Category Archives: SOTA

DD5LP/P – February 22nd 2023 – HEMA DL/HAM-014 & SOTA DL/AM-176 Rentschen.

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Preparation:

After several cancelled (because of weather and unplanned commitments) tries, I was determined to get out to “a” summit again. Originally I wanted to test out the “wavelength-plus” on-the-ground antenna however following some positive comments from John VA3KOT on the VP2E antenna after I pointed him at it as an interesting antenna, I decided I probably should give it another try after building it nearly two years ago and only using it once or twice!

John VA3KOT, by the way, has a nice and friendly website that he calls Ham radio Outside the box, where he likes to look at unusual solutions used by hams to solve portable operations issues. The site is well worth a read and is where I found out about the wire-on-the-ground antenna while I was looking for a small lightweight antenna to use with my G106 radio while travelling.

I have built two VP2E antennas (actually three, but the third one was an attempt to make the antenna multi-band through the use of links – it failed).  So I have a 40m and a 20m version at the moment. Both are twice the size of a normal dipole on the band and hence need space for any tests. For antenna testing, Rentschen is ideal as it is a drive-on summit with a plateau top. So I have lots of space to set up the antenna. I decided I would only test the 20m version as that is the band where some directional gain might prove the difference between making a DX contact and not doing so. It has to be said that, the possible 2 dBD gain in some directions compared to a dipole, is not a lot – but as we know, every little bit counts and the 20 watts of SSB from the G90 radio is hardly a “QRO” set-up, so “all help is gratefully received”.

To find out all about the “Vertically Polarised Two Element” VP2E antenna, a little of its history, how I built mine and my calculator for you to get the needed lengths for whichever band you choose, click here.

  Ernie VK3DET had kindly said he would listen for me and Wx dependant, Mike 2E0YYY might get out to his local hill in the UK to give me an S2S contact.

As usual, all gear was packed in the car, the night before the activation, so that I could make an early start. That being said, this would not need to be a really early start as the 20m long path had been opening only from 0830 UTC (09:30 am local time) recently, so leaving home at 8:15 – 8:30 am would be fine.

The weather forecast was for a cool overcast day but, most importantly, no rain.

The Activation

Rentschen – HEMA DL/HAM-014 and SOTA DL/AM-176.

The good drive down in just over 40 minutes and I was parked on the summit by 9 am local time (0800 UTC). 25 minutes later I was all set up, with the VP2E “pointing” due West – my long path direction for contacts into VK. First in the log after a CQ call – Ernie VK3DET 5-4 in both directions.

Mike 2E0YYY had been unable to get out as they had constant rain all morning, so he kindly acted as my spotter and starting with the HEMA designation, I quickly put 18 contacts in the log. Many from the UK and many commenting on how loud and consistent a signal I had, while there was QSB on the band. In fact, surveying the contacts later I can tell that skip was short, which also explained why the band seemed full almost from end-to-end and this on a weekday! Ernie heard a couple of other European stations but none from Germany – perhaps we hit the best time with our contact or perhaps this antenna was achieving a good low-angle radiation pattern as the models show it should do. Some callers were weaker than I normally hear them, especially to the north and southeast – this could be the antenna’s directivity or simple conditions.

Once the callers dried up, I asked Mike to spot me again but this time on the SOTA cluster and the DX cluster and again I had a pile-up – another 18 contacts in the log. Of all the 36 contacts, Bernie was the only one from outside of Continental Europe. the majority of callers were from the UK, including one G0POQ from my town of birth – Hull in East Yorkshire. several of the contacts were conversations rather than only a report exchange, so the band conditions and the antenna were holding up well. After the second pile-up finished, I decided to pack up as it was only 3°C and the primary 4AH LifePO would have been somewhat drained after about a full hour of constant usage at 20 watts output. I did have a second battery with me (a LiHV 4 AH one) but I had achieved what I had come to do in testing the 20m VP2E and I am glad to say all worked well. None of the equipment had any issues on this outing.

Below as an extra in this report, I have the SOTAMapping map of all of my contacts.

 Photos:

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Equipment used:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
  • Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • Screw-in sun umbrella support (not used).
  • Converted Surveyors tripod.
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
  • Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole antenna (not used).
  • 20 & 40m VP2E antennas (20m one used).
  • 4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
  • 4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet and gardener’s kneeling pad.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms. 

Logs:

Rentschen

HEMA DL/HAM-014

 

SOTA DL/AM-176

Conclusions:

  • Band conditions at the time of this activation were short skip not as good as they have been, which makes the contact into Australia (albeit an arranged, scheduled one) all the more of a success.
  • The equipment all worked as it should. The combination of the Xiegu G90 with its 20 watts of SSB and the VP2E (Vertically polarised 2-element) antenna on the 6m-high mast supported by the surveyor’s tripod worked very well from the first moment it was plugged into the radio. I now believe the antenna has “some” directivity however I suspect its greatest asset is the low-angle radiation and the amount of wire in the air, being twice as large as the dipoles that I normally use. The fact that it is purely a single-band antenna is a drawback as is the need to use the large tripod to support the mast.

73 ’til the next summit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DD5LP/P – January 8 2023 – HEMA DL/HCN-004 & SOTA DL/AM-180 Berndorfer Buchet.

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Preparation:

As Andrew VK1AD was going out using the VI10SOTA special event call sign to celebrate 10 years of SOTA in the ACT, I decided to go out at the same time and try for an S2S and an H2S. If the long path band conditions were as they have been, it should be possible with a little luck.

Mike 2E0YYY/P and Ernie VK3DET would get on as well.

The set-up would be the tried and tested G90 plus OCF dipole from Aerial-51 and the 6m mast, all of which packs into, or onto my medium sized rucksack.

All was prepared and put in the back of the car for a 7:30 am start on Sunday morning.

I decided that I would go to my closest summit, Berndorfer Buchet, which is a HEMA summit as well as a SOTA summit and so I alerted in both award systems of my intention of activating it. 

The Activation

Berndorfer Buchet – HEMA DL/HCN-004 and SOTA DL/AM-180.

The good drive down in just over 30 minutes and I was parked at my usual spot by 8:05 am. The walk from the parking spot to the summit takes 15 minutes and with another 15 minutes to set up the station, I was on the air by 07:40 UTC. I messaged Mike 2E0YYY who had just arrived in his local park and Ernie who was heading to his radio shack.

Tuning around 20m was already active with me but dead with Mike in the UK but as time went on this changed. I heard a JI1 (Japan) station but could not get a reply from him to me calls. I also heard and worked very easily EA5S/M in Spain, so I knew I was getting out. VI10SOTA was spotted on several different frequencies, Andrew was obviously having to move to get away from the normal weekend QRM. On some of his spotted frequencies I could hear the chasers calling him but not Andrew himself and that was to be the story of the activation. Although I eventually got an easy contact with Mike in The UK, I couldn’t manage one with Ernie. On a couple of occasions I could hear someone in the noise but I couldn’t say if it was Ernie or not. He of course could not hear anything from me.

