The first in the log was Mike 2E0YYY/P, who had stayed up on a windy Merriton Low in the Southern Pennines area of England to give me a contact.

The equipment set up was the often-used combination of Xiegu G90 and a linked dipole antenna on a fibreglass mast at about 5 metres off the ground in the centre of the Inverted-V.

After twelve contacts on 20 metres (including two park-to-park contacts) I switched to 40 metres for four more contacts but that action was foreshortened as the skies darkened and a cold wind came through, threatening to be followed by rain, so I decided to pack up, head back to the car, collect my wife in Kaufbeuren and then head home, happy that all equipment had worked well and I had a nice set of contacts in the log before the rains came.

Photos:

Equipment taken:

• Xiegu G-90 radio.
• Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna (not used).
• Three–magnet car roof antenna mount (not used).
• 2 x 4Ah LifePO4 batteries (not used).
• 8Ah LifePO4 battery
• Inverted-V linked dipole
• 6 metre fibreglass mast
• Screw-in sun umbrella base
• Small headphones.
• Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

POTA DE-0888 & DE-0963

Conclusions:

I was glad to get out and set up in an open space again. The equipment configuration, apart from the larger battery, is one I have used many, many times before, and I was happy to see that everything worked normally.

73 ’til the next activation!