AM-001 Peissenberg.

Posted on 27/01/2016 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

January 26th. is Australia Day. One of the three days in the year when VK stations can change their calls to start with AX rather than VK (the other two days are Anzac day and International telecommunications day). As John VK6NU had said he would be out late enough VK-Time (late afternoon) to hopefully catch some long-path contacts into Europe, I decided to go out to a local summit (early morning here in Germany) to try for an S2S contact back to Australia.

I managed to complete the move of my Ramsey QAMP from it’s flimsey plastic case into a die-cast aluminium case the day before and testing it, it actually still worked apart from the fact that the power LED that I had added didn’t light up (swapped its leads around and even that then worked!).

I had made contacts both to chasers and activators via long path from DL/AM-001 before, but not at this time of year. In any case, if you don’t try you’ll never know.

I also hoped to get some 10 metre contacts for the current challenge as no one has activated this summit on 10m before.

The Location:

Peissenberg is a drive-up summit with about 300 metres from the car park to walk to my comfortable operating position. I have been to the summit on several occasions before so I needed no map to find it. The views are fantastic, especially early morning and with the luxury of toilets on-site this would be an ideal summit for someone new to SOTA to have as their first summit activation. In my case it’s one of a few summits that are less than an hours drive away from home and as such suitable for early morning activations.

The Activation:

After a non-eventful drive down, I started to set-up my gear on the usual bench and strapped the 5m fibreglass mast to the railings as normal using “Bongo-ties” (these are great things – rubber bands with a small wooden toggle on them (that looks like a miniature bongo drum, hence the name)) so that you simply wrap them around objects and clip the ends back into each other. You can of course tie two together to get extra length, which I have done. While sorting out the rig and log book I suddenly saw the mast tipping over as one of the ties had released itself and fired off down the mountain, never to be seen again. I normally have a spare with me but could not find it, so I then had to re-arrange the base of the mast so that it would be held sufficiently well with just one double bongo-tie. With that problem sorted I started to unwind the dipole sides and the small spool that I use to wind the wires on fell apart and in the process knotted up the wire and cord. This of course took a little while to untangle sufficiently for me to be able to install the antenna. The day was not starting well and all of this in under zero degrees temperatures my fingers were already feeling frozen.

Despite these couple of problems, I got on air at my alerted time and started putting out a CQ on 10 metres and self-spotted. Nothing! I tried for 15 minutes, still nothing, so I moved to 20m put the amp in circuit and started calling there – again no replies. I wondered if the antenna was simply not working, but the SWR looked OK. I tuned around and found a Swedish station activating a WWFF park, so gave him a call, got through and got a report – so I was getting out! Some more tries and spotting on both 10m and 20m resulted in one chaser call on 20m. I then saw the spot for John VK6NU in Australia but couldn’t hear a thing from him. The conditions on both 20m and 10m were horrible. So in order to at least qualify the summit, I moved to 40m and the difference was immediate – pile-ups despite the fact that Peissenberg is only a 1 point summit, it seemed the whole world (or at least all of Europe) wanted a contact with it!

So at the end of the day a successful normal activation, unfortunately with no VK or 10m contacts though. Better luck next time?

At least the QAMP worked without issues in the field!

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Spiderbeam Aerial-51 UL-404 off centre fed dipole.

5 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP 20/40m amplifier

Log:

Conclusions:

Unlucky with the 10m and 20m band conditions (10m improved later in the day).

January is not the month to try for Long Path SSB contacts into VK.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP/P – December 31th. 2015 – DL/AM-178 Ammerleite.

Posted on 02/01/2016 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

My attempt to activate Ammerleite earlier in the year had been stopped by the road being blocked by a farmer moving his crops and I was told that the road that I had used three times before was private and I could not access it. This is despite Google and other mapping systems reporting it as a public road. As always in SOTA, we have to avoid causing issues especially around access routes, so I have been researching an alternate access route from the other side of Schnalz (which is the correct name for the Summit – Ammerleite is the complete area). There is even a road called Schnalzstrasse that comes out of the village of Böbing, that the summit overlooks.

Even with the new route, I did not consider it too difficult and indeed my wife agreed to come along as well.

The Location:

The new route:

As noted above, there is a road named SchnalzStrasse on the western end of the village of Böbing. Take this road until you leave the village and come to a junction – now take Leitner Strasse (the direction being up the hill). If I remember correctly, the walking trails are also signposted from this point onwards – you need to follow B7 which on some signs is called Schnalz Gipfel or Schnalzrundgang or similar. Driving further up Leitner Strasse you come to a Y junction where the left fork has the sign saying that access past this point is restricted to farming and forestry workers only. This is just past where there is a small fountain on the left that has a horses head in wood as its spout (water not for human consumption). There is also a hut on this junction (see photos in slideshow below), I drove down the right hand fork and parked on the grass (later others had done the same, so this seems to be the acceptable point to park and start walking). Now it is simply a matter of taking the left hand fork, following the route B7 up the ever steeper hill and around the corner until you go through a stile into an open field. The opposite side of the field has a turnstile and after you go through that you can just see the cross through the trees up and to your left. This is where you need to head to, to take advantage of the two benches and fence posts to locate your radio gear.

The Activation:

Once I had put the antenna up, and laid out the rig and log, I found a faulty contact on the coax from the antenna but was able to position it so that it was connecting (after investigation at home, it was the inner core of the coax that had broken away from the centre pin of the BNC plug). I also noticed that although the SWR was now fine, the power out indication seemed low. I then realised that I had the FT817 switched to 2.5w rather than 5w output for all of the last activation on Herzogstand!

