DD5LP – July 30th. 2015 – DL/AL-170 Zweiselberg

Posted on 02/08/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

On this summit I first did a reccie to see what access was like, documented it, and then eventually went back to activate it.

Reccie Notes – Monday 27th. October 2014

Summit also known as “Am Buch”.

Wx foggy – visibility down to 50m in places.

Access from Roßhaupten – at end is a private road – use at own risk.

Track from end of tarmaced road VERY, Very muddy – not driveable and in fact hard to walk up without good hiking shoes!

According to the coordinates in the SOTA DB the actual summit is within the forest, but the location of the cross (that looks down onto the forest) is certainly within 25 vertical metres of the DB point.

The area at the Cross has room for antennas and supports for squid pole and a useful seating bench.

Time to walk from car to summit (without equipment) – 10 minutes – allow 20 minutes with equipment.

Time from home to parking spot – 1hr. 15Min. (return 1 Hr.).

Good cellphone coverage – 4 bars for Telekom & Vodaphone. Internet connectivity is fine.

No apparent RF noise at the time I was there (around 10:30/11 am).

THIS SUMMIT WILL BE DIFFICULT TO ACTIVATE IF THERE IS SNOW COVER.

The Location:

Preparation:

While I was looking for a summit to activate that I hadn’t activated yet, I remembered that I had done a “Reccie” on Zwieselberg and while the heat wave had ceased for a few days, I decided to take a shot at this summit, early morning, to perhaps catch the end of the long path opening to VK. Karl M3FEH was also planning to be out in Cornwall on his FIRST SOTA activation, so I was hoping for an S2S with him.

The equipment was all, ready and packed. The modified QAMP (now with a 12v fan added to cool the transistors) had been tested in the workshop to make sure the issue with one of the BNC connectors had been solved and that neither of the two transistors had actually failed in the last activation. The coax on the Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole had, had it’s PL259 plug changed to a BNC plug to reduce the number of adapters required. So everything was prepared. I printed out the road route from Google Maps and then went through and wrote a list of the major junctions and villages that I needed to look out for en-route to Zwieselberg.

All set for an 7:30am local, departure.

The Activation:

Everything was packed into the car and I set off in direction of Zwiselberg, already at 7:15am only to notice that the diesel in the car was nearly out, so a small diversion and delay was needed to fill the tank. Some of the route ran along nicely while on other sections I was stuck behind tractors or trucks or simply cars that thought 60 not 100 Km/h was the speed limit.

In any case I arrived and parked at the same parking spot as I did for the reccie. It was about 8:30am and still cold – I was glad I had brought my light jacket. The climb with all the radio gear, food and water started and that was when I realised how steep this route is. It would definitely not have been possible without good hiking shoes and probably not at all in the snow! I forced my way on and eventually reached the summit totally out of breath but greeted with a beautiful view across the valley and the large lake (Forggensee) – a real contrast to what I could see from here the last time I was here!

I quickly unpacked and installed the squid pole and antenna, then set up the rest of the equipment on the bench in front of the cross and was on-air before 9am local (0700 UTC).

A quick look on SOTAWatch via RRT and a tune around found no SOTA stations, so I self spotted and called. I got a call back from Dinos SV3IEG. I then saw a spot for Karl M3FEH/p on Kitt hill and found him just finishing with Paul VK5PAS. I called him for an S2S contact and for a moment, I wasn’t sure whether it was Paul or Karl who had come back to me as the signal had increased dramatically. It was Karl and this would be the story of 20m on this activation – signals going from almost nothing to 5-9 and back again within less than a minute.

After working Karl, I went back to my spotted frequency and started calling CQ again – it took some work but I managed two more contacts on 20m – an S2S with Mike 2E0YYY on Gun and then Paul VK5PAS out of South Australia. Then it went quiet, so I decided to try 10 metres – DJ5AV Michael, located on Lake Constance (not far away) came back to give me a 10m contact but that was to be the only 10m contact for the day, despite trying an arranged contact with Jorge EA2LU. His 1 KW signal was coming in probably about S4 or S5 but my puny 5W was not making the trip back.

After a couple more contacts on 20m, I switched to 40m and was flooded with contacts. It seems 40m was the best band for this activation, logging 13 contacts in 16 minutes.

The full log is shown below. Towards the end of the activation, I got a visit from a cyclist who hung around for a chat and to find out what I was doing. Her son and husband are both interested in technology, so she got one of the DARC introduction to Amateur Radio brochures from me and hopefully that might lead somewhere. This lady also told me that there was a less steep access path from the rear of the summit with reasonable car access to not far away. Perhaps worth checking out next year as the trip back down the track to the car was probably more precarious than the one up with loose gravel, stones and soil on a very steep track.

