Preparation:

The saga of the 2 element wire beam has continued for some time (months in fact). First with physical feed point board mounting problems, then apparent electronic problems with the Bluetooth relay switching board, then I managed to blow that board by connecting the supply in reverse and when I got what I thought was an exact replacement it wasn’t, meaning that my direction switching scripts on my smartphone no longer worked and had to be replaced by single button switches in the app.

Then along came gale force winds, 30cm of snow and heavy rains in several different sequences delaying testing of the “fixed” electronics on the local field. While stuck inside not able to test the complete solution, I built up an elementary (no electronics) feed-point board, so that I could test out the straight elements and the elements with HF-Kits traps in them (making them suitable for 10 & 20m usage), without having to worry about electronics, Bluetooth or Smartphone issues. In this configuration, it is not possible to switch the direction of the beam, it points in the direction that it is erected for

After a couple of tests in the local field (still rather muddy, but with only three days of dry weather forecast I had to put up with that) the simple antenna was ready for use from a summit for which Peissenberg was chosen, being one of the closest that had room for my surveyor’s tripod, 7m mast and the wire beam. After a further test before lunch, where the trapped elements proved to still need some trimming but the simple 10 metre elements were spot-on, I decided to make this a 10-metre-only activation (even though a CME had just hit the Ionosphere, the MUF was still up above 30MHz) in the late afternoon when 10 metres had been opening up to North America.

The Activation

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg

On arriving at the car park for the summit, it was obvious that others were there, waiting (I believe) to watch the sunset while having a light meal.

I unpacked the antenna, mast and Tripod first before returning to the car for the radio later. I luckily had also brought my antenna analyser along that I had used during my tests in the morning, as after setting the antenna up, the 10 metre band sounded rather quiet and the ATU in the radio took some time to match it to the radio – a sign that something was wrong. I could have then tried the SWR scan feature in the G90 but while I had the Rigexpert AA-30 with me, I put that on and it was obvious that the antenna was not connected. I checked the PL-259 plug at ground level but it quickly became obvious that the problem lay on the feed point board up at 6 metres in the air, so down it had to come down.

The connection problem was traced to the BNC end of the RG-213 coax cable where it plugged into the BNC socket on the simplified feed point board. Once I detached and reattached the BNC plug to the socket on the feed-point board all worked OK for the whole of the activation. I need to find a better solution and indeed after returning home I have been able to make this connection a far more solid “match”. Should the problem re-occur I will solder the co-ax straight to the antenna element connectors.

 Once I had sorted out the connection, 10m sounded a lot more like it should on receive, but despite that and having spotted myself several times on the SOTA cluster, I was not getting calls that I had hoped for,  that was until I heard ZS5APT calling me!  This was Adele and after exchanging reports she said -please wait I have another South African ham that wants to call you – who was ZS5AYC – Sid (her husband). So my first two contacts on the new antenna were in South Africa! I should be happy at that except … the wire beam was pointing at the US (which is West of me), not South Africa (which is South of me). This simple (one direction) antenna would be receiving Adele and Sid off the side of the beam, they were both 5-6 and gave me 5-8/5-9 – not bad for 20w and a wire antenna.

But it left me thinking – would the signal have been better with a simple dipole? I obviously need to do some more testing to prove the directional properties of this antenna.

The next three-quarters of an hour were difficult, I was not getting calls and when I tried to call other stations which I could hear well from the US and Canada, I’d get hammered in their pile-ups.

Two semi-local German stations (DA20XOTA and DJ0AL/P) did persevere through the QRM and QSB, but after that, I could not seem to get any more contacts. Other SOTA activators who were out in the area were too close for me to get S2S contacts, I could hear people chasing them but not the activators themselves. 

I had just about decided to pack up as it was getting towards sunset and more campers were turning up so I used the magic words “LAST CALLS” – and who comes back to me?  Gary K3TCU, from Pennsylvania. He was 5-8 and gave me 4-4 which sounds like an honest report. He kindly ventured from his normal CW to SSB to give me a call.