I tuned around the bottom 1MHz of 10m and apart for the DL0IGI beacon on 28.2050 on Peissenberg being off the scale on the FT817 (I could see the antennas from my summit) there was nothing on except for some interference, presumably from equipment not meant to be on 28MHz at all (I suspect the weather station – which was also very close – but I can’t prove this) – there was NOTHING on the band that I could hear. So I tried spotting myself and putting out CQs for about 10 minutes but to no avail. The band was totally dead!

Never mind, now I know the “authorised” access route I can try again in the new year, bag the activator points again and hopefully some 10m contact points as well for the challenge.

I then decided to try 20m, where the results were far better with 15 contacts in 12 minutes. I followed this with a stint on 40m and bagged another 12 contacts in 12 minutes. On both 20m and 40m I was still just running the 5w from the FT-817 into the OCF dipole. I didn’t unpack and set up the amp as I could see a storm coming in. Indeed just as I stopped operating, the first few rain drops fell. A quick pack away and head down the hill and when we reached the car the rain storm really started.

The activation was completed with a stop for soup in a nice cafe in Rottenbuch on the way home.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Spiderbeam Aerial-51 UL-404 off centre fed dipole.

5 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP 20/40m amplifier and batteries (taken but not used)

Log:

Conclusions:

Unlucky with the 10m band conditions (they improved later in the day), but lucky to get down and away before the storm came through. Although somewhat further and a lot steeper, this access route appears to be, by all of the signposts, the way that the locals want you to approach Ammerleite – or we should now say Schnalz.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP/P – December 29th. 2015 – DL/EW-022 Herzogstand.

Posted on 01/01/2016 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

I’ve had Herzogstand on my “to do” list for a while. It is a relatively easy climb and attracts a large number of walkers, so I expected that I would be limited on space to put up an antenna and so packed the loaded vertical and all other equipment into one rucksack. I was hoping to add it to my activated on 10m, summits list and hence receive another multiplier point for the current 10m/6m SOTA challenge.

The Location:

Herzogstand is a mountain above Walchensee in Southern Bavaria, access is via a cable car to the neighbouring mountain (Fahrenberg) from where it’s a ten minute walk to the Herzogstand Gasthaus (Restaurant) and then one takes the track along the side of Martinskopf mountain to the start of the serpentine track up to first the holy cross and then the pavilion on the very top of Herzogstand. Expected time from the restaurant to the summit is 45 minutes.

The Activation:

My journey to the summit from getting in the cable car to arriving at the summit took me 40 minutes. It probably would have been five minutes quicker except for the number of other walkers on the (partly iced over) track up (I’m glad I took my spikes to add to my hiking boots!), Once I reached the summit, after pausing and taking some photos at the cross, I saw an area next to the pavilion that had once been some kind of small building but all that remained were it’s foundations (about 6 foot by 4 foot). OK for me – I set up the tripod and loaded whip in one corner and ran the counterpoise wire out along the top of one pf the partially remaining walls. I did not add any extension to the top of the whip on this activation as I was restricted for space as to where I would run it and my main aim was for contacts on 10m where I don’t need the extension. Putting down my plastic painting sheet in the opposite corner of the fountations from where I had put the antenna up, I put the rig and logbook on it, took off my skiing jacket (it was warm on the summit in my sheltered position, but cold when one was in the wind) and got ready to start some SOTA action. I immediately started calling CQ SOTA on 10 metres on 28.370 after checking the frequency was clear. I then spotted myself but to no avail. After about 15 minutes, I decided it was better to activate the summit anyway, even if I could not get a 10m contact, so I adjusted the vertical antenna to 20m and called CQ there where I got a quick response from many of the usual chasers. Reports of my signal were not as good as usual which I put down to the antenna but I realised on my next activation, that the FT817 had been running at only 2.5w output on Herzogstand not the full 5w, so that would also have been a factor. After logging 10 contacts in 9 minutes on 20m, one being an S2S, I decided to give 10m a go again as I only intended to be on the summit 30 minutes due to having to be back home mid-afternoon. I was rewarded on this second try of 28MHz with 3 contacts with Austrian stations, one of them an S2S. After I had already announced I was going QRT, I got a telephone call from Martin DF3MC who had activated Herzogstand the previous day, I called him on 10m and we made a QSO, meaning he had a completed summit within 24 hours.

Some interest was shown by one of the walkers on the summit and after explaining what I was doing, he said that he used to be involved with CB and had done some portable operating with friends, years ago. He seemed interested possibly in Amateur radio and I gave him a DARC brochure with the necessary contact information, so that could be a new Ham at some time in the future.

He also mentioned to me that Herzogstand used to have a very large LF antenna running down the mountain that was used in the 1920’s for long distance Radio Telegraphy. At the time, the only other equally sized antenna was in Indonesia and these two were the largest in the world. Later the antenna was used for research before being taken down. Shame! It would have been nice to see how such an antenna with 5w of Amateur radio power would have performed HI.

After completion of the activation, packing up and the route back down was, thankfully uneventfull and I arrived home exactly on schedule.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Diamond RHM-8B loaded vertical.

Log:

Conclusions:

A nice day out. Definitely the correct decision to take the small pack and small antenna, with so many people (and dogs) on the summit and no where to safely set up away from the summit, had I taken the fibreglass pole and dipole, I would not have been on the air. Next time I should check more carefully that the rig is set to full power. Very glad I got the 4 10m contacts, for sometime there I thought I wasn’t going to. Very lucky with the weather at this time of year.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP/P – December 25th. 2015 – DL/AM-176 Rentschen.