Slide Show

1- From Reccie.

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2- From Activation.

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND,

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymetric dipole.

Ramsey QAMP amplifier.

6 metre squid pole.

Log:

Conclusions:

This was an enjoyable activation, not just for the couple of SOTA points, but also for the fact that I managed to contact Karl on his first SOTA activation. It is of course always a pleasure to catch up with Mike 2E0YYY on a summit and the contact with Paul (nearly always a strong signal) from Australia, also fitted this relatively easy going day. The visit of the lady cyclist allowed me to promote the hobby and the weather stayed clear and dry to give me some wonderful views of the area.

Oh and yes all the equipment worked perfectly. All in all a very enjoyable activation.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – July 19th. 2015 – DL/BE-094 Irschenhausen.

Posted on 21/07/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

After several planned activations being aborted for different reasons, I decided to activate the one semi-local summit that I have not yet activated in 2015 in order to test out both my now modified again (addition of cooling fan) Ramsey QRP Amplifier and the SOTALogger Android app, spotting function.

I had activated Irschenhausen in April of 2014 while I still lived in Andechs where we had rented a flat while looking for a house to buy. The summit is now almost exactly an hours drive away (if there are no road delays) to where we now live as opposed to 30-35 minutes. Interestingly my planned route would take me directly past my other local summit Berndorfer Buchet (DL/AM-180) but I have already activated that summit this year. Irschenhausen has good memories as last year after tramping up it through the remainder of snow and mud, early in the morning, I managed to activate it with 4 contacts back into VK (two of which, were Summit to Summit contacts). That would not be the case again however as the activation was planned for the afternoon, so just local European contacts this time.

Both Irschenhausen and Berndorfer Buchet are located in forests with limited views and both are possible removals from the SOTA scheme in February 2016. Despite being “interesting” to reach in winter, neither have a winter bonus as they are relatively low in height.

The Location:

The Irschenhausen “summit” is in the cente of the forest alongside the village of Irschenhausen which in turn lies just off the B11 south of Ebenhausen-Schäftlam. Simply turn off the road in the centre of Irschenhusen to the right (signposted to some Hof) and then keep taking the road that climbs higher until you come to a fork where the left hand side is restriced motor access and the right hand fork has a “dead end road” sign. Directly between these two roads is a parking place (next to the doggy plastic bag dispenser) for two cars. Park there are walk up the left hand road and take the left fork off it up into the forest. Keep right in the forest, taking the tracks that take you always higher until you reach the “summit”.

If you could see it through the trees, you would see that Irschenhausen overlooks the Autobahn 95 that runs from Munich to Garmish-Partenkirchen and the easiest route to Irschenhausen is by taking exit number 5 to Schäftlam from the A95, go through Schäftlam over the railway, turn right and then after about 2 km turn right again, back over the railway line and into the village of Irschenhausen.

The Activation:

Expecting delays on the roads as the holiday season is starting, I actually got a good run through, taking almost exactly an hour which was 30 mins ahead of my allocated time. Once I had parked up, the walk up and into the forest was pleasant however I had the feeling that I may have taken the wrong route as the track seemed better than in the previous year. However I kept going always taking the track that seemeed to take me higher. At one point I decided to leave the main track to head up a smaller one towards what I though was the summit (and later trned out indeed to be the summit as I actually found the trig Point when I was packing my equipment up. I believe I did end up at the same point as the previous time and simply the fact that there was no snow or mud around made the route look different. On my way back down after the activation, I realised I had taken a different route and this might have been the route I used on the previous activation.

Band conditions have been difficult for some time and this day was no different. After I got set-up I took a tune around and could hear plenty of stations on 40m but only a few on 20m. I decided to start on 40m and after spotting myself, the chasers flooded in as usual. Once I had worked all the chasers I could hear on 40m, I switched to 20m – tried out the spotting function in the Android SOTALogger app – in the process typing in 14.085 instead of 14.285MHz (thanks Mike G6TUH for picking this upand putting out a corrected spot). The amp had also been operating fine up to this point, the only issue being that I lost the label off the switch I have to switch low pass filters, so I had to best guess that. On 20m, I was getting a very limited response, which later I realised was just bad band conditions howeer in my investigations, I also found a bad contact on the coax. The Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole has a PL-259 plug supplied on the cable, so that I have to go through a SO-239 to BNC adapte before I can connect it to the amp or directly to the FT817 (I use the front connector on the 817). To make things worde, the Ramsey Amp uses Phono/RCA plugs (!!) for RF in and out, so I have Phono to BNC adapters on these to be able to use standard cables. Somewhere on the output side of the amp there was a intermittent connection affecting receive (and no doubt tranmit). I managed to locate the cables so that the connection was good but I will need to look into this. Most likely I will cut the 259 plug off the Aerial-51 antenna lead and add a BNC plug and then I will try to replace the Phono sockets with BNC ones, if I can find PC board mountable sockets at a reasonable price otherwise I may simply solder the Phono-BNC adapters to the Phono sockets.