Photos:

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg:

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Equipment taken:

• Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
• Xiegu G90 radio.
• Surveyor’s tripod.
• 7 metre fibreglass mast.
• !0-metre band 2-element wire beam.
• RigExpert AA-30 Antenna Analyser.
• Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna and tripod (not used)
• Lamdahalbe 5m mini-mast and new metal base peg (not used).
• SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
• 4 Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery.
• 4 Ah LiHV battery(not used).
• Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
• Gardener’s kneeling pad (not used).
• Lightweight headphones.
• Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg

Conclusions:

• The antenna definitely works. It can be set up on a summit without too many problems but this time I used the surveyor’s tripod for support, next time I’ll try just the ground peg and the 6m mast rather than the 7m one.

• If the feed cable issue re-occurs I have enough RG-316 coax (that’s the thin, lightweight stuff), so I will simply solder a length onto the feed plate element connectors and put a PL259 plug on the other end.

73 ’til the next summit.

Preparation:

To be clear, this was not to be my 100th activation of this summit, but rather the activation by many different SOTA activators to get to the “Magic 100”. This would be my 30th activation of the summit, which is the second closest to where I live.

The activation was also to serve as a comparison of radio gear. As I would be travelling to the UK, the following week, I needed to see how effective a 5w radio and simple loaded vertical antenna would be compared to the 20 watts from the G90 into the linked-dipole on a 6-metre mast.

Preparation was easy, in that I had both sets of equipment already in separate bags, ready to go. I only added the Surveyor’s tripod to the equipment to make it simple to put up the dipole.

Ernie VK3DET had said he would be available to listen for me from Australia, so this would be an early action in order to be on this (Drive-up) summit before the long path closes to Australia.

The Activation

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

The drive down is a route I have taken many times before. On arriving, I went to the large car park, where I could back up the car to the edge of the field and next to the seat. (they don’t get more “drive-up” than this summit). This car park is within the 25m vertical activation zone and provides space for larger antennas than would be possible on the very summit which has a large church sitting on it.

I first set up the large tripod and mast, followed by the linked dipole and then laid out the new development, an “EMF Screen” or “Faraday Screen” copper and nickel coated material and sat my HF-PRO2 loaded whip on a magnetic base on top of it. I had tested this configuration on the antenna analyser at home with good results so I was now hoping to try it out on-air.

For transmitters, I unpacked both the G90 (20w) and G106 (5w) radios and attached each to their antennas -the QRP radio with the simple loaded whip and the G90 with the linked dipole.

A short message to Ernie and he was on frequency and we exchanged 54 7 53 reports on the “large station”. This was not going to be strong enough to be able to switch to the other system although it was receiving fairly well the same stations as the large antenna was.

We decided to give propagation 30 minutes to improve and in the meantime I spotted myself and got calls from ZL4NVW from New Zealand and 4Z4DX from Israel but no other calls from around Europe so the skip was long but signals were low – not the best environment to be comparing antennas and radios under.

After 30 minutes, I called Ernie VK3DET again and the signals in both directions were the same as earlier, so the band was not improving and with time marching on, the QRM from stations close to the frequency was getting worse.

So I decided to call it a day on the testing and said 73 to Ernie and then moved over to 40m to get the needed 4th contact to qualify the summit for its 100th time.

Once people found me of course there were lots more than the one needed contact and after half an hour, there were 22 contacts in the log.

All of this time, the temperatures were below 10°C and so as testing on 40m would also not be practical with the overloaded nature of the band, I decided to call it a day and plan to go out just with the simple system and the QRP radio on one of the following days before making my mind up as to what equipment I will need to take on the plane.

Photos:

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg:

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Equipment taken:

• Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
• Xiegu G90 radio.
• Xiegu G106 radio (only used on Rx).
• Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna with a Faraday screen as the ground plane under a mag mount. (not used)
• Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast and Surveyors tripod.
• SotaBeams linked dipole.
• 4 Ah & 2Ah Eremit LifePO4 batteries.
• 4 Ah LiHV battery(not used).
• Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
• Gardener’s kneeling pad.
• Lightweight headphones (x2).
• Smartphone for SOTA spotting.