Posted on 26/12/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

While the weather has been unusually mild (12 – 14 degrees & no snow) my wife asked if we might go somewhere, where she could walk the dog while I operated radio, for a couple of hours. I had originally planned to try to access Ammerleite via a different, longer route, as the straight forward (still labelled as a public road on all maps) was closed off by the farmers as being a private – no access road the last time we went there. On the day however, I decided the best option would be to go to a known summit where access is easy and we had, had the dog (Bonnie) there before. So Rentschen it was, even though I had activated the summit twice this year already, I might just get it as a new 10m summit for the challenge.

The usual, reliable kit that I had used on many activations before would be used. The “two bag configuration”.

The Location:

Rentschen is well signposted (see previous reports) and is about 40 minutes drive from my home QTH. The road runs over the top of the summit, so it’s a matter of parking up and then walking a respectable distance away from the car, to ensure no support is being obtained from it, as required in the SOTA rules, setting up and away we go.

On the last two activations, I set up using a pile of cut down tree trunks to support the antenna mast, this time the pile of wood had gone, so I had to find an alternative and saw a small post further into the field. Unfortunately this was fairly close to some overhead power lines but luckily they caused no QRM (they were also high enough not to be a physical danger). The post was not very stable but as there was no wind was adequate to hold the base of the fibreglass squid pole that the OCF dipole was run from. Interestingly at the foot of the post was the Trig Point stone for the summit, so there’s no question of my location! I am slowly finding more and more of these stones that are used to mark the exact summit when no summit cross or other monument has been erected.

The Activation:

Once I had put the antenna up, laid out my small plastic sheet with the rig and the logbook on it, I immediately started calling CQ SOTA on 10 metres on 28.360 after checking the frequency was clear. I then spotted myself and after some time Jorge EA2LU came back to me but when I passed back over to him there were 2 or 3 other Spaniards talking on the frequency. Either I had coincidentally picked someone’s net frequency or these were other Spanish chasers discussing the fact that they couldn’t hear me (in Spanish), either way I move 10KHz up, re-spotted and completed the contact with Jorge. That was the only 10m contact for the day, I looked and saw that Peter OE5AUL was on another summit and manged an S2S with him on 40m. I finished off the activation five more contacts on 20m and then my wife was back with the dog and it was time to eat our picnic. So a short, but enjoyable activation for all involved. Finding an alternative route to Ammerleite (which is also quite close to my home QTH) is still on the list to complete.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Spiderbeam Aerial-51 UL-404 off centre fed dipole.

5 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP 20/40m amplifier and batteries (taken but not used)

Log:

Conclusions:

A nice day out with the family. Not a great number of contacts but enough to activate the summit and add one to my summit multiplier number for the 10m/6m challenge. Unfortunately as I had worked Jorge from another summit on 10m before, he does not count in the challenge any more.

As on Gschwandkopf there seemed to be a pipe on 10 metres into Spain, but very little else on 10m to be heard.

73 ’til the next Summit!

OE/VK2JI/P – December 19th. 2015 – OE/TI-690 Gschwandkopf.

Posted on 21/12/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

Still looking for points in the 10m/6m SOTA challenge, I wanted to get out and add some six metre activator points to my score. Living in Germany I am not allowed to operate portable on 6 metres so a trip into another country is needed to make this happen. After activating Hohe Salve a couple of weeks earlier, I didn’t want to have such a long drive this time and so looked at the summits around Seefeld in Tirol. I found the six point, plus 3 winter bonus activator points Gschwandkopf (OE/TI-690) with its 4 seat, seat lift direct to the summit. As with many lifts in the alpine regions this lift had been out of service for maintenance and on the web site it simply said back in operation sometime early in December. Looking at the webcam on Thursday it was obvious it was not yet back in service. I sent an email on Friday asking when it would be back in service to get a reply saying they had just started service again that day. So the plan was set down to Seefeld the following day and up Gschwandkopf. I then heard that two CMEs were heading earthwards and could mess up propagation but how often have these not arrived or not had any effect? So I decided still to go and hope for the best.

Rather than risk taking the repaired but untested six metre lightweight beam I decided to make do with the Spiderbeam Aerial-51 UL-404 off centre fed wire dipole that I would be using for 10, 20 & 40m in any case. While it wont give any gain on 50MHz it is defined as working on six meters.

So I would in fact be using the reliable kit that I had used on many activations before. The “two bag configuration”.

The Location:

Gschwandkopf located above Seefeld which is about 10 minutes drive from the German/Austrian border on the road from Garmisch Partenkirchen to Innsbruck. Somewhat further than my usual German summits but not nearly as far as Hohe Salve. In Seefeld itself the Gschwandkopf lift is signposted but not at every turn, so it was good that I had mapped out and written down the road names in my planning. I also have a printout of the roads through Seefeld but did not need that – the list of road names was sufficient to get me to the valley station of the lift in 1.75 hours from leaving home, exactly as Google Maps had predicted.

Ticket prices are interesting on this lift – the cost to go up and down the lift was €17 with a €2 deposit on the re-usable electronic ticket. But the lift is also listed as requiring 4 points on a points card, so in principal, I should have been able to buy an 8 point card at €3 less than the simple ticket but I was then told that the points cards are only sold to those skiing, not to pedestrians.

Once I got to the lift, there was a separate section for pedestrians who had to wait until the half / full hour before they could use the lift. This was because they had to slow the lift down to load and unload those not on skis.

The Activation:

Once on the summit, there were two restaurants (only one open as the number of people skiing was not big) and a small hillock (the actual summit) which as well as some benches also had a transmitter building and mast from the Austrian Broadcasting company. While I thought twice as to whether I should set up so close to this station, it caused me no interference and this is a lovely spot with some great views. I could see this being a good site for a 2m FM repeater or some 2m SOTA simplex contacts but I was here mainly for 6 meters not 2 meters, so I set all the usual gear up and started calling CQ on 50.140 and tried to self spot. I had especially taken out an Internet package on my Vodaphone SIM, but this refused to work in Austria, so I fell back to good old Deutsche Telekom (I have two SIMs in my phone) and sent the required SMS code to enable Internet connectivity and this time (not like on Hohe Salve) it worked. There was no free WiFi on this summit as there had been on Hohe Salve.