As well as 20m, I also got lots of contacts around Europe on 40m. I tried 10 metres as well but it was the DARC 10m contest and so the band was full of loud, wide stations. Even if the band had opened for DX I would not have been able to get through the QRM from the contest stations.

One positive point from the outing, was that the new power lead which I made after the problems I had on the last activation, worked perfectly. Overall this activation in the cold (maximum +5°C) was a bit of a let down compared to “what could have been” but propagation is like that. I would have like to have worked Andrew on his summit in Australia and although some home stations in Europe managed it, it was not to be from where I was.

At least this time, i did not come home with a list of problems to fix, the equipment worked correctly for the whole 2 hours that I was on the summit.

 Photos:

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Equipment used:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
  • Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • Screw-in sun umbrella support.
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
  • Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole antenna
  • 4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
  • 4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
  • Painters thick plastic sheet and gardeners kneeling pad.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms. 

Logs:

Berndorfer Buchet

HEMA DL/HCN-004

SOTA DL/AM-180

Conclusions:

  • Band conditions at the time of this activation were not as good as I had hoped they would be and 10m was totally unusable with the local contest being in full swing.
  • The equipment all worked as it should. The combination of the Xiegu G90 with it’s 20 watts and the Aerial-51 OCF dipole even with the small (effectively 5m high) pole continues to work very well. This is definitely a good combination for single backpack portable operation.

73 ’til the next summit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – January 2nd 2023 – DL/AM-001 Peißenberg.

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Preparation:

The new year is here which means that all of my local summits are available to get points again (not that the points are important these days – I have achieved SOTA Mountain Goat status, so the pure points-hunt part of the scheme is finished for me).

Ernie VK3DET said he would be available to listen for me and Mike 2E0YYY may even go out portable to work me, depending upon the weather.

In any case I wanted to get out portable as 10m and 20m have been good lately. Peißenberg is perhaps my second closest summit after Berndorfer Buchet but has the advantage of more flat area to set-up antennas on and of course three winter bonus points. 

My idea was to put up my 10m mast supported by my large surveyors tripod and then have the Aerial-51 OCF antenna at a higher height than normal. As the weather reports are good, I could try out my VP2E antenna on 20m as I haven’t really given it a good trial comparison against any other antenna yet. It is supposed to have some directional gain over a dipole. For the comparison, I would need to have both antennas up at the same time as the band conditions could (and often do) change in the time I need to lower one antenna and raise the other.

This all adds up to more than the usual load but as Peißenberg is a drive-on summit, I wont have to carry everything very far, but to save time, I loaded the car up on Sunday night for this Monday morning activation.

The Activation

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

The drive down is a route I have taken many times before. On the way, I was deciding whether to perform all the tests in the field or just to keep things simple and operate from the upper operating position by the church. As I approached the lower car park, the decision was made for me – there was some kind of gathering of people with camper vans taking up the lower car park, so if I could get a place in the car park, it would not be that close to the field and who knows what interference would be coming out of all of these “mobile homes” (see later comment about S7 QRM on 40m).

So it would be the reduced set-up, with the OCF antenna and the small 6 metre pole from my old location by the church, in the nice seated area with a wooden fence that the mast straps to and the antenna wires run out to a couple of convenient posts.

First of all though, I had to go and buy a parking ticket. What has been a free public car park for the last 20 years has been changed during the Covid pandemic to a private carpark where they charge €2 for 3 hours parking and €4 for six hours.

 OK, with that small detail taken care of, I took just the equipment that I needed to go up to my usual operating spot – at the side of the church looking straight into the valley.

As I approached the spot, I realised someone was already sat in “my” spot. To make things worse, he had just started eating his breakfast and was obviously enjoying the view and relaxing in the early morning sun. GREAT! I wondered if I might be able to set up at the back of the church but as I went there, I found other people there – what’s going on? This place is never this busy on a Monday:  Oh well, I thought, I’ll just have to go back to the original plan and squeeze in between the camper vans in the lower car park. then the guy behind the church started making small talk about how the view was lovely and the clean clear air is good for you. He was right of course and so I agreed with him and he turned out to be one of those people, who when you start talking to them, you can’t get away. I didn’t want to be rude but time (and the long path to Australia) was slipping away. I eventually got free after about 20 minutes and the man in “my seat” was still there. I asked if he’d mind if I sat on the next bench to him and explained that I would be setting up to do my amateur radio. He said he was about to leave but he had no issues with me setting up there, so I did so and explained a little about out hobby and gave him a brochure as he really seemed to show a little interest. When he finally did leave to walk back down the hill, I moved everything up onto my normal seat, and then it happened – the radio went off. A bad connection in the power lead. It worked a couple of times but a problem with the G90 is that if power drops unexpectedly all settings are returned to defaults! I have seen this problem before. It is something in the power lead. I thought I had fixed it last time – obviously not. To circumvent the problem, I switched from my LifePO4 battery to my LiHV one (which has its own power cable).

So, now that I was operational again, I decided to message Ernie VK3DET to see if he was still around. No response from Ernie or Mike – that’s odd. I then tried to check my emails – no Internet connectivity – great! Another problem. One that if you have a dual SIM phone on two different networks as I do is not difficult to fix – I switched over from Deutsche Telekom to Vodaphone and got my Internet connectivity back again. OK, messaged Ernie again and – luckily – he was still around and after finding a free frequency on 20m, we managed a short contact – only exchanging signal reports but it was a contact. I wonder what it would have been like had I got on 30 minutes earlier as I had planned?

The rest of the activation was more “normal”. I had hoped to get some contacts on 10m but it was dead, even after spotting myself I could not get any callers. So the contacts were roughly half on 20m and half on 40m as you will see from the log below. There were two S2S contacts, one into the UK and one into Ireland, which were nice. On 40m I had nearly S7 noise level, which is very strange for this summit – the weather station next door is always RF quiet and I suspect more that the noise was coming from one or more of the camper vans in the lower car park, so had I set up there I would have been even more restricted in what I could do.

So now that I am home, I have a G90 power cable to investigate – in fact I think I will simply build a new one. This was not the best activation with equipment problems and delays because of the tourists and again, I did not get a chance to try out the VP2E antenna. Perhaps on Rentschen, which is a plateau SOTA/HEMA summit with lots of space for antenna experiments as long as I get there before the snow comes again. One year i was there the snow was 2 metres tall against the side of the road!