Log:

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

100th activation !!!

Conclusion:

• The radio conditions although good on 20m, were not good enough to be able to do radio and antenna tests between DL and VK and trying to test on 40m with so many stations on was also not practical. 

73 ’til the next summit.

Preparation:

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

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

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

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

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

The Activation

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos:

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg:

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Equipment taken:

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

Log:

DL/AM-001 Peißenberg

Conclusions:

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

73 ’til the next summit(s).

Preparation:

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

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

The Activation

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos:

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg

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Equipment taken:

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

Logs:

DL/AM-001 Peissenberg

Conclusions:

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

73 ’til the next summit(s).

Preparation:

As conditions have improved greatly as Solar Cycle 25 “ramps up” several SOTA activators on the SOTA Reflector decided to go out to try for EU to VK contacts (ideally S2S). This was an independent effort, not the “semi-official” VK-EU S2S event, just one or two activators in VK and ZL heading for summits late in their afternoon to try for contacts with activators in Europe and the UK who would be out early in their morning. Contacts were mainly planned to be on 20m as it was expected to be open the whole week (18-22nd of April).

I had time on Wednesday of this week to try from my side and decided to keep things simple by heading to the Peissenberg summit. It has the advantage of not needing a cable car to access the summit. Some Cable cars are stopped for maintenance and while we still have astronomic numbers of new Covid-19 infections at the moment, being couped up inside a cabin with people I do not know, was a risk I decided to avoid.

I looked at the site and decided that I would attempt to put up the linked dipole in a North-South direction so that its side lobes went East-West. Due west is the direction I needed for long path propagation to Australia.

As this is a drive-up summit, I decided to take my surveyors’ tripod and my 10 metre mast. Apart from that the rest of the equipment would remain “standard” with the Xiegu G90 and the SOTABeams linked dipole and a couple of battery packs. All was packed into the car on Tuesday evening for an early 6:30 am (0430 UTC) start on Wednesday morning. 

The Activation

The trip down was uneventful, a route that I know without the need for maps or GPS as I have been there so many times. What I wasn’t sure I would find, however, was how full the car park would be. This is a favourite spot for camper van owners to drive to and stay overnight, to watch sunset and sunrise over the valley. I was glad to see when I arrived, that the car park was empty. I bought my 3 hour, €2 parking ticket and headed to the opposite end of the car park. I would normally aim for somewhere in the middle where there used to be two benches (now only one) so that I could set up the antenna long-ways along the grass field next to the car park and have my station on a bench. That puts the dipole in an east to west direction however and any directivity on 20m would then be north or south – 90° away from what I need for the long path to Australia. For that reason, I had intended to set up at the far end of the car park with the antenna running north to south. When I got there, however, the farmer had fenced off the area of grass that I had planned to use and so I went down into the normal field instead with my large tripod and 10m mast. 

It took about 15 minutes to lay out my groundsheet, unpack everything that was needed from the rucksack and set up the linked dipole on the 10m “travel mast”. As I was adjusting the inverted-V antenna to get the mast more vertical, it did what it has done on several other occasions and collapsed into itself bringing the feed point crashing down and breaking off one of its mounts.

This was of course a setback and I wondered whether to try again with the long mast but as I was already feeling the cold by this point, the chance of going through raising the mast again only to have it collapse again was too much of a risk, so I took the 10m mast out of the tripod support, laid it to the side and put in my backup 6-metre mast instead. While this would not have the antenna so high, it would stay up! Luckily I was about 20 minutes ahead of my plan and so the lost time with the mast collapse did not create timing problems.

 Tuning around 20 metres the band seemed quite quiet as the MUF was still below 14MHz but it didn’t take long until I could check the DX Cluster and then tune and hear the ZL and VK stations. Being portable, away from metro noise, is a real treat. My home location is rural and I can’t think of how bad it must be trying to operate from within a large city but being out portable (even on a cold morning like this one) remains a pleasure with the clarity and strength of incoming signals even with the simplest of antennas.