I spent probably about 15 minutes on 6 metres calling and calling and calling, with not one response. SWR was fine, just propagation was not there. I then tried 10 meters and was happy to be able to get a total of seven contacts on 10 meters. The first 6 from Spain – good solid, easily readable signals. There seemed to be some propagation “tunnel” between me and Spain. The seventh 10m contact was with Karl M3FEH in Cornwall England and that was a difficult contact with very low signal strengths in both directions, but somehow we managed it. Thanks Karl.

Once it seemed there were to be no more 10 meter contacts I saw some other activations were on 20m – of these about half I could not hear , two I called could not hear me but in the end I did manage three S2S contacts – two on 40m and one on 20 metres. 14 chaser contacts on 40 meters completed the log. After the last contact an S2S, I had to hurriedly pack up the station to be able to get to the lift to go down on the half hour – otherwise I would have to wait another half hour before I would be allowed on the lift.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Spiderbeam Aerial-51 UL-404 off centre fed dipole.

5 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP 20/40m amplifier and batteries (taken but not used)

Log:

Conclusions:

This is a very easy access summit. I was surprised initially while planning as to why so few people have activated it, until I saw it had only been added to SOTA in October 2015. I expect a lot of people will now include it in their holidays to Tirol and in Summer, I expect the lift will take pedestrians without a delay.

The propagation on 6 metres was not there however there seemed to be a pipe on 10 metres into spain. Was the extra drive worth it – no I’m sure I would have been able to capture the 10m contacts from a German summit.

73 ’til the next Summit!

OE/VK2JI/P – December 7th. 2015 – OE/TI-517 Hohe Salve.

Posted on 09/12/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

As the 10m/6m SOTA challenge part 2 has now started, I wanted to get out and add some six metre activator points to my score from part 1 of the challenge. Living in Germany however, I am not allowed to operate portable on 6 metres so a trip into another country is needed to make this happen. I had activated Hohe Salve over 2 years previously, and knowing it is an easy access summit (cable car to the summit and then walk 100m or so to a spot to operate from) and as of December 1st. it also gains 3 winter bonus points for the activator it was my choice. Many summits in Austria and Germany had not yet restarted their cable car services after the annual maintenance period however Hohe Salve’s Salvenbahnen were scheduled to come back into operation on December 5th. – which they did.

For six metres I ordered and built a super-lightweight 2 element Yagi antenna, however during testing on the 5th. of December the fibreglass squid pole that I had mounted it on, for vswr tests in the garden, collapsed snapping the boom of the antenna. I must be considered partially to blame for this as I had decided on a very simple mountiing method for the beam – simply drilling a hole through the plastic pipe boom and dropping it over the top of the squid pole. I managed to source some replacement (thicker walled) plumbing plastic pipe from the local DIY store the next day, however decided rather to rely on the Spiderbeams Aerial-51 UL-404 off centre fed wire dipole that I would be using for 10, 20 & 40m in any case. While it wont give any gain on 50MHz it is defined as working on six meters and I wouldn’t have the guying complications needed with the beam.

So I would in fact be using the usual kit that I had used on many activations before. The “two bag configuration” and not the vertical lightweight pack.

The Location:

Hohe Salve is located above Hopfgarten about 20 minutes drive from the German/Austrian border at Kiefersfelden/Kufstein. As you need a special sticker to drive on Austrian autobahns (at they don’t do a 1 day pass), I had to leave the German autobahn at Kiefersfelden and follow the old roads through to Hopfgarten. The journey would possibly have taken ten minutes less if I had an autobahn pass and used the autobahn right to the Wörgl turn-off but the trip from my home to the bottom station of the cable car took 1hr.45 minutes rather than the 2 hrs.15 minutes quoted by Google maps. The return journey was a different story! I was stuck almost a hour in slow moving and stopped traffic on the Munich ring road.

Since the last time I was here, there appears to be a new cable car lift called the Hohe Salve lift, which come up the other side of the mountain from Söll. It would take me longer to drive to that lift than the one in Hopfgarten however if the Salvebahn were to be stopped or simply very busy for some reason, this would be another option to get to the summit.

The views on the way up in the cable car were of green fields until you got to an artificial snow machine and there you had the piste. Basically the main pistes from the top to the middle station of the cable car had been prepared using cooled sprayed wather than turns into snow, so that the skiing season can start. It was not busy but there were a few families enjoying skiing on the mountain.

When I got to the summit, I wanted to head to the same grassy spot that I had used previously but that (the summit and about 20m down the slope was actually covered with real snow) was roped off. I thought this was to stop the people trying to ski down in this direction and find that the piste on this side of the mountain hadn’t been created with artificial snow. About an hour later I found the real reason. The area is used by those crazy enough to leap off the mountain and use a para-glider to get down the mountain.

I looked around and found a viewing platform with a handy railing to attach the antenna mast to and some benches to sit and put the gear on. Luxury – but only as long as the kids climbing rock and slide aren’t in use. On this day the kids were more interested in getting in their first ski runs of the season, so I was left pretty much alone apart from one gentleman who approached me while I was packing up, he seemed interested and left with a German language brochure about amateur radio that I take with me. Perhaps a future Ham – who knows….