Photos:

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg:

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Equipment taken:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90 radio.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna with a modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials. (not used)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • DX-Wire 10m mast and Surveyors tripod (not used).
  • Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole.
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 4 Ah LiHV battery.
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet (not used).
  • Gardener’s kneeling pad (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

 

Conclusions:

  • I hate operating weekend days from a summit due to tourists. This was a Monday but being just after new year, i suppose I should have expected more people than usual to be around.
  • Despite arriving earlier than expected, by the time I got on air on 20 metres I was lucky to get the contact into Australia as the band was starting to close.
  • The 10 metre band is a fickle band. The MUF seems to just creep over from time to time at the moment and if its below 28MHz the band is closed.
  • I need to make a new power cable for the G90, the standard one has some problem (perhaps in the strange connector on the rear of the radio or in the car type fuse holder). I have tried to resolve the problem by rechecking all the connections but the problem re-occurred so no it is time for a complete replacement. 

73 ’til the next summit(s).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – December 30th 2022 – DL/AL-179 Weichberg & DL/AL-169 Auerberg.

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Preparation:

With the year coming to a close and the weather being dry, if not warm and radio conditions being generally good, I decided I would activate a SOTA summit. Looking around I realised that the easy summit Weichberg, although I had activated it, I hadn’t activated it in the winter bonus period in 2022, so that was the summit I chose. Given that Auerberg is also an easy summit and only 20 minutes drive away from Weichberg, I usually combine the two summits and that is what I did on this occasion as well. While I had activated both of these summits already in 2022 I would not get their basic points but I would pick-up 3 winter bonus points for both summits. In fact I don’t care so much about the points anymore, having passed the 1000 points mark some time ago and what I was hoping for was some DX contacts from these two summits.

At least from Weichberg, I should be on the summit around the time that 20m has been opening up via long path into VK/ZL recently and even 10 metres has also been opening up.

I put up SOTA alerts for both summits and decided to stay with my standard equipment apart from one change. As I wanted to try out 10 metres and my usual linked dipole does not have a link for 10m, I decided to take along the Aerial-51 404-UL OCF inverted-V dipole which covers the main bands between 40m and 10m. It also covers the WARC bands (30, 17 & 12m) but only using an ATU to match to the antenna on these bands. While my Xiegu G90 has a very good built-in ATU, I could use this however I was not planning activation on any of the WARC bands, and putting an ATU in circuit to match the impedance of a non-resonant antenna to 50 ohms to protect the radio means that the full radio power is not being transmitted from the antenna, so this is only a “last resort” option for me.

My plan was to operate primarily on 10m with 20m as a fall-back if needed. Unfortunately my mates in VK and UK were not going to be on the air to listen for me but Markus HB9DIZ sent me a message asking that I squeeze some time in on 40m as well – as he wanted “completes” of the two summits I was activating as he has activated them himself while on holiday in Germany. With the 40m OCF, and the G90, this request is not a problem. My only concern is not to get “stuck” on 40m and lose out on the opening of 20 and possibly 10 metres for DX contacts.

As these summits are relatively close (about 45 minutes drive from home to the first one), this would be a leisurely start leaving home around 8 am. I put all my gear ready in the hall on Thursday so I could pick it up and head straight off on Friday. 

The Activation

DL/AL-179 Weichberg

On reaching the summit, setting up and switching on the radio, I was surprised to hear as the first station, a VK2 working a pile-up on the frequency that I had last had the radio on – on 40 metres! I was not expecting that and of course I tried calling him when he finished with other stations, but he was only working stations that were 59+ with him it seems. This would have been greyline propagation.

I then tuned around 40 metres, found F8VOF calling CQ and gave him a call – 59 both ways, so I’m getting out OK. After that I searched for a free frequency, spotted myself, hoping some chasers in VK or ZL might see my spot. No such look, however, I made 36 contacts on 40 metres in the following 22 minutes at which point I decided I’d better try 10 metres and 20m before they closed.

Ten metres was totally dead, and was going to stay so for the rest of the day. Tuning around on 20m however, I came across several VK stations and one particularly strong one – Grant VK3OZY, I gave a call and thanks to his perseverance we managed to make a contact. By the time I got home later in the day, Grant had already sent me an email with a QSL card using an interesting new system, which I can see replacing QSL Bureau’s and direct via post, cards in the future.

Having worked Grant, I took another look around 10m and put out a call – no contacts – the band was dead. So back on 20m I found a clear frequency, spotted myself and worked another five European SOTA chasers. Then I saw that Leszek SQ9MDF and his wife Violetta SQ9NOT were out on an OK summit, operating on 40 metres, so I switched the radio back there and made easy 54/55 contacts with both of them for a summit-to-summit contact. Before closing down, I bagged one more SOTA chaser on 40 metres. 

As I was taking the equipment down, I realised two things, firstly that I could slowly feel my fingers again as it had been a cold morning and my new silk inner liner gloves hadn’t done their job very well but they were now warming up as temperatures rose and secondly how much more convenient using the OCF type antenna is compared to a linked dipole. The LD might have a little more gain as it is truly resonant on each band that it covers but the fact that I could simply switch bands on the radio without having to worry about changing anything on the antenna is a real plus point.

DL/AL-169 Auerberg

I know I have the address for Auerberg programmed into my Navi (GPS) in the car but I could not find it, so I just set-off and went from my memory for the route. No Problems 20 minutes later, I was in the combined restaurant and church car park at Auerberg.

When I finished setting up the station, I tuned a little around 20m and was surprised to find that at 1030 UTC (11:30 local), there were STILL VK stations coming through at good strengths. Of course getting a contact from them would only be possible if they wanted to call me, so again, I found a free frequency, spotted myself and hoped for a SOTA chaser from VK  to call, however, by now it would be approaching midnight in the “land down under” and indeed there were no DX calls answering my CQ SOTA call from Auerberg but I did work 23 stations from all around Europe including two S2S contacts in the next 25 minutes. I also checked 10 metres which was still closed and I almost forgot but Markus HB9DIZ texted me while I was packing up and I got back on 40m to give him his second complete of the day. 

The weather was kind to me (apart from the cold in the early morning), that there was no rain, indeed around lunchtime it was almost like a spring day and this at the very end of the year, almost .

Photos:

DL/AL-179 Weichberg:

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DL/AL-169 Auerberg:

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Equipment taken:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Silk inner gloves.
  • Xiegu G90 radio.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna with a modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials. (not used)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • Sun Umbrella screw-in base (used at Weichberg).
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
  • SotaBeams end-fed (not used).
  • Aerial-51 404-UL 40m OCF Inverted-V dipole.
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 4 Ah LiHV battery (not used).
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
  • Gardener’s kneeling pad.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

DL/AL-179 Weichberg

DL/AL-169 Auerberg

Conclusions:

  • A surprising change in the propagation conditions from the previous day. 20m was open and 10m completely closed. The reverse of what happened the previous day. Hearing VK on 40m via Greyline was a surprise.
  • The number of chasers is becoming too much for a comfortable activation. While it is an indication of how popular SOTA is, sometimes one likes more casual contacts. After all you need is four contacts to qualify the summit. I hate to let anyone down though.
  • Having not used the Aerial-51 antenna for a couple of years, it worked flawlessly and the convenience of being able to switch bands without having to change settings on the antenna cannot be understated.
  • I was lucky with the weather however I have made some more log sheets from glossy photo paper, and used these with my write-in-the-wet pens that I have. All OK but normal paper would also have been OK on this activation. 