 After trying to call some of the Oceania stations and being hammered by QRO stations with big beams, I decided to find a free frequency (while there still were some), spotted myself on the SOTAWatch cluster site and started calling CQ. What a surprise – the first caller was Andy ZL1TM from Auckland, New Zealand. I guess my signal was getting out OK on the lower mast then! I also posted my frequency to our “Comms testers” Signal group and Ernie VK3DET was the next in the log. After chatting with Ernie for a few minutes, my next call was an S2S contact with Andrew VK1AD/P on VK1/AC-039 “Yellow Rabbit Hill”. Andy ZL1TM had told me that Andrew VK1AD was on the air and I had told him that unfortunately, I had a large carrier signal from somewhere in Europe exactly on Andrew VK1AD’s frequency and so hadn’t called him. After our QSO Andy went off called Andrew and asked him to come down to my frequency and so we managed the S2S. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Andrew.  

That wasn’t the end of the DX though, two more contacts (which were a little more difficult as the band was deteriorating) followed with Ian, VK5CZ and Gerard, VK2IO, both of whom I haven’t spoken to in years.

It was interesting that I was not getting any calls from SOTA chasers in European countries. My thought is that as the skip was long, the DX contacts were working well but other stations in Europe were simply not in range of my antenna. After Gerard, Jack OH3GZ from Finland did call me with a true 5-9 signal but after Jack, the band seemed to be really dead. 

Peissenberg is only a one-point summit however I know that SOTA chasers just love to get as many activators in their logs as possible, so I decided to switch from 20 metres to 40 metres and the world was a different place! I worked 37 chasers in 20 minutes. 

During all of this time the temperatures had not been rising, rather the cold breeze was getting stronger and the mist over the valley had only lifted a little (as you will see in the photos below), so it was time to pack up and head home. At least the trip back to the car was only a couple of minutes rather than the 20-30 minutes that is more usual on the summits around here.

 Photos:

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Equipment used:

• Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
• Xiegu G90.
• Surveyors Tripod and 10 metre DX-Wire fibreglass “travel-mast”.
• Lambdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
• SotaBeams linked dipole.
• 4000 maH LiHV battery (not used)
• Battery box (2 x 5000maH hard-case 4S LIPOs).
• Painters thick plastic sheet.
• Lightweight headphones.

Log:

Conclusions:

• The DX-Wire mast continues to disappoint even though it has behaved for a few activations. The fact that it is designed to be short and relatively light when packed means that it has many short sections with thin walls and that does not make a good strong mast.
• Even when the temperature is forecast to be a “warm” 4-5°C never underestimate how a small arctic breeze can take that temperature down very quickly.
• Overall the activation was a big success with an S2S into Australia and contacts into Australia and New Zealand as if they were local. It won’t be long before we get back to 2014 standards and we can bag half a dozen S2S contacts between Europe and Oceania in an activation with just a few watts of SSB and a dipole!

73 ’til the next summit.

Preparation:

As I hadn’t activated a summit recently, the radio conditions appear to be getting better and the threat of new COVID lockdowns is getting ever closer. I decided to activate one of my closest and simplest to get to summits – Piessenberg. I have already activated Peissenberg this year and hence won’t give me any additional activator points, not even winter bonus points, but for a quick activation it is a drive-up summit, and it’s a summit that I can get to early in the morning (to take advantage of Greyline or Long Path contacts into ZL/VK).

I decided to take the reliable Xiegu G90 and linked dipole combination but with the 10m mast and the surveyors tripod to support it (of course, other options would be along in the car “just in case” there were any problems). The car was loaded the night before to allow an early departure, the plan was to be on the summit and operational by 0800 UTC or 9 am local time – which was around the time that the 20m-band has been opening to VK recently. The weather was another factor. This is winter in southern Bavaria and Monday was to be the warmest day of the week, with temperatures getting as HIGH as zero degrees! Between minus 9 and minus 6 was forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday. 