The day so far had been very pleasant, well shaded from the hot sun in the forest and no sign of rain (although a shower or two was forecast). It then got cold and a wind started up. I decided to give 10 metres a quick try (for the new 6/10m challenge) and then pack up. 10m was dead but Manuel EA2DT managed a contact with me and then I decided it was time to pack up and get back to the car before the rain. It was when I was reeing in one side of the dipole, that I saw a stome on the ground witth TP on the side of it. Of course I thought TP – Trig Point but then I thought, hang on, that would be in the UK not in Germany. After clearing small braches from around the bottom of it I took several pictures of the stone (see below) one side does have a tri-angle on it and after researching when I got home, I found Trig Point or to give it, it’s correct name “Triangulation Point” in english is “Triangulation Punkt” in German, so that was indeed the top of Irschenhausen – I was at the exact summit.

On returning to the car, the wind stopped the temperature went up and no rain came – typical. In any case the purpose of the actication had been met, the amp works, but needs some work now on its connectors. The latest version of SOTALogger’s spotting function works OK.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymmetric dipole.

Ramsey QAMP linear amplifier.

6 metre squid pole.

Plastic painters sheet.

Log: Conclusions:

The replacement transistor and addition to a fan in the amp, seems to have successfully got the amp through this activation. There was some “medical” smell for the first 5 minutes of so. I suspect this was the heatsink heat transfer compound that I used (meant for PC CPU chips) “burning in”. I will need to look at finding a better solution to reduce the number of adapters in the coax or atleast resolve the bad connections.

The SOTALogger spotting via 3G function worked fine but I forgot to try it’s SMS option, so that still need to be tested.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – June 25th. 2015 – DM/BW-348 Gehrenberg.

Posted on 02/07/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

As I was picking up Colin M6BOY from Munich Airport and travelling down on the Thursday to Friedrichshafen for the “HAM RADIO” event which started on the Friday we had a little spare time on Thursday afternoon, so I offered to show Colin a SOTA activation, which he accepted. So the plan was set. I originally was going to activate DM/BW-350 Rinkenberg, by heading cross-country from the Autobahn but in order to handle any delays, I decided it was better to go for the nearest summit to Friedrichshafen so that activation could be cancelled to allow arrival at the appartment at the correct time to pick up the keys. As it turned out, despite getting stuck in one traffic jam for an hour, I did manage to get back on schedule and the SOTA activation took place.

The Location:

Gehrenberg is easy to find at the end of a road off the K7750 road from Markdorf to Harresheim, just before Harresheim.

The Activation:

After a delay getting to the airport, the run down went very well with us arriving near to the summit around the expected time. It was about a 5 minute walk up the track into the forest to near where the radio tower is located.

Once I was at my activation spot, I slowly unloaded the equipment onto a couple of fallen tree trunks and had Colin help me set-up. I only took the 6 metre telescopic squid pole from the car rather than the 10m one as it was easier to carry and set up, strapped to a marker post. The Aerial-51 OCF was run out and pegged to the ground. To show the value and effectiveness of the SOTA spotting system, I first put out calls on 20 & 40m with no replies. I then spotted myself on 40m and called again. The result was impressive – instant pile-up. As Colin is currently only a UK foundation licence holder, he was unable to operate as there is no reciprocal arrangement except for full licencees. After a while working the 40m chasers, we both smelt something burning and indeed my little Ramsey QRP amp, which gives me 25W on 40m had decided to cook one of its transistors again. I ran the last couple of contacts on the basic 5W from the FT-817. As time was now pressing for us to go and collect the keys for the apartment, I packed up and we headed back into Friedrichshafen. A total of 17 stations were worked with one SOTA S2S contact, one GMA S2S contact and one special event station in the log.

Photos:

Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND.

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymmetric dipole.

Ramsey QAMP linear amplifier.

6 metre squid pole.

Log:

Conclusions:

The simple replacement of the transistor in the amp, when it failed on the last activation, was not enough. Although there was no smoke this time, the amp needs to be more reliable again – as it has been for the preceding 6 months.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – June 11th. 2015 – DM/BW-088 Rangenberg.