73 ’til the next summit(s).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – November 5th 2022 – DL/EW-001 Wank.

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Preparation:

I don’t normally activate on a Saturday, however as the Transatlantic SOTA S2S event was scheduled for Saturday 5th of November, I had no choice. I decided the week before on activating Wank Mountain near Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the southern border of Germany with Austria. This mountain has a cable car which stops, as all in Bavaria do, at the start of November for annual maintenance. What is different about the wankbahn cable car is that it stops all the way through into the spring of the following year while most re-open for the Christmas season. Probably as there are no ski runs from the Wank mountain, the owners have decided that it is not worth restarting before the walkers arrive eager to go in spring.

As I hadn’t activated DL/EW-001 in 2022, this was the opportunity to bag it and hopefully several contacts into North America. As the date neared the number of activators that alerted that they would be out around 1300 UTC on Saturday increased and increased with over 25 on Friday. Most of these were in the US and there were only a limited number of UK stations going out as the weather forecast for them had been bad, however, as the day neared, the weather forecast for the UK improved and my, planned easy activation in the sunshine on the grass, slipped away. Thursday night brought a good covering of snow to the top of Wank Mountain and with temps between -6°C at night and -2°C during the day, this wasn’t going to be gone by Saturday.

I considered going to an alternative summit, that was lower and free of snow as I could see from the webcam pictures that the track from the cable car station up to the very summit of the mountain hadn’t been cleared and was unlikely to be cleared with very few people on the mountain. Then I checked where the activation zone for the summit comes down to and saw that the area to the east of the cable car station, above a children’s play area and in fact where the webcam is located is actually still in the activation zone, so I decided to stick with Wank Mountain and it’s 6-points rather than going to a lower hill with just 1 or 2 points to give out to each chaser. 

The drive down to the summit is just over 90 minutes in the car, so I kept checking on Friday and Saturday morning that they did not close the lift early because of a lack of trade. All seemed OK, the cable car was still open, as was the restaurant in the cable car building, but not the one on the very summit, which is run by the DAV (national alpine walking club).

The Activation

DL/EW-001 Wank

The drive down was uneventful – a route I have taken many times before. I arrived at the cabin lift’s car park at 1 pm as planned. The parking fee is excessive at €6 but that’s for a full day of parking (there are no shorter options). The lift is also expensive at normally €24 but for us OAPs it’s €22.50 for the round trip which takes about 20 minutes each way. My guess is that at any one time, there were a maximum of 20 visitors on the mountain possibly closer to 10 at times. So the company that owns the cable car will not have made a profit this Saturday. The Sunday, however, was expected to be sunny and so for the last day of operation in 2022, I suspect they will have been busy.

On arriving at the top station of the lift, I did a quick check around to see whether going to the actual summit would be possible, but the track hadn’t been cleared, so it was off to the spot on the map which is actually marked on some maps as the SOTA summit location, although it isn’t the actual summit (it’s in the AZ, which is all that matters). 

After clearing the ice and snow off the bench, I set to, to get the mast and antenna up as quickly as possible as some of the work required me to remove my gloves and in -2°C you want gloves on whenever possible. I had thought I might have a problem getting my screw-in mast base (it’s actually meant for a sun umbrella) into the ground, but no, that was easy enough. Ideally, I would have liked to have run the inverted-v linked dipole N-S to give the best radiation and reception to/from North America but so doing would have one wire across the path and while visibility was restricted with the low clouds that I was sat in, I thought the danger to others would be too great and simply ran the wire out of the way in an almost E-W direction. At only 5m AGL the antenna is still rather Omnidirectional in any case.

Somehow, I managed to have my radio set up almost 30 minutes ahead of my alerted time, despite the weather. I had decided to start on 20m as that was the most likely band for the S2S contacts. I tuned 20m and found a full band (well it was the weekend and I’m sure some contest or other would be belting away somewhere). On tuning around 20m I found that 14.285 was free but I decided not to operate there as that is the QRP calling frequency on 20m and found 14.290 as a good alternative.

After calling only a short while I had a constant pile-up of chasers from around Europe, nothing from the US but it was a bit early. Checking spots on SOTAWatch, I saw a couple of US stations on 20m CW, so perhaps there might be some SSB stations at some point.

After about 20 minutes the pile up calling me just kept calling and calling and no matter which station I went back to, they did not respond, then they started calling with their call sign again and there were more and more and more of these callers – something was very odd – I seemed to still be transmitting – no problems there… Then I guessed what was going on – what is it when lots of people transmit but don’t listen? Yes, a DXPedition station had looked for a space on the band and found 14285 free (as I had) but ignored the fact that it is the QRP calling frequency (and they were certainly running QRO), started up there and found he could not separate all the stations calling him. No problem, “I’ll work split” – listening 5-up – Yeah, 5-up the frequency is already in use but does he check that? NO – he unleashes his hoards of chasers, who also listen only on the DXPedition frequency, not where they are transmitting, and I get hammered with stations on my frequency who don’t respond! Is this “in the spirit of amateur radio?” I think not – but this is a DXPedition so they can break the rules can’t they? NO, THEY CAN’T! Perhaps I should have re-spotted on the same frequency and stated that I was listening 5 kHz down to block the DXPeditions signal with my chasers? but I’m not like that, instead, I sought out a new frequency and luckily the outstanding SOTA chasers followed me when I moved.

While the rest of the activation went without further incident apart from the usual splatter from stations up to 5kHz away from my frequency, when I finally decided the weather was getting the better of me and I took the station down, the mast had frozen and the ice inside it broke the base cap on the mast. Not a big problem until I found that the electrician’s tape that I had with me didn’t like the cold and refused to come off its reel without splitting, making it useless. Luckily the mast’s top “bung” was still OK, so I simply put the mast in the side of my rucksack, upside down and that was fine until I could get it to my car in the car park of the bottom station of the cable car lift for my drive home.

Not the best activation but it has pointed out what I need to look at to improve the equipment as we move into the winter activation months.

Photos:

DL/EW-001 Wank – Timelapse pictures from public webcam:

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DL/EW-001 Wank – My pictures:

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Equipment taken:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90 radio.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna with a modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials. (not used)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • SotaBeams linked dipole.
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 4 Ah LiHV battery (not used).
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet (not used).
  • Gardener’s kneeling pad.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

DL/EW-001 Wank

 

Conclusions:

  • I hate operating weekend days from a summit. In this case, however, the offences perpetrated by the DXPedition station could just as easily have happened on a weekday.
  • Sometimes limited time due to bad weather and DX Contacts simply do not work well together. If I had been able to stay another hour, I may have been able to have got an S2S into North America.
  • The Xiegu G90’s 20w and the linked dipole continue to work very well, with lots of reports received being 5-9. Shame about the mast breaking its bottom cap but that is already repaired and ready for its next outing.
  • I need to make some more log sheets from glossy photo paper, normal paper is terrible to write on without tearing it in the middle of sleet storms. 