The Activation:

I had planned the activation to start at 12:30 local time (11:30 UTC) but was in fact set up and calling a half an hour before this. I first started on six metres but then when I tried to self spot, I found I could not get Internet connectivity to work. On previous actvations in Austria I had received a message from my Telco warning me that Internet usage wouuld be expensive when roaming, now it seems you have to buy a days package and as I use a PAYG SIM card, there wasn’t enough credit on my card to buy the package. I tried spotting myself via one of the phone apps that supports spotting by SMS but could not tell if it had actually got through as for that I would need Internet to see what appeared at SOTAWatch. Then I wondered…. in some ski resorts there is WiFi available either free or chargable to a credit card and when I checked, sure enough, I could get a weak WiFi signal and once I accepted the usage terms and conditions I had Internet acess for free. Now I could see if my spots were getting through and just as important as it turned out, see who else was activating.

My spots and calls on 6 metres were all in vain. Band conditions were terrible, so I tried 10 metres – still no takers. Then I saw OE7PHI/P was activating OE/SB-163 so I called him and we had an S2S contact on 20m. I asked him if he had 10m and while he had no antenna for 10m we decided to give it a try anyway and indeed the copy on 10 metres was actually better than on 20m. YAHOO – at least one contact on 10m for the challenge and an S2S at that (although it wont count for normal points as I had already had the contact on 20m, but it does count for the challenge). I put a couple more CQs out on 10 metres before returning to 20 metres and 40 metres where I managed contacts with a few chasers, so the summit was then activated. Later I tried 6 metres and 10 metres again and was surprised (and happy) to get another call on 10 metres. This was Stephan DM1LE who was activating DL/EW-022, so not only more challenge activator points but another S2S to boot! I finished up with a total of 18 contacts in about an hour, of which 6 were S2S contacts (5 of those counting for chaser/S2S points and 2 counting towards the challenge). So despite the lack of 6 metre contacts (which was the reason that I needed to travel outside of Germany to activate), the day was successful. I may head back to Hohe Salve in the new year to give it another go before the end of the challenge and while the winter bonus points are still available.

Photos:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Spiderbeam Aerial-51 UL-404 off centre fed dipole.

5 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP 20/40m amplifier and batteries (taken but not used)

Log:

Conclusions:

The propagation on both 6 metres and 10 metres was horrible. The 10 metre contacts I managed were certainly ground wave or “line of sight”. I am so happy that I went on the day I did as two days later the webcam shows a “white-out” of the whole area!

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – November 8th. 2015 – DL/AM-001 Peißenberg.

Posted on 09/11/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

Andrew VK1NAM/P posted on the SOTA reflector that he wanted some S2S contacts into Europe, including one into DL, so as I was happy that the small kit was working having used it a few days before on Zweisselberg, I offered to put the full kit together and head up to Peißenberg. I had already activated this summit earlier in the year so I wouldn’t get it’s 1 point added to my activators total however it is an easy access summit, where I know how I will install my gear. It’s also only about 40 mi nutes drive away from my home.

The last time I had used the “full pack” with my home built Ramsey QAMP, it had given me problems so before relying on it again, I decided to test it out and what do you think I found? It failed to work again. At least this time it was only two wires that had broken their solder joints from the switch I use to select the appropraite Low Pass Filter on the amplifiers output. The transistors seemed to be OK. After resoldering the wires to the switch, the second test showed the amplifier working fine on both 20 and 40 metres. So after checking all I need was packed and removing the items only used in the “small pack”, my camera bag and small rucksack were ready for a very early departure on Sunday morning.

Top row left to right: Tripod with SO239 mount, spare 2500 maH battery below it, FT-817 and Nikon camera sitting on top of painters sheet (thick plastic).

The Location:

Peißenberg, or Hohe Peißsenberg to give it, its full name, sits above the village of Höhen Peißsenberg about half way between Weilheim and Schongau in upper Bavaria.

Checking on Google Maps I found that I would probably be able to cut about 15 minutes off my trip if I took some country roads to avoid going through Weilheim. This I did and the route was very clearly marked. I was nice to drive the small open roads across country and they actually let to the back of the mountain compared to my usual approach. In fact Google suggested I take some even smaller roads and approach the site from the rear, however I decided to follow the country road around to where it met the B472 and then access the mountain using Berg Strasse as I usually do from Höhen Peißenberg village. Perhaps I’ll try the really small roads next time.

The Activation:

I had arrived and set up all of my gear by 0640 UTC. The sun had risen and the views were amazing. The trip would have been worth it just for the views but I was there to try and get a contact with Andrew VK1NAM/P on 20m and soon after my arrival he spotted that he was calling CQ on 20m. When I tuned to the frequency I could hear nothing, but then after a while two weak Russian stations came up on frequency. I don’t know if Andrew could also hear them, but he changed frequency and spotted again. I listened again – still nothing. Then I heard Marek 4X4JU try a call to Andrew with no response (Marek was looking for the WWFF points rather than SOTA). Over the next hour between putting out my own CQ calls I kept listening for Andrew without success. I believe Marek heard something from Andrew at one point but the propagation was certainly not with us today. Added to the bad long path propagation, lots of stations came on both 20m and 40m around 0730 UTC taking part in some contest, so it became very difficult to find a free frequency to call on without having heavy QRM from adjacent frequencies or in some cases have a contest station simply grab your frequency without checking if it was in use or not.

In any case, I managed 15 contacts during the activation and got to test out the “full pack” set-up again, with the QAMP behaving itself this time.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

SOTABeams bandhopper linked dipole on a 6 m squidpole.

QAMP 40/20m amplifier (25W 40m, 15W 20m).

Thick plastic painters sheet

Log:

Conclusions:

The propagation following the recent solar CME “glancing blow” are not yet back to normal but the late Autumn sunny weather made the activation a pleasure, even if an S2S contact with Andrew VK1NAM/P was not achieved.