Posted on 12/06/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

As there had been several Long Path contacts between Europe and Australia over the previous few days, I decided to make the effort to get up and out in time for the Long path window. This meant rising before 6am local time to drive to, walk up and set up my station in time. I considered closer summits than this one however they were at best only 15 minutes closer and only 1 pointers, where Rangenberg is an 8 point summit, which I activated last year. The planned equipment was already prepared, batteries changed and everything packed after the last activation. I printed out the route which was 90% Autobahn and then 10 minutes on country roads. I planned to try a different walk-in approach from the village, which looked tp be shorter than the route I took last time.

The Location:

Rangenberg is located near to the village of Ratzenhofen and for me the easiest, and quickest approach was to drive down the A96 autobahn to exit 8 and then follow signs for Isny and then turn off into Rohrdorf, go through the village and out alongside the hill before turning into Ratzenhofen.

The Activation:

The run down went well with me arriving near to the summit on-time. I actually decided not to try the route from Ratzenhofen (may be next time), I parked where I had the previous time but then took the low track followed by the steps rather than the longer, constantly climbing route. This new route is shorter however some of the turnstiles are hard to get through with my two backpacks. In one field (while still on the track) I was greeted by a rather large, four-legged resident. A lovely grey coloured cow with the largest cow bell I have ever seen around her neck. luckily there was no bull in the field! While the route around to the steps only went up a little, the long climb up the steps had me stopping twice to catch my breath. I really do need to reduce the weight of my packs and get fitter!

Once I was at my activation spot, I slowly unloaded the equipment onto the very convenient solid wood picnic table, then went over to the fence to put up the aerial-51 OCF dipole on my 6 metre telescopic squid pole. The antenna is probably only at about 4.5m AGL in the centre as the 4:1 balun in this antenna has to sit further down the pole where there is some strength.

Once the antenna was up (and I avoided stepping on the giant snail a few times – see pictures), I went back to the table to connect up the gear. As I was hoping for a SSB Long Path contact into VK, I had brought my Ramsey QAMP amplifier, which pushes up the output from the FT817 from 5W to about 15w. Not a big difference but has proved to be useful on other activations.

Well as I was laying out my logbook, I smelt something burning and looking around I saw white smoke coming from the cable from the amplifier as it went into the cloth bag that holds the 3S LIPO battery and inverter that I use to bump the 11v up to 13.8V. No need to say some quick disconnecting took place and I assessed the damage. This had happened before and had been a problem with the cigarette lighter socket output on the battery bag. I had a spare cable to allow me to feed the linear amp directly from the 3S LIPO (albeit at the lower voltage). Witth this in place however I could hear the relays in the amplifier were not going over and later investigation at home showed that in fact the fuse inside the amplifier and one of the two power transistors had blown.

So, it was back to just running the FT817 at its 5W output, which normally has been enough to capture contacts however this time I called and called and tried different bands (20, 40, 15 & 10m). Eventually I got enough contacts on 40m to qualify the summit (one was a summit-to-summit contact with Negro S55KM on S5/KS-025 which was the highlight of the activation). I found out later that a CME from the Sun had created bad radio conditions, which had improved after I left the summit.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND,

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymmetric dipole.

6 metre squid pole.

Log:

Conclusions:

Just because equipment has worked fine for months, it doesn’t mean it will work when you take it again up onto a summit and you always have to be prepared to work around problems.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – June 4th. 2015 – DL/AM-176 Rentschen

Posted on 06/06/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation/Location/Activation:

This activation was planned to be of DL/AM-178 Ammerleite but when we approached, the single track road up to the summit was closed and full with tractors harvesting the field and this on a public holiday. Apparenly this road in now pemanently closed to motorised vehicles (so much for rights of way it seems). There may be an alternate access including little more walking but as I had my wife and our dog with me for this activation, I decided it was better to experiment on my own, some other time.

So although I have already activated Rentschen, this year (I nearly got blown away from it back in March this year) I decided it would have no issues with access and the flat area on it’s top would be fine for the dog to go for a walk on. (Rentschen is very much an easy summit).

The sumit is even signposted off the main ST2059 road! .

On arrival the pile of logs that were useful as support for the mast last time had grown considerably and again provided an easy mast support with the ends of the OCF (Aerial-51) antenna pinned out into the field. Despite the cancellation of the planned summit, I managed to get on 10 minutes before my alerted time on the replacement one. After about 40 minutes operations I had made 31 contacts. Mostly on 40m SSB but with a few on 20m. Interestingly UK stations that I would normally hear on 40m only managed the skip on 20m this time. There were a few other activators alerted and spotted as on when I was active but apart from one S2S contact, I could not hear the other activators. So this activation brought no activation points (as I had already activated this summit) and only the chaser points from one S2S but it was a nice day out with the wife and dog. The first SOTA activation for B 0 N N Y.

Here are some photos from the activation –

Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND

Ramsey QRP amp (25w 40m, 15w 20m)

Aerial-51 404-UL asymmetric dipole

6m squid pole.