73 ’til the next summit(s).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – October 18th 2022 – DL/AM-060 Laber.

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Preparation:

The plan was to try out my new ultra-small QRP Xiegu G-106 radio from a summit. I had tried it from a park and in fact, made a contact with GB22NH at the UK’s National Hamfest from my back garden, using the small radio and small antenna but the advantage of being on a SOTA summit is that once you spot yourself on SOTAWatch you will undoubtedly get lots of calls (especially for this 6-point summit). In fact I realised later that this summit is also within a POTA park and hence all contacts count for that award scheme as well as for SOTA. I had a report of corrupted audio previously, possibly caused by RF getting into the radio and since that report, I have added clip-on ferrites and more radial wires to the antenna base. I also found that the microphone gain was set too high – hopefully, this test session on the Laber summit will clarify if I still have a problem or not. 

The cable car starts at 9 am local time (0700 UTC) so by the time I would be on the summit, it would most likely be too late for any of the DX contacts we have been seeing over the last few weeks into VK on 20m SSB.

Rather than just take my new small radio and its also small, Diamond RHB-8B antenna, I decided to take my normal G90 radio and its antennas as well. The Kommunica HF-PRO2 loaded vertical and the linked dipole and 6-metre fishing pole.

My normal location at Laber is close to the top station of the cable car but looking at the map, there is another area that may have some more space and is still within the activation zone. I would try to go there and see how that was as I could always go back to my normal location if needed. As I wanted to be in the first cabin up, I packed the car and set the alarm for 6:30 am, Monday evening for a not SO early start at 7:45 am on Tuesday morning.

The Activation

DL/AM-060 Laber DA-0003 Ammergauer Alpen region

The drive down was uneventful – a route I have taken many times before. I arrived at the cabin lift’s car park at 8:50. The parking fees like most things have gone up – it is now €5 for 4 hours of parking where it used to be only 3, and the machines only take coins but I was aware and prepared for this.

After buying my lift ticket, I waited for the cable car. This is a small lift, in fact, the oldest still running in Bavaria, perhaps even Germany and there are only 4 cabins on the system, each coming about every 15 minutes. I indeed got in the first car and alone, so that I did not need to worry about COVID but wore my mask anyway (it is no longer compulsory but I’d say about 10-15% of people still wear them when inside public areas and the mandatory wearing is likely to come back in the next few weeks in any case).

On the way up the mountain, I checked the spotted SOTA activators and saw that Andrew VK1AD was still out and working stations in Europe. For that reason, I decided to go straight to my usual spot – a bench on a rise about 30 metres from the lift building and I set up the HF-PRO2 vertical antenna as putting the dipole up here is difficult and would have taken more time. Once I had the equipment set up, I tuned to Andrew’s spotted frequency only to hear an Italian station chatting there. So either Andrew was below this signal or he had already called it a day. I later heard a couple of other VK, home stations one of which I tried to call but there were too many high-powered home stations calling him that I stood no chance.

I wanted to see how I was getting out with the Komunica vertical, so I found a free frequency on 20m, spotted myself and started calling CQ SOTA. The calls came in thick and fast and within 9 minutes, I had 9 contacts in the log, all of them giving me very good reports – often over 5 and 9. These were all stations within Europe as the band had changed to short skip, which is normal from around 0730 UTC at the moment.

Once the calls dried up, I decided to set up the QRP radio as well, after all, I was there to test the new radio. there was enough room to set up both radios and both antennas so that I could switch between to do checks.

My next call on the 20w radio was Mario DJ2MX in Munich – he was a good signal – not as strong as some of the french and UK stations that I had worked earlier but I was pretty sure that Mario would help me with my tests, so I explained the two different radios and antennas and he agreed to make a comparison. On receive Mario was the same strength on both radios but he could not hear me on the G106 with the Diamond antenna. I checked and found the power was down on the low setting of about 1w, so I changed that to the high setting of at least 5W, usually nearer to 7w – he still could not hear me. I also have two microphones for the g106 – the stock one and a modified HT microphone with higher output. None of this helped. Mario said he could hear “something” in the noise but could not really tell that it was me. The next test, once I found the needed BNC to SO239 adapter, was to try the G106 with the Komunica HFPRO2 antenna instead of the Diamond RHB8B. An immediate result! He could now hear me but he also reported what sounded like RF Ingress getting into the audio. again I switch microphones and adjusted the mic gain but nothing helped. I still have a problem when operating with a portable antenna and the g106.

Time was getting on and I wanted to get home around noon, so I thanked Mario for his help (he had to go as well) and then packed up and went to await the next cable car back down the mountain.

Some would say this was a disappointing activation – not making any DX contacts and not working anyone with the small antenna / small radio combination but as my intent was to test the new radio and see where I am with it – it was (in my eyes) a successful trip. The Komunica HFPRO2 performed brilliantly again, the diamond antenna on the other hand was a letdown. I am really happy that I suffered the extra weight of taking both the normal station and the new station up the mountain as had I just taken the G106 and the Diamond antenna, I would most likely have got very few contacts – if any at all.

The weather was also kind, despite a couple of small showers on the way down, the summit was dry and sunny. Not warm but sunny. The views once the mist lifted were also worth the trip.

Photos:

DL/AM-060 Laber

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Equipment taken:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90 radio.
  • Xiegu G106 radio
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna with a modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials.
  • Diamond RHB8B loaded HF vertical antenna with modified ultra-small support tripod and counterpoise wires.
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast. (not used)
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
  • 2 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery (for G106).
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery (for G90).
  • 4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet (not used).
  • Gardener’s nealing pad (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Logs:

DL/AM-060 Laber

Conclusions:

  • The “star of the activation” was certainly the Komunica HF-PRO2-PLUS-T antenna, and the flop was the Diamond RHB-8B antenna.
  • Band conditions had just changed to short skip so it seems 0600-0730 is the best time for long path contacts into VK on 20m SSB at the moment.
  • The G106 still needs some work to improve the transmitted audio and it needs a better antenna than the Diamond but it needs to be small as the intention with the G106 is to have an ultra-compact “holiday station”.

73 ’til the next summit(s).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – September 30 2022 – HEMA DL/HCN-004 & SOTA DL/AM-180 Berndorfer Buchet.

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Preparation:

As long path band conditions on 20m were good I wanted to get out and work VK from a portable location, away from “metro noise” and with a simple antenna and low power. The problem was that the terrestrial weather was not nearly as good as the space weather and we were having constant rain most days. Friday and Saturday mornings looked like they might be better. while I saw that Ian VK5CZ was going out to celebrate 10 years of SOTA in South Australia on Saturday the 1st. October. I thought this would be the best option however as the summit planned for Saturday needed a two-hour walk-in / out it meant that Ian would not be there when the 20m band has been opening up around 0600 UTC so the alternative was to head out on Friday as Ian planned to camp on a summit overnight and hence being on the summit at 0600 UTC (8 am with me, 3:30 pm with Ian) would not be a problem. So Friday it would be and as it turned out with a CME hitting the ionosphere on Friday afternoon, it was the better day in any case.