The QAMP is working again and is probably due to be built into a better case (lets hope it still works afterwards!).

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – November 5th. 2015 – DL/BE-003 another Zwieselberg!

Posted on 07/11/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

I had been wanting to activate the second Zwieselberg in the DL region for some time. This one is located near Bad Tölz about an hours drive away from my home. I had activated Buchberg across the valley from the Blombergbahn that I would use to approach this Zwieselberg a couple of times.

I had hoped to activate Karwendelspitz while it still has both an Austrian and a German SOTA code but at first the path from the cable car station to the summit was closed by snow before I went over to the UK and when I returned, although the path was open again, the cable car had stopped running. Many of these services are stopped at the start of November so that the complete system can undergo inspection and maintenance before the start of the ski season which is when they are used the most. As I realised Karwendelspitze was not going to be a possibility, I looked around for another summit and found that at the end of the week, the Blombergbahn would be switching its schedule to only running on weekends and public holidays until the ski season. I’d have to move quickly to get up on the mountain on a week day (when there are less tourists). So Wednesday became a “fix-it” day for the vertical antenna that had let me down somewhat in the UK. In fact, by testing in the garden, I found that the counterpoise wires needed to be elevated off the ground (or at least not laid on soil – stone is OK) and then the VSWR came down when the antenna was adjusted correctly. So I decided to use this activation to test out the antenna with the counterpoise supported off the ground using my walking poles.

The Location:

As mentioned above this Zwieselberg is near to Bad Tölz and approached via the neighbouring mountain, Blomberg (which used to be SOTA summit DL/BE-001 up until 2009). There are other routes to get to the summit from other directions, even mountain bike-accessible paths and as far as the Blomberghaus there is a track for those authorised to drive their cars up it. For the majority of people however, the route is the one I took using the 2 seat Blombergbahn chair lift up from the B472 road. By the way, when you park in the car park, take the small half of your €2,00 parking ticket to the lift’s ticket office and you will get €2.00 off the €9,50 ticket to ride up and down the lift, this is so that those using the lift’s car park but not the lift have to pay. Once you complete the 20-25 minute ride up the lift a well-signposted and wide track takes you to the Blomberghaus – the restaurant on this summit. It is about 1 km. away from the lift and after a steep walk down and slow walk back up, you are at the Blomberghaus in about 15 minutes.

From here you can see Zwieselberg towering over you and a sign, that says 2km to the cross and an expected walking time of 1 hour. 2km in 1 hour? Well once you follow the (still wide at this point) track for about 1km into the forest, you will see why you might need more time than you would think as the track goes off to the side and becomes steep and difficult to navigate as this is the way the water runs off the mountain when it rains. During this part of the walk, I was thanking the fact that I had put my walking boots on, not left my tennis shoes on as it was a rough surface.

When I climb a track I tend to go at it quite hard and fast, then take short breaks when I am out of breath. On this track, I passed everyone who was going up the track and it took me 30 minutes from the restaurant to the summit, not an hour. At a “normal” pace I would expect it to take 45-50 minutes and indeed the first people I passed on the climb arrived at the summit about 20 minutes after me, and I had already got all of the equipment out and was ready to operate.

There is a hut called Zwieselalm, do not follow the track to that as you will then still have a good 20-minute walk to get to the correct summit.

The Activation:

Once I reached the cross on the summit and had taken some pictures, I set up on some boarding about 10m behind the cross. By this time the sun had come out and I took off my quilted jacket, not needing it for the rest of the day. The weather was beautiful, a real contrast to my last activation of G/TW-002 the previous week! A few people asked me what I was doing and of course, I explained. I did have a copy of the DARC brochure explaining what Amateur Radio is about, but forgot that I did, as I only had the “minimum kit” with me (as used in the UK), I will have to put this out somewhere next time (I have several copies in the “full kit”).

I set the vertical up with the tripod at full height (no wind – great) and both the 20m extension to the whip and the counterpoise elevated off the ground. Tuning the antenna to the same marking that I had used during testing the previous day in my garden, the VSWR was very low – all looked good. I then saw a spot for Antonio EC2AG on EA2/BI-068 and managed to get an S2S with him he was 5-4 with me and he gave me a 4-4 report. Well, I was only running 5W so fine we’re working. I then spotted myself and the calls started coming in. I was happy to hear Karl M3FEH calling me with his QRP signal from Cornwall, England. Weak but fully readable. After working ten stations on 20m (including another S2S), I decided to switch to 40m. With this set-up, I used a different (longer) extension to the whip on the top of the Diamond RHM-8B for 40m, so there was some changes required and movement of the support walking poles. 40m did not tune as well as 20m. This was surprising as in the garden testing it was the other way around. In any case, I then managed after a lot of calling and help from chasers, to tell him there was an S2S calling, another S2S contact this time with Mario HB9HAT/P in Switzerland. In all, I worked a total of 15 stations on 40m before packing up after an hour on the summit.

The walk back to the Blomberghaus restaurant was a lot easier than the ascent to the summit, I would have liked to have stopped for a break but time was running short, so I pushed onto the top of the chair lift and that last climb back up to the chairlift took almost as much effort as some of the earlier steep climb sections!

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Tripod mounted Diamond RHM-8B loaded vertical whip.

Painters sheet to sit on.

Log:

Conclusions:

You can only correctly test equipment in situ as the ground conditions are variable from summit to summit and indeed from one day to the next on the same summit. So one has to be ready to adjust an antenna (especially a compromise one like the Diamond) when you reach the summit. Overall the activation went very well and if I do eventually get to activate Karwendelspitze (or similar limited space summit) I know the set-up I have will work well enough to get me contacts across Europe if not further.