Log:

Conclusions:

Don’t exepect sites to stay accessible, they can be closed off at any time – always have a reserve activation site.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – May 17th. 2015 – Falkenstein and Zwolferkopf twice – DL/AL-167, DL/AL-166, OE/TI-670

Posted on 20/05/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

I planned to activate a “border summit” (one that has two SOTA references in different associations) and one that should have been an easy summit, so that my wife and dog could accompany me. As it turned out this became a solo effort. I was determined to bag that border summit and start my entry into the 10 metre challenge by activating on 10m. I think in the end I really earned the few points these summit brought, as you will read below in my activation report.

I decided upon the usual FT817, 6 metre mast and Aerial-51 antenna (no amplifier used – but actually carried on this trip, but didn’t unpack it as the amp doesn’t cover 10m). I always recharge batteries and re-pack equipment after an activation, so everything was ready to go.

The Location:

The location of Falkenstein is quite close to Eisenberg, which I managed to activate after a couple of aborted attempts. On the map, it looks quite simple – turn off onto Konig Ludwig weg just before entering Pfronten. Well at the roundabout before the road to Pfronten, there was a clear sign to Falkenstein. Great! However that was the ONLY sign and the road I was looking for, although shown on the map as Konig Ludwig weg, has in fact another name. After driving past the road into Pfronten, expecting to find further signs (there were none), I back-tracked and took the road that I thought it MUST be. For others looking for this road, it goes into a suburb of Pfronten called Meilingen (and is signposted to there). If, like I, you end up in the middle of the village, simply keep taking roads that go up-hill and if you pass the “AlpenBad” you are heading in the right direction. When I came down from Falkenstein I managed to bypass the centre of the village completely.

The Activation:

I already knew that part of the way up the road to Falkenstein I would have to wait for traffic lights on the last, single track part of the road and pay €3 for the use of the private road. They have a strange set up where the road is open for cars going up the road for 45 minutes each hour and then it’s open for 15 minutes for cars coming down. They must assume that cars travel at three times the speed coming down as going up. Unfortunately I did not have the chance to try this theory out as the road was closed! The reason being one day a year (yes wasn’t I lucky, this was the day), the local ex-servicemen clubs hold a service at a memorial to fallen soldiers that is near the top of Falkenstein and there is only limited parking. So those attending the service were transported up and back down in a minibus belonging to the Red Cross. Kindly they offered me a lift up as well but as the last bus down would be at 12 noon, I would have to walk down (which turned out fine, walking up with all the radio gear, food and water would have been pretty hard).

OK, so when I arrived at the memorial, I had probably another 25 or so vertical metres to struggle up to the ruins of the Falkenstein castle. This is the highest ruined castle in Bavaria and had been bought with the intention of being rebuilt á la Neuschwanstein style by Konig Ludwig of Bavaria before his suspicious death. So it stayed a ruin and someone built a very posh and expensive hotel below it. On the day I was there the hotel had a Ferrari, a Mercedes, a Porsche and an Audi R8 parked in the car park.

The weather forecast was for some showers, but luckily none came. At my first summit DL/AL-167 Falkenstein. I set up at the back of the ruins where I just managed to fit the inverted-V antenna in. I started on 10 metres, and found to my horror an S9 signal warbling all over the bottom half of the band. It sounded like an unstable signal generator with a large amplifier attached. It was not radar like. I was a real problem though. There was a couple of other activators who had spotted activations on 10m. I took a listen – no chance. I then moved up the band far enough to miss the worst of the interference and put out a call but then I had all kinds of problems with Radio Rucksack Tool complaining about errors in XLS files and shutting down. I found the problem later, it was that I did not have any Internet credit left on my phone and it seems the RRT reacts strangely when it can’t get Internet access. In any case, the self-spot on 10m did not help so, I decided to move to 20m where I managed a few contacts. I also took a look on 40m but there was some contest on meaning I could not find a free frequency. I made enough contacts to qualify the summit in any case. As time was pressing on and I could see the next summit in the distance at the top of a pretty craggy climb, I decided if I was going to manage my “border summit”, I would need to pack up and head off, With having to walk back down the mountain a ways and then climb up the other side, I estimated it would take me an hour – it took nearer to an hour and a quarter.

Again sign-posting did not help at all. There was no reference to Zwolferkopf or Einerkopf that comes before it, on any of the walking track signs, so I “plumpted” for the one that I hoped was correct. For future reference, the track starts at the Austrian border stone shown in my pictures below just off the road up to Falkenstein – about 2/3 of the way up from the start of the private, single track, traffic light controlled section.

It was certainly a long climb up to Zwolferkopf, but you certainly knew you were above everything else once you got to the top, where two seating banks are located alongside the track. The track doubles as the German and Austrian border marker.