I decided on going to my closest summit, Berndorfer Buchet, which I had already activated twice this year and hence would not get any points for the activation but that was secondary in this case. This is a HEMA summit as well as a SOTA summit and so I alerted in both award systems of my intention of activating it. I set the HEMA time 15 minutes before the SOTA time.

The Activation

Berndorfer Buchet – HEMA DL/HCN-004 and SOTA DL/AM-180.

The drive down was uneventful and I was parked at my usual spot by 7:05 am. The walk from the parking spot to the summit takes 15 minutes and with another 15 minutes to set up the station, I was on the air by 05:50 UTC. As this was still too early for 20m, I started on 40m and having found a frequency spotted myself on the HEMA website and started calling CQ. Unfortunately, I got a limited response and so at 0600 UTC, I spotted myself on SOTAwatch where I got several more responses. Once these dried up, it was time to take the antenna down and un-link to make the linked dipole into a 20m antenna.

I was very happy to hear Ian VK5CZ/P on VK5/NE-093 come back to my call. he was followed by four other stations from Australia; Gerard VK2IO, Peter VK3ZPF, Andrew VK1AD/M and Ron VK3AFW. So in a matter of seven minutes, I had been called from four different Australian states and all from people I know from my time in Australia. Two more European stations finished the activation. I looked around to find other VK stations and one – Joesph VK3DXJ was hammering in but by this time there were a lot more people on the band and he had an enormous pile-up that I couldn’t break into.  As it was starting to rain, I packed up and was home before 10 am (0800 UTC). This was a short but very successful activation. 

The weather forecasts for the next few days (both terrestrial and space weather) don’t look very good, so it’ll be a few days before I get out portable again. perhaps next time with the new ultra-small G106 radio?

 Photos:

 

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Equipment used:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
  • Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • Screw-in sun umbrella support.
  • SotaBeams linked dipole.
  • 4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
  • 4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
  • Painters thick plastic sheet.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms. 

Logs:

Berndorfer Buchet

HEMA DL/HCN-004

SOTA DL/AM-180

Conclusions:

  • Band conditions at the time of this activation were very good on 20m, making the run of five contacts possible via the long path. the following day a CME hit the ionosphere and I wonder how I would have faired, had I gone out as originally planned on Saturday morning.
  • The combination of the Xiegu G90 with it’s 20 watts and the linked dipole eve3n with the small (effectively 5m high) pole continues to work very well. This is definitely a good combination for single backpack portable operation.

73 ’til the next summit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – September 24th 2022 – DL/AM-001 Peissenberg.

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Preparation:

The plan was to get out and do another early morning activation before the wet autumn weather arrives. Originally planned for what was to be a sunny Thursday 22nd September, I moved my plans as Andrew VK1AD posted that he would be out on Saturday and hence my first EU-VK S2S contact in 3 years would be “possible”. The risk was with the weather as the rain was expected at the weekend. Thursday was sunny all day and I started wondering whether I had made a mistake but as other activators latched on to the Saturday morning time both in Europe and Australia, I thought these would be added opportunities for S2S contacts. As I had decided on my closest summit Peissenberg that I had already activated this year getting out and possibly getting an S2S contact was the “value” of the activation as I would not get the 1 activator’s point for this drive-up summit again.

As usual for early starts, all equipment was packed and ready to go on Friday evening for the early departure on Friday. This consisted of the usual backpack to carry all radio gear, the 6-metre mast, a flask with hot chocolate and a sandwich. I also loaded my large surveyor’s tripod with the 10-metre mast and the screw-in base for the 6-metre mast in case I needed it. The car would be parked within walking distance from the activation spot so I could take equipment to cover all possibilities.

The Activation

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg

There are two spots where I have activated previously. The lower (but still within the 25m vertical drop activation zone) is the large car park before the road rises up past the cemetery to the restaurant and church and there is also a nice spot exactly on the summit alongside the church. The last couple of times I have activated it from the lower car park and when trying out different antennas this is ideal as the car is close enough to exchange equipment from. This used to be a free car park however since COVID when lots of motorhome owners have camped there overnight, it has been made into a pay-to-park area. The upper car park has always been free but is a lot smaller however early morning is never a problem. Parking here has the advantage of a toilet but the activation point is out of view from the car (being the other side of the church) and hence everything has to be taken to the site in one action and space is limited, so the large tripod and 10-metre mast cannot be used.

Given that I have worked into VK from both spots I decided to avoid the parking charge (€2 for 3 hours) and head to the actual summit with just the 6-metre mast set-up. If there were problems with this site, I could always head back to the lower location.

I know the drive down so well that I was at Peissenberg in no time. It was just starting to get light as I approached the summit. At the end of the lower car park, there were piles of stones and signs to say no entry via the lower of two entrances – so I guess they are renewing that access. The higher entrance to the car park was still open. I continued up the road to the summit car park, in any case, to be surprised to see large signs everywhere saying this is a private car park and you could be fined if you park here. After stopping and reading the signs in more detail, they said you can be fined if you park here without a ticket and indeed a money-grabbing ticket machine was at the other side of the parking area. So, while the chance of being checked was zero, the place was deserted when I arrived and when I left, l did the right thing and bought a ticket. I realised later that the restaurant’s car park was full of cars as there is no charge there but as the restaurant would still be closed at the time that I left, I would not be able to give them any business and so parking there (if there had been a free spot) would not have been right.

Once I got to the two banks by the side of the church, I was happy to find everything the same as it has been for the last few years and I was able to “Bongo-Tie” the 6-metre mast to the railing and run out the two ends of the inverted-V linked dipole out to another bench on the western end and to a tree branch on the eastern end. While this is ninety degrees to the ideal direction for long-path to Australia at just 5-6 metres off the ground the dipole is not very directional in any case. There is no practical way to run the dipole north-south from this location in any case.

Once I had the gear set up on the bench, I sent Ernie VK3DET a message to see if he could listen for me. 20m has been opening at different times over the previous few days and this was going to turn out to be one where it opened later! So to start with no contacts into VK3 and in fact, Mike 2E0YYY was also setting up a special event station for the railways on-the-air weekend from the UK but as it was to turn out through a combination of MUF and long skip, I was not going to be able to make a contact with GB1FLR whose beam would be pointing away from me in any case, to also try for contacts into VK and into the US along that path.