73 ’til the next Summit!

G8GLM/P – October 29th. 2015 – G/TW-002 Drake Howe.

Posted on 03/11/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

All equipment had been tested and used on Laber (DL/AM-060) a week before my trip to the UK to visit my brother and sister, so I was hoping all would go well, so that I could perhaps convince my brother Jim, G8DCD to take part in SOTA both as a chaser and activator.

On hearing I was coming over Phil G4OBK kindly set-up a “TW region SOTA fun day” and managed to get activators to commit to activate all of the five TW summits on the same day, some being activated twice. My original plan to activate three of the summits, was soon adjusted to just two G/TW-002 and G/TW-001.

My brother would be acting as driver as well as accompanying me to the summits. The weather forecast at the beginning of the week was for a nice, dry, sunny day on Thursday (the 29th.) but by the Wednesday, the forecast had been adjusted to “some” showers in the morning, but a bright, dry afternoon. As it turned out it rained most of the day with fog and high winds!

The Location:

Drake Howe on Cringle Moor has a relatively easy access with the Cleveland Way leading from the car park of the Lord Stones cafe (where we planned to have lunch on the way back) up to near the summit with the final 500m or so being across the moor to a cairn someone has built.

The plan was after we had activated Drake Howe, we would have lunch and then make the 25 minute drive to the Clay Bank car park from where one can climb (again using part of the Cleveland Way) up to G/TW-001 Round Hill on Urra Moor.

The Activation:

Thursday 29th. October found myself and my brother heading to the North Yorkshire hills for the SOTA TW fun day.
Thanks to those chasers who managed to scrape my signal out of the noise. We had “less than ideal” conditions with winds so strong that you could hardly stand up, constant rain and very reduced visibility. When we managed to get to the summit and get set up my vertical trapped antenna refused to tune to a reasonable VSWR, possibly due to the constant rain running down it. The fact that it blew down a few times also did not help either! That we managed to accrue the number of contacts that we did on G/TW-002 was amazing! Unfortunately in the conditions I was not able to let Jim get onto the station as he was helping keep the antenna vertical and doing some of the log keeping in the very quickly well sodden log book.

I started by trying to get S2S contacts with the other G/TW-xxx stations that were on at the time and it was soon obvious by the reports that I received that things were not operating very well. Despite further efforts to get the antenna tuned, I could not improve it. Even on receive there was no peak in incoming signals so the antenna was not at all happy. I then tried three different clear frequencies before getting one that someone didn’t simply jump on top of me without even asking if the frequency was clear (mind you, I doubt these stations would have heard me if I had told them I was using the frequency). A total of 11 contacts were made from G/TW-002.

Two very wet amateurs then went back down the summit to the Lord Stones cafe to dry off and have some nice food:

We considered after the delays and the hard work already exerted and the possibly faulty antenna whether we should bother with G/TW-001 but as we had the time (we thought), we decided to give it a go.

The planned G/TW-001 activation ended up as a non event due to late arrival following the problems on TW-002 and some bad navigation on my part taking us up the wrong path and not leaving enough time to get up the summit, operate and get back down before it got dark. At least there had been two other teams on this summit before us.

For reference where Google and OS maps show what appears to be a track splitting is in fact two separate tracks with a stone wall between then, If you start up the track on the left of the wall (from where the other track is not visible) you will have gone quite a way before you realise the error and cutting back across is simply not an option as there is no easy way across. So for future activators of G/TW-001, leave the Clay Bank car park, head back across the side road and PAST the large gate and over the brow you will see the small track going up to the left directly from the road – here is a picture for absolute clarity (that’s Jim G8DCD in the picture):

The day ended nicely though with the TW fun day supper. Thanks to Phil G4OBK for organising the day and the meet-up.

G/TW-002 Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

RHM-8B loaded vertical whip with extensions and counterpoise.

Hama photographic tripod modified to take antenna.

Thick plastic painters sheet

Log:

Conclusions:

No matter how well prepared you think you are, something can always go wrong. The weather was terrible and totally different to the forecast. The constant rain running down the antenna could be what made it impossible to tune, or something could have been damaged in the trip from Germany.

Trying to use a smart phones touch screen in pouring rain is just as bad as trying to read one in bright sunlight. These are far from perfect devices for use on SOTA summits.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – October 13th. 2015 – DL/AM-060 Laber.

Posted on 14/10/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

As I am planning a trip over to the UK and I also want to activate some German summits where space is limited and some walking distance is required, I have been trying to sort out a simplified kit to take. The first thing that I removed from my usual 10Kg+ two bags set-up was my Ramsey Amplifier. While I know the 25w on 40m or 15w on 20m does make a difference compared to the basic 5w from the FT-817, the extra size and weight of the amplifier, its cables and the two 5000 maH LIPO batteries with a battery booster unit (to take the 11v from the LIPOs up to 13.8v), simply can’t be justified in a basic kit. The next issue was the antenna. I have a linked, Inverted-V dipole from SOTABeams and an OCF from Aerial-51 (Spiderbeam) I usually pack both of these and the Aerial-51 with its 4:1 balun does account for some weight and size, as does either the 6m or 10m “Squid-pole” (telescopic fibre-glass pole) that I need to support them.

So if I take the FT-817 with an internal 2500 maH LIPO battery and a spare 2500 maH LIPO, what do I run this into for an aerial? Some time ago I bought a Diamond RHM-8B loaded vertical whip which is designed to fit directly onto the BNC socket on the FT-817. Apart from the fact that using this puts stress on the FT-817 front panel, it also doesn’t radiate very well (receive is fine). About 6 months ago I looked at moving the antenna from the rig to a camera tripod (even though Diamond say not to do this). I bought a second-hand HAMA camera tripod which is strong but also light and folds down to a small size. To this I added an SO-239 base and coax cable. With the help of a BNC to PL-259 adapter, the diamond sits on top of the tripod. Early tests showed this worked and worked better with a random length of wire acting as a counterpoise radial. It had the problem however that the tuning on the slide-able coil under the telescopic antenna (the type that we used to see on transistor radios) was now very compressed at one end of the range and very difficult to get the SWR down.

