Preparation:

I have activated both of these trails before; however, as they run conveniently together through the small town of “Diessen”, when my wife had an appointment, why not do a little radio while waiting. The spot I would go to is less than 10 10-minute’ drive away from the appointment.

Radio conditions were not expected to be good with a major coronal hole on the sun throwing out one CME after another.

This would also be another test of the radio to ensure the problem from a few activations ago is now fixed. The same equipment as used for the last few activations operated from within the car.

The Activation

POTA DE-0594 / DE-0797

The weather was mixed but stayed dry. After dropping my wife off at her appointment, I drove up to the car park near the town’s monastery. Once parked, mounting the HF-PRO2 antenna on the magnetic mount on the roof, connecting the battery cables to the radio, powering up and running the ATU took all of 5 minutes. Initially, I took a quick listen on 10 metres, but the intended operation was to be on 20 metres, and the first station in the log (whom I could not really hear on 10 metres) was Mike 2E0YYY/P, who was out on Merryton Low in the centre of England.

After spotting myself on the POTA website, calls came in on a fairly regular basis and at the end of the activation, before trying on 10 metres, I did some “Search & Pounce” on other POTA activators to get a few P2P contacts in the log. The activation on 10 metres brought zero calls, unfortunately, and the interference from passing cars seems worse on 10 metres than on other bands.

A nice event, as I was packing up, I was approached by four young children (between 7 and 10 years old) who asked what I was doing. I explained quickly and, seeing some real interest, grabbed a couple of my pre-printed (DARC) brochures about amateur radio and gave them to them. They were happy and went away chatting about what they had seen.

The radio and indeed, all of the equipment had performed without losing a beat, so hopefully that is the last of the earlier (apparently heat-related) shutdown from 20W to 1W output.

Photos:

Equipment taken:

• Xiegu G-90 radio.
• Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna.
• 3-magnet car roof mount and single magnet mount (single not used).
• 8 Ah LifePO4 battery.
• 2 x 4Ah Eremit LifePO4 batteries (not used).
• Lightweight headphones.
• Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

POTA DE-0594/ DE-0767

Conclusions:

For a quick ad-hoc activation, the availability of so many POTA trails and Parks near me makes it easy to include a PLOTA activation into a schedule and at short notice.

73 ’til the next activation!