While I could not get through to Ernie, I knew my chances of getting Andrew VK1AD were even less hopeful at the time however as he had just spotted, I took a listen on his frequency and heard nothing – perhaps later?  So while we were all waiting for the band to open, I spotted myself on SOTAWatch and was rewarded with a call from Dinos SV3IEG in Greece, so I knew I was getting out with my 20 watts and a dipole. this contact was followed by an S2S contact with Herbert OE9HRV/P on an Austrian/Bavarian border summit, Hochhaedrich. I presume this was a ground wave contact as if I had checked, I could probably see Herbert’s summit from where I was. Herbert was doing the same as me, waiting for conditions to get better to get a contact with Andrew or possibly one of the other two VK activators who had posted they would be out one from VK4 who I heard and called several times later but got no response and one in VK3 who I never heard, but I think he was mostly on CW.

30 minutes after my contact with Herbert, I got the first of three contacts with Ernie VK3DET (each time getting stronger in both directions). At 0620 UTC, I managed an S2S (portable at a summit to portable at a summit) contact with Andrew VK1AD/P in NSW Australia SUCCESS! At this point, the skies were getting darker again rather than lighter. After another couple of contacts with Ernie who was now an armchair copy, at 0645 UTC I decided to pack everything up and exactly at that point, the first raindrop fell. Ideal timing! 20 minutes later I was packed up back in the car and starting the drive home in the rain showers.

Photos:

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg

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Equipment taken:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
  • Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • Surveyor’s tripod (not used)
  • 10-metre DX-Wire mast (not used)
  • Screw-in sun umbrella support. (not used)
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (modified).
  • SotaBeams random length end-fed antenna (not used)
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
  • Gardener’s nealing pad (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for back channel comms with the group over “Signal” and for SOTA spots.

Logs:

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg

Conclusions:

  • Band conditions are certainly improving as we start to see solar cycle 25 kicking in.
  • As we are right at the autumn equinox, the greyline path on 40 metres is not practical for contacts into VK/ZL however as we move into winter, it will become an option again. For now, long path on 20m is the option with possibly 17&15 metres opening up as well soon.
  • The G90 / Linked dipole continues to perform well however if I have time, I should change the end black wire sections for a more visible colour, especially when on summits where I may get the public visiting.

73 ’til the next summit(s).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – September 13-14 2022 – HEMA DL/HAL-033 & SOTA DL/AL-181 Burgkranzegger Horn and SOTA DL/AL-167 Falkenstein.

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Preparation:

As part of my short holiday away from home, I had hoped to activate some higher HEMA and SOTA summits that I had not activated before however as it turned out with uncertain weather and the fact that my wife and the dog wanted to come along, I decided on some simpler summits mixed with some sightseeing around the southern part of Allgau, Bavaria.

As it was to turn out, this was a good decision and we had two enjoyable days and one where it rained all day and we came home early. At this time of year that was probably the best, we could have hoped for. 

Preparation for the trip was limited by the space available as the rear area where I would normally load all of my radio gear was taken up by our dog “Bonnie” meaning all luggage had to fit in our small car on the rear seat.

So the activation equipment was limited to what could go into or be attached to the side of, my 40-litre rucksack. I even chose not to take the lithium battery charges to recharge batteries overnight and rather took three battery packs of different sizes with the expectation that I would not drain them all. This of course added to the weight of the rucksack, as did the screw-in mast base attached to its side.

No experiments with antennas, I would take the linked dipole and the 6m mast with the HF-PRO2 loaded HF whip and its small tripod inside the rucksack as the backup option (which I needed on the second summit).

The Activations

As the weather looked fine, it was decided to fit in one activation en-route to our hotel.

Burgkranzegger Horn – HEMA DL/HAL-033 and SOTA DL/AL-181.

This is a summit with not too difficult access – especially in late summer (the last time that I activated it was in winter and a big problem was fighting through the deep snow as no track was obvious). The summit itself has an open area where the dog could entertain itself. The reason that this summit is in both the HEMA and SOTA schemes is historical and while its prominence is just 125m it fits nicely into the HEMA range of 100-150m while being well under the SOTA 150m minimum.

On arriving at the parking spot at the clinic on the outskirts of Mittleberg village, the weather was fine and we all three set off up the track. Unfortunately, my wife was unable to complete the last part of the climb (she got over 85% of the way there) but rather than risk anything, she said after sitting and taking in the views for a while, she would start off slowly back down, with the dog and wait for me at the car. I continued on to the large telegraph pole sized holy cross on the summit and started to set up on the bench below it. Before I could get set up 5 cyclists arrived, they were doing a tour around the whole of Allgau and were interested in knowing what I was doing. I gave them one of my leaflets in german about “what is amateur radio” and realised that I had forgotten to re-stock my supply so I would not have any more brochures should other visitors happen by – which they did. A younger couple arrived about 20 minutes later and showed interest and so I broke off operations to explain to them what our wonderful hobby is all about.

At some point between the visitors, I managed to get enough contacts to activate the summit. It was very clear however that there is a far smaller following for HEMA than for SOTA. Indeed I think all of my HEMA contacts were people who just happened to find me on 40 metres, not people who had seen my spot on the HEMA website.

SOTA was the usual pile-up following just one spot and a couple of CQ calls.

One thing is for sure, the radio and linked-dipole did their usual sterling service with lots of good reports and in SOTA we do tend to give real reports.

After 45 minutes on the summit, it was time to pack up and head back down to the car park where my wife and dog would be waiting. As I had however texted to say that I was packing up, by the time I was halfway down the steepest part, I could hear the barks of a dog that I recognised and when I finally got down onto the level track, it wasn’t long before I found my wife and dog waiting for me on a sheltered bank under a tree. They had set off to meet me halfway. 

 That was the end of activations on Tuesday, it was now time to head to the apartment hotel in Pfronten and en route buy some supplies at a supermarket. Once we got settled in and went out for an evening meal, the discussion was about what I would do on  Wednesday. Whether I would go off alone to a higher summit or do something easy again.

The weather was looking like it would “hold out” until at least Wednesday afternoon and after some thought, we agreed that we would visit the local farmers market first thing, then head on up to Falkenstein followed by a tourists visit to Fussen about 30 minutes away.

SOTA DL/AL-167 Falkenstein.

This is a summit that I have activated several times (but not this year as yet). It has a quirky one-way private road that opens one-way at times related to minutes past and before the hour. (to be safe there are also traffic lights) so a bit of bad timing on arrival and you might have to wait 20 minutes before you can drive up the road, once you have bought your €4 ticket for use of the road.

We started Wednesday with a rather disappointing weekly market in Pfronten with just two stalls there, so we grabbed breakfast at a cafe and then headed off to the start of the private rod up to Falkenstein, arriving at the start of the road as it closed to allow those at the castle to drive down. No problems we had enough time.

Falkenstein is the highest castle ruins in Germany and was the last of the famous King Ludwig II’s castles and was going to be his base for hunting in the surrounding mountains however he drowned under suspicious circumstances in Starnberg Lake before it could be finished. 