The latest modifications have been to add a horizontal extension wire to the top of the telescopic whip (one of two lengths, one for 40m and one for 20m and above) and to add 4 not just one wire as a counterpoise. These wires being of different lengths. One would expect that these wire must be spread out in different directions not to affect each other, however I have found that leaving the wires wound together in one direction works equally as well. Initially I used the teflon strengthened antenna wire but this proved to be too heavy, tipping the antenna over, so I replaced this wire with very thin and light PCB hook-up wire (AWG 28 if I remember correctly).

Last weekend, I put this antenna together INSIDE the house to just see how well it works on receive compared to my external wire antenna (a 40m loop). I was amazed to find that OH0Z (on an island between Sweden and Finland) was booming in at S9+ on both antennas, so I gave him a call from the 5w, internal antenna, set-up and he actually came straight back to me! He gave me a 5-9 report, however as he was in a contest he would give everyone a 5-9 report and I didn’t want to delay him by asking for a real signal report. The key point was he copied my complete over without asking for anything to be repeated, so the antenna was working!

Now time for a test – to see if the antenna would work as well from a summit and to see if I had removed too much from the pack. Here are the contents and the small rucksack that it all packs into and weighs under 6 kilos.

Top row left to right: Tripod with SO239 mount, spare 2500 maH battery below it, FT-817 and Nikon camera sitting on top of painters sheet (thick plastic).

Middle row, left to right: Diamond RHM-8B antenna, Plastic stake with radial and extension wires wound on it (PVC tape and penknife above it).

Bottom row, left to right: FT-817 6m, 2m & 70cm rubber-duck antennas, Log book and pen, Headphones, FT817-microphone.

The Location:

Laber is a very easy access site with one of the oldest gondola lifts still working taking you right to the summit (and a restaurant of course). The mountain overlooks the village of Oberammergau where the famous religious play happens every ten years. The last time I activated Laber in 2014 I got soaking wet and the views were often blocked by clouds. Guess what … the same happened this time! I had planned to go on Monday however the weather here was terrible (I only later found out that Laber had been above the clouds in lovely sunshine all day), so I delayed the activation by a day. Oberammegau is about 1hr and 15min from where I live, so not the closest of summits but a good one to try the small kit out on as it has limited space to set-up.

The Activation:

The trip down was uneventful except that it started to rain – something that would be a constant parrt of the day. The “Laberbahn” cable car, has only 4 cars on it and runs to a specific schedule, meaning that you can only ascend or descend every 30 minutes. As I was ahead of my planned schedule when I got to the lower station, I was not worried that I’d have to wait a while for the lift. As it happened I was the only person going up in this car and I took several photos – shown below – of the view from the lift. As it turned out this was a good idea as the journey back down later in the afternoon had 12 people packed into the car and for most of the 15 minutes trip, nothing could be seen through the windows as we were mostly in the clouds.

Once I got to the summit, I decided to get out and take a few more pictures and then set up the station, rather than sampling the delights of the restaurant. I expected there may be some issues with the set-up as I had not used this approach on a summit before, I thought it better to start, just at the point that the rain got heavier. In fact apart from a little tangling of the counterpoise wires, the set-up went together without any real issues. I started on 20m and the set the coil to the noted reading I had used in the house. When then checking the SWR from a little way below where I had the antenna, it was fine (this was not to be the case when I later went onto 40m where some adjustment was needed and the new value is now noted for the future). I checked to see if I could hear any of the recently spotted activators – I could not. The HF conditions over the last month have been the worst I have experienced since starting on HF about 4 years ago and it looked like today was going to be an extension of those propagation conditions. Undeterred I found 14.285 KHz free, and started calling CQ SOTA while typing in a spot through the rain globules on the front of the smart phone, After a couple of attempts, I managed to get the spot out and kept calling CQ SOTA. I was very happy to have Gomes from Portugal (CT1HIX) come back to me and give me a 5-1 report, he was then followed by Pedro EA2CKX with a 5-2 report. I then was amazed at the signal from Alexi RA1AVP/1 about 1850 kilometres away and gave me a 5-7 report. At this point I was happy, the antenna set-up was definitely working, but then came the best call of the day from Phil VE1WT in Nova Scotia, Canada at about 5500 kilometres and a 5-3 report. I am sure all four of these chasers have fantastic antennas and receivers, but the fact was that they were receiving me in some of the worst propagation conditions for years and that with my lightweight set-up.

As I had no more calls on 20m, I once again checked to see what other activators were on and switched to 40m to call Hajo DJ9MH who was up on Ebersberg DM/BM-115 after a couple of calls I git him and we booked an S2S for the day. After that I found 7.150MHz to be free and spotted myself there calling and managed a further eleven contacts. The activation stopped when the log book had got so wet that I could not write to it and I was feeling rather wet and cold but happy that everything had gone so well. So it only remained then to pack-up head into the restaurant for a hot Chocolate drink and then wait for the gondola to take me back down the mountain after a very successful day.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

RHM-8B loaded vertical whip.

Hama photographic tripod.

Thick plastic painters sheet

Log:

Conclusions:

The minimum configuration worked exceptionally well. Even with just 5w and a limited antenna in bad propagation conditions amazing things are possible on the HF amateur bands, if you can spot yourself.

73 ’til the next Summit!