Once set-up I called first in Austria using my Australian call sign – OE/VK2JI/P (when I am outside of Germany, I dont have to use my German call, I can also use either my Australian or English call sign). This was Zwolferkopf defined in SOTA as OE/TI-670. Although 10m was again a wash out with the Interference, I made a good selection of contacts on 20m including a S2S with Guru EA2IF/P on EA2/NV-121. I think using the VK call helped somewhat in the number of chasers calling. After grabbing some lunch, I then activated as DD5LP/P from DL/AL-166 (still Zwolferkopf). This time the number of contacts were less, so I decided to try 40m and managed a few more contacts there.

As usually happens, once I had packed up a couple more activator spots came through that I might have been able to work, but with everything packed away ready for the climb back down the hill, I couldn’t unpack everything again. The walk down to the road went quite quickly but the walk from there down to the car park was some distance, leaving some blisters on my feet.

All in all an exhausting but successful day!

Photos:

1. Falkenstein

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2. Zwolferkopf:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND,

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymmetric dipole.

6 metre squid pole.

Logs:

Falkenstein DL/AL-167:

Zwolferkopf OE/TI-670

Zwolferkopf DL/AL-166

Conclusions:

I have been unable to find what caused the horrible interference on 10m near Falkenstein and Zwolferkopf however I’m sure it is local and would suspect something within the hotel, a plasma TV possibly.

I really do need to cut down my equipment to one rucksack from the current rucksack plus camera bag and if I decide that I don’t need the amplifier, take it and it’s 2 5aH LIPO batteries out of my pack!

I’m not fit – I need to get out some more. It was a real achievement to get to the top of Zwolferkopf but I shouldn’t have been panting so much when I got there and there were few points where I almost twisted my ankles. Definitely more exercise is called for!

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – March 29th. 2015 – Two Ammergauer summits in half a day – DL/AM-176 & 177

Posted on 30/03/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

Originally planned to be three summits to catch the last possible weekend for 2015 SOTA winter bonus points (the period finishes om March 31st.). After the second being very difficult due to hurricane force winds, I cancelled the third summit which was to be DL/AM-178 Ammerleite.

Preparation was only planning the activations to fit into my very tight weekend schedule, that I now have as I have a full time job again. Equipment used was the usual FT817, Ramsey QAMP amplifier, the Aerial-51 antenna and the 6m mast – all of which had had their batteries recharged and the tangles taken out of the antenna wire following the previous activation, so I was all set to go.

The Location:

The locations had already been activated and report from those activvations can be found here:

DL/AM-176 Rentschen

DL/AM-177 Kernberg

The Activation:

Although the weather forecast was for some showers, the winds were the surprise. At my first summit DL/AM-176 Rentschen, although a little cold, it didn’t start windy but by the time I packed up the winds were extreme. The other problem for both of these activations, was that there was some contest on, on both 20 & 40m covering all of the band with S9+++ splatter. I had hoped to possibly get an S2S with Gerard VK2IO who was planning to be on Mt. Elliot (my old local summit) in NSW Australia. Whether we could have made a contact without all the QRM, I suspect not as the conditions were probably not good enough but by the contest stations destroying the band we will never know if we might have been able to make contact.

Despite the winds at Rentschen, I decided to try for the next summit, Kernberg, anyway in the hope that the winds might die down, When I arrived it was not too windy however it didn’t take long for them to build up. Blowing my ruck sack off the bench at one point (and it is quite heavy). I struggled to even get the required 4 contacts at this summit. After the third contact the squid pole decided to drop down from 6 metres to about 3 metres but I didn’t think it worth fighting my way to the mast to put it up again, given that it probably would come straight back down again. Hence that Swedish contest station that was my forth contact had to realky work to hear me (despite that he still gave the contest standard 5-9 report!). Along with the winds and the contest QRM, I also had major problems with Rucksack Radio Tool, the application on my phone that I use to spot myself with and see which other activators are out. By calling and giving a contest station a point, I eventually managed the required 4 contacts. I may have done better if I had connected up the Ramsey amp on Kirnberg as I had on Rentschen but that would have been more equipment out to be blown away, never to be seen again!

Photos:

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It’s hard to tell from the short film however it was really windy on Kirnberg, so much so that if I did not fasten or hold everything down, it would have blown away!

Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND,

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymetric dipole.

6 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP (only used on Rentschen).

Logs:

Conclusions:

It is always best to air on the side of caution. There were times on Kirnberg when the winds were so strong that it was dangerous. Going on to Ammerleite would probably, at the least, ended up with some broken antenna equipment.

The use of the Ramsey Amp does help getting through, especially when there are contests on.

