Preparation:

This was to be another “fill-in” activation after dropping my wife off at a specialist appointment. Originally, I had planned to do a “real” portable (as not from the car) activation on a HEMA summit, where two POTA trails pass through, but, checking my estimated time to get to and set up the station, the whole action would be too long, so I switched to a 4-fer POTA in the same town as where the doctor was. As it turned out, I was very happy that I did, as while it was a sunny day with temperatures up to 25°C, the wind was icy – taking the “real feel” temperature down to sub-zero!

As usual, the radio gear was loaded onto the back seat of the car, and the magnetic antenna mount sat on the roof of the car, the day before, so that we would have a straightforward departure from home.

The Activation

POTA DE-0641 Via Romea NHT DE-0791 Lech Erlebnisweg DE-0858 Via Sancti Martini NHT DE-1058 Lech Zwischen Hirschau and Landsberg

After dropping my wife off, the run down to the spot by the river should have taken around 6 minutes, but it took closer to 20 minutes after I took one wrong turn. In any case, I got to view the old town of Schongau as I drove around to get back to where I had made a turn about 10 metres too early!

The previous couple of days, radio conditions had been quite good. This was not to be the case today. Finding contacts on both 20 & 40 metres was hard, and once I found them, the signals were weak. I would have worried about a radio or antenna problem; however, on tuning around, I heard others reporting the same issues, so this was the Ionosphere rather than an equipment problem. As this was a time-limited activation, I was a little worried, but I managed the minimum 10 contacts in the time I had available.

As well as two park-to-park contacts, I also managed two cross-scheme contacts to one Bunkers activation and one catles activation, both in Belgium.

I saw some POTA stations spotted that I would normally be able to get P2Ps with easily, but today, they were down in the noise and unworkable!

I think I should be grateful that I made the contacts that I did, but I rarely see such low reports (in both directions) in my POTA activation log.

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-0641/DE-0791/DE-0858/DE-1058

Conclusions:

Despite the bad radio conditions (and the icy wind when I was not in the car), this activation was worthwhile. No DX but still enough POTA activators and chasers to allow me to qualify this “4-fer” location.

73 ’til the next activation!