The walk from the car park takes you past a 4-star hotel with expensive luxury cars parked outside, belonging to the hotel’s guests. After what was already a steep walk up the road, the last section is a series of natural and manmade steps up to the ruins themselves. I was glad to see the message that the ruins are open at the bottom of this last climb. Both my wife and dog were determined to get to the ruins to be with me this time while I was operating. It was a fairly hard climb but the views from the top reward you and my wife was very impressed. There was a hefty wind coming up, so I would need to get set up and complete the activation before any bad weather arrived. So I went to the gate to the inside of the ruins, which has a sturdy platform with solid steps up its two levels and even has a round wooden table on the top level – ideal to set the radio up on. The gate was padlocked shut. Whoever put the sign to the ruins being open at the start of the last climb was having a laugh at our expense now!

The problem now is that although there is room inside the ruins to set up the 6-metre mast and linked dipole, outside there is not. So after carrying the bigger antenna and mast and support up all those steps, I had to revert to my backup antenna – the Komunica HF-PRO2 loaded vertical whip on my small photo tripod and with my homemade radial wires. Thankfully once I got set up, this antenna performed like a champion on both 40 & 20m (it actually covers from 80m through to 70cm).  Despite being close to the ruin’s walls contacts were made from around Europe with good signal reports.

 Just as importantly, the dog had settled herself down and my wife was able to sit on a stone seat (of sorts) and enjoy the views and fresh air.

Once the callers dried up, I was able to pack up and we headed back to the car park to wait for the traffic light system to tell us that we could go back down the single-lane road. we then had a nice afternoon looking through the old town of Fussen before returning back to the hotel and heading out to a closer (and better) restaurant than the night before, just as the heavy rain started.

Thursday was literally a wash-out but we had had two great days and activated a couple of nice summits – a low-stress holiday.

 Photos:

Burgkranzegger Horn

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Falkenstein

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Equipment used:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (used on Falkenstein)
  • Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (used of Falkenstein)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast (used on Bergkranzegger Horn).
  • Screw-in sun umbrella support(used on Bergkranzegger Horn).
  • SotaBeams linked dipole(used on Bergkranzegger Horn).
  • Battery box (2 x 5000maH hard-case 4S LIPOs) .
  • 4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
  • 4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
  • Painters thick plastic sheet.
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms. 

Logs:

Burgkranzegger Horn

HEMA DL/HAL-033 

SOTA DL/AL-181

Falkenstein  SOTA DL/AL-167

Conclusions:

  • Despite the uncertain weather it was possible to have a low-stress and an enjoyable couple of days including some summit activations.
  • The HF-PRO2 on its small tripod worked very well and I wonder if I would have made any more contacts with the linked dipole on its 6-metre mast had I been able to put it up at Falkenstein.

73 ’til the next summit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DD5LP/P – August 5th 2022 – DL/AL-179 Weichberg.

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Preparation:

The purpose of this activation was to test that adding a link for 15 metres into my long-suffering linked dipole hadn’t caused issues on the other bands that it covers. Ideally, some contacts on the new 15m section would be great but this would depend upon the MUF getting high enough, which over the preceding days had not been the case.

I also had just received a new beta version of the FT8 Radio smartphone App from Dhiru, where he had added support for the G90 radio, so I needed to test that out as well. The change over just using vox as I have been doing is that the radio is now switched via CAT running over a second cable between the Xiegu G90 radio and my Android 11 smartphone. The change should also automatically move the radio to the required frequency to transmit its data message into the FT8 network, later to appear on SOTAWatch as a spot message – This is sent over RF for situations where no cell coverage for internet connectivity from the phone and even no SMS coverage. Some people would use APRS to achieve a similar result however the number of in-range APRS digital gateways on HF may be low, where HF skimmers and SDRs that receive FT8 signals are plentiful.

Checking with our small “comm Checkers” group, Mike 2E0YYY was willing to head out to his local park and Ian VK3YFD was also happy to try for contacts on the bands as we moved up them to test the antenna.

As usual, all equipment was packed and ready to go on Thursday evening for the early departure on Friday. This consists of just one backpack to carry everything needed.

The Activation

DL/AL-179 Weichberg

The last time I activated this summit was in May under the DL20SOTA call sign, so I would not receive any activator points for this outing but the main purpose was to perform tests. The site is good for that with a nice area for setting up the 6m mast and antenna. What I had forgotten was that there is only a thin topsoil before you hit stones into which the screw-in sun umbrella base which I use to support the mast does not cut into very well. I would have been better bringing the surveyor’s tripod with me but I didn’t so I had to make do with a slightly wobbly mast.

Both Mike and I arrived at our respective sites at around the same time just after 0530 UTC (or 7:30 am local time with me) and indeed the first and only 40m contact today would be a short contact with Mike, who was having difficulty hearing me. Ian in Victoria, Australia took a listen as well, but not surprisingly no contact on 40m. So we all agreed to head up to 20m and after changing the links on the antenna and finding a free frequency, Ian, VK3YFD was the first 20m contact this morning in my log. Ian puts a good signal into Europe thanks to his beam antenna. 

Mike joined Ian and me a couple of minutes later and we had a small net going. Ian was having issues with WSB on my relatively weak signal with him, but he made it work.

The next band up to test was 17m and when we all went there none of us could hear each other and indeed we could hear nothing on the band. The band was dead, so trying even higher on 15m would have been a waste of time, so we all agreed to head back to 20m, where I logged a few SOTA contacts before saying 73 to the guys, leaving Mike with the frequency.

So my next task was to test the updated smartphone App and although I was able to successfully send the spot via RF using FT&8 and it was picked up and displayed on SOTAWatch, I still had to tune the radio manually to the required 14074 kHz frequency for the transmission. So although the message sending worked, the new feature has not given me anything in addition to what I could do using VOX rather than CAT control and for CAT control I have to have a second cable between radio and phone.

I have reported back to the developer that the frequency change feature has not worked.

By 0700 UTC the skies were still dark and a cool wind had appeared. as I had finished the purpose of my activation, I decided to pack up and leave before any rain arrived (it didn’t, at least not until the afternoon).

Photos:

DL/AL-179 Weichberg

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Equipment used:

  • Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
  • Xiegu G90.
  • Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
  • Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
  • Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
  • Screw-in sun umbrella support.
  • SotaBeams linked dipole (modified).
  • SotaBeams random length end-fed antenna (not used)
  • 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
  • 4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
  • Painter’s thick plastic sheet (not used).
  • Gardeners nealing pad (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for back channel comms with the group over “Signal”.

Logs:

DL/AL-177 Weichberg

 

 

Conclusions:

  • The FT8 Radio App appears to have an issue with the “set frequency” function.
  • Extending the coax on the Linked dipole made it easier to position the mast base than had been possible previously with just seven metres of the feeder. I now have almost 10 metres of coax on the antenna.
  • It appears that certainly on 40m and 20m that adding in the new 15m band link has not affected the antennas performance however the most likely band to be affected would be 17m I will need to test again, once 17 & 15-metre bands open up more often,

73 ’til the next summit(s).