Never assume everything will work properly. After working perfectly for many activations, RRT kept aborting meaning I had to try up to 10 times before I could get a spot out as the program kept failing. I think this was due to lack on 3G signal, but the program shouldn’t abort for that reason.

,73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – March 21st. 2015 – DL/AM-001 Pießenberg & DL/AL-179 Weichberg.

Posted on 28/03/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

In the hope of bagging a couple of VK contacts and taking advantage of the fact that most of the snow had cleared, I planned these two activation of 1 point summits before the end of their winter bonus period. After the previous problems with activating Burndorfer Buchet a couple of weeks earlier (this is a simple, no winter bonus, summit) becuase of a fully iced over track, I was hoping not to meet similar conditions on Auerberg and Weichberg. These activations would have to be strictly time controlled as I had to be back home for an appointment at noon.

The Locations:

I have already activated these summits a couple of times. They are easy to access, with just the last section needing to be walked in. For fuller detail on the summits and access, please check my reports on this website from last years activations.

The Activation:

I’m glad to report no snow or ice related issues in getting to Peißenberg. The traffic was heavier than expected however I still arrived and set-up ahead of my planned activation time. I started on 20m hoping for long path into VK as I had managed from Peißenberg before, but no luck. Even other European summits that had been spotted, I could not hear. I spotted myself and started calling. It took a little while but I managed two contacts into Finland and Bulgaria with good signals in both directions. When I switched to 40m however, it was a completely different story. A “wall of noise” of chasers that went on for a solid 15 minutes, by which time, with my tight schedule, I had to pack up in any case to move on to Weichberg.

On arriving at Weichberg, the access track was a little muddy but apart from that no ice or snow problems. I tried to quickly set-up however I was joined by some inquisitive walkers, an 85 year old with his 80 year old wife, so once I had explained what Amateur Radio is about, I was getting to my planned activation time before I finally go on. Given my experience on Peißenberg, I decided to start on 40m and again ran straight into a pile up that lasted again 15 minutes. I then decided to try 20m quickly before packing up. Conditions on 20m were no better than earlier and I only managed 3 contacts on 20m this time.Marko from Finland again and two Spanish stations.

So it was only a matter of untangling the antenna after taking it down and packing up as quickly as I could with frozen fingers (yes it was still very cold on both of these summits) and then head home and out to my appointment, which I “just” made on time.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND,

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymmetric dipole.

6 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP, modified to cover 40m & 20m.

Green plastic sheet.

Logs:

Peißenberg

Weichberg.

Conclusions:

Propagation is a fickle partner, especially a couple of days after a major CME has hit the earths atmosphere, one should always be prepared for more than one band. The Aerial-51 is fast becoming my “go to” antenna for SOTA operations replacing the SOTABeams linked dipole as it appears to perform just as well but it is a multi-band antenna that doesn’t need to be taken down to change bands. The Ramsey amplifier also now appears to be operating reliably, it’s a shame that it only gives me 15W output on 20m (25W on 40m is a nice level). This is probably due to the design running the transistors under their preffered voltage.

Try not to plan SOTA activations into a tight schedule. I was lucky this time, but it could have been that a delay on the summit could have caused me to be late for my appointment.

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – March 13th. 2015 – DL/AM-180 Berndorfer Buchet.

Posted on 15/03/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

Andrew VK1NAM contacted me via email earlier in the week to ask if it would be possible for me to get out on Friday morning my time as he was looking for a second contact into the DL association to count towards his Mountain Hunter award (he already had one DL contact and just needed the second). I had already planned an activation on the Saturday from Peissenberg but gladly agreed to head out on Friday instead. As this had to be an early activation to catch the long path window I decided on my closest summit Berndorfer Buchet. I already knew the summit from activating it in 2014. Being only 30-40 minutes away from home this was the best option (or so I thought). Given the difficulty of access due to the remaining ice and snow, Peissenberg (with it’s winter bonus) would have been a better choice. Heinsight is a fine thing but I chose Berndorfer Buchet. I’ll need to try to “knock off” the easy summits with winter bonuses next week before the period ends, or leave them until December.

I decided to take the 10m squid pole this time instead of the 6m one, but apart from that the usual equipment was packed up ready to go the night before.

The Location:

Berndorfer Buchet is in the middle of a forest on a hill overlooking the village of Paehl, just south of lake Ammersee. Probably an hour’s drive from Munich but only just over 30 minutes from where I live. This is an easy summit and as such only gives 1 point even in winter.

The Activation:

There were a few surprises and not just the band conditions. AM-180 Berndorfer Buchet is a small hill, not very high when compared to the alps, because of this it doesn’t get a winter activator bonus. While most snow and ice has cleared around here (including on many of the lower summits that get the winter bonus points), it hadn’t from the approach (walking) track to AM-180. Luckily the last 30m vertical climb had cleared of snow otherwise I may not have got to the summit at all.

What looks like snow in the pictures below, is snow with a layer of ice on top of it and where the forestry vehicles had been, it’s solid ice and very slippery! Although sunny, I doubt the temperature got over 0 degrees even in the sunshine, while I was there.

As soon as I had set up, I saw a spot for Andrew and could hear him about S2 or S3 and tried calling for 20mins but I was swamped by the stronger chasers. I then spotted myself on 20m and qualified the summit with a bunch of the usual chasers.When I returned to Andrew’s frequency I couldn’t hear Andrew any more. The 20m band was not as good as it has been. I then saw an OE portable station spotted and went to see if I could get an S2S but due to the proximity (skip distance), I couldn’t hear him at all. Still hopeful of catching Andrew I went back to his frequency and thankfully, conditions were back and the wall of chasers calling had gone down in number and we managed the contact!

After this I decided to go onto 40m and give a call. It was crazy – lots of callers most at S9+. 40m was really “popping”.

Just as I was about to pack-up with bitterly cold fingers, I saw a spot on 20m for Mike (2E0YYY) and Dave (G4ASA) so called them and had an easy contact to complete the activation.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND,

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymmetric dipole.

10 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP, modified to cover 40m & 20m.

Green plastic sheet.

Log:

Conclusions:

Just beacuse most of the area is cleared of snow, do not assume that the summit you want to activate is! I raved in the last activation report about the clip-on spikes for my boots and how valuable they are. I needed themon this activation but left them at home!

73 ’til the next Summit!

DD5LP – February 26th. 2015 – DL/AL-169 Auerberg.

Posted on 26/02/2015 by VK2JI DD5LP G8GLM

Preparation:

Having not activated for over a month, the urge was great and as this was an especially nice, sunny (if still cold) day, I decided to reactivate a favourite summit – Auerberg. Actual preparation was simple for this summit; check the route, decide which antenna and mast I’ll use (and put the others in the car just in case). Take a sheet of plastic to cover the likely wet wooden seat outside the church and then set-off with my two “go bags”.

The Location:

Since moving last year this summit is now only about 40 minutes away from where I live rather than the hour plus previously. It is a really beautiful spot with the classic church dominating the summit and a restaurant walking distance down the hill from it. Unfortunately this restaurant and hotel is closed until the 3rd. of March as normally at this time of year they don’t get many visitors. Their busy time is spring through autumn when it is a favourite hang-out for bikers cruising the Allgau area that it sits in. I’d love to ride a motorbike up there, the long curved winding road is ideal for motorbikes. If someone wants to make a “SOTA holiday” this would be an ideal spot to stay.

The Activation:

I arrived at Auerberg almost an hour before my planned start time and despite the sub-zero temperatures when not in the sun, manged to quickly put up the mast and antenna (the aerial-51 asymmetrical dipole this time) and set myself up on the same seat that I used last year. This time however I needed to crack some ice off it and put the plastic sheet I had brought with me, on it. As it was still icy underfoot, I decided to add my clip on spikes to my boots, which was a very good idea in these conditions.

I intended to start on 20m with the hope of some late long path into VK, but it was too late. Then I saw that Hans PA3PYG was active on DM/BW-159 on 40m as DL/PA3PYG/P so I went over to 40m and after a couple of calls managed an S2S. I then went onto 20m and the contacts came thick and fast. When they dried up I went back to 40m and again got a lot more contacts there. QRM was not nearly as bad on these bands as I have experienced in the past and the Ramsey amp, seemed to give that little extra “punch” with reports being most 5-9 both ways. Once the flood on 40m ran out, I decided to try some other bands and got one contact on 15m with Jack OH3GZ (thanks Jack) but I could not raise one contact on 10m. On 15 & 10m I was only running 5W as my amplifier wont work that high but I also could not hear anything much on these bands so I guess the conditions were simply not there. I then had a final session back on 20m, picking up a couple of the regulars that I had missed before and then packed up, happy with the mornings efforts.

Photos:

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Equipment:

Yaesu FT817ND,

Aerial-51 model 404-UL asymmetric dipole.

6 metre squid pole.

Ramsey QAMP, modified to cover 40m & 20m (not used on 15m or 10m).

Green plastic sheet.

Clip on spikes for boots.

Log:

Conclusions:

A very successful activation, however towards the end when the equipment had got really cold, the RF VOX switching in the Ramsey amplifier started “chattering”. I will need to increase the capacitance across the relay coil to stop this happening while not keeping the Tx on too long under normal temperatures.

73 ’til the next Summit!