The Activation

The trip down took nearer to 50 minutes rather than the expected 35 minutes, due to being stuck in a queue of traffic following a slow truck with a trailer which refused to travel at more than 60 km/h on the country roads where 100 is allowed. Peissenberg was reached therefore at 8 am (0700 UTC) and the first surprise was new signs in the previously free car park, stating that it is now privately owned (but still not very well maintained) and hence costs money to use. I paid my €2 for 3 hours although others who came and left seemed to ignore the signs and machine completely, so I don’t know how often it is checked, most likely at this time of year not at all but I did the right thing and paid.

Once I had parked, it’s only a few metres to the benches where I set up. The tripod, I set up with the 10m mast and linked dipole, I thought quite close but a couple of steps further and the coax wouldn’t have reached (it did, just). 

Ernie VK3DET in Victoria Australia had agreed to listen for me and Mike 2E0YYY/P had headed out to a HEMA Summit in the UK, so we had a group of three of us. As it was too early for 20m to be open, I started on 40m and after a little tuning around, I found Ron ZL4RMF calling CQ from the south island of New Zealand not getting any replies. So I called him – hang on, no output – Oh dear, what is going on? Well, I have been testing using my Bluetooth headset and for that to work, the microphone audio has to be switched to the line input connector on the ACC socket. I had forgotten to switch it back. After a few attempts, I remembered what I had to press to get to the menu setting to change it back and then everything was fine again. By this time others had found Ron and were calling him. I threw my call in to have a try and Ivan (sorry I can’t remember his call, from Russia, said to Ron when he had finished his contact – there’s a portable station in Germany calling you – please take a listen for him (thanks to Ivan – that was very thoughtful and kind of you). So my first entry in the log was a 5 & 6 contact with New Zealand and a few words with Ron, who I hadn’t spoken to for a while. After working Ron, I realised the speech compressor had not been turned on (another change due to the BT headset tests) and I know that makes a difference, so I turned it on for the rest of the contacts.  

I now found a free frequency and put out some CQ calls and was surprised to get calls back without even spotting myself. Mike had, had a delay as his antenna was reporting a bad VSWR reading on 40m and indeed when I did get to work him, he wasn’t as loud as usual. That could have been conditions but other UK stations were strong, so I think Mike must have had a bad contact in the antenna somewhere. Once we all switched to 20m, Mike was not so strong to start with plus he had S9 QRM across the whole of the 20m-band (we believe this could be from a timer/light level switched floodlight on a nearby building at Mow Cop as all interference disappeared later). As the band changed, Mike was so strong that there was no background noise when he spoke and the S-Meter was up around 10 dB over nine. He was like a local 2m FM station. Later again, he dropped to just above the noise within 30 seconds but this was radio conditions changing, not a faulty antenna. The 20m-Band was really variable during this period. I never managed to hear Ernie VK3DET although we tried several times. I did hear VK3XAT at about 3-3 at one point but he could not hear me. I think the extra “hop” needed on the long-path route for a VK signal to get to me rather than to the UK makes a lot of difference to the signal strength.

 Photos:

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Equipment used:

• Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
• Xiegu G90.
• Surveyors Tripod and 10 metre DX-Wire fibreglass “mini-mast”.
• SotaBeams linked dipole.
• 4000 maH LiHV battery
• Battery box (2 x 5000maH hard-case 4S LIPOs).
• Painters thick plastic sheet.
• Lightweight headphones.

Log:

Conclusions:

• Overall a successful activation with lots of good reports for the G90 – Linked dipole combination.
• Greyline propagation into ZL is a reliable thing, especially when other hams help you get through the pile-up.
• The equipment, even the smartphone, needs me to operate without gloves on far too often. In winter this is a risk as when operating alone, simply packing the gear away can be difficult with hands going purple with cold.

73 ’til the next summit.

Preparation:

Despite the fact that I have already activated Peissenberg this year and hence won’t give me any additional activator points, it has two advantages. Firstly it is a drive-up summit, so for testing, I can take a lot more equipment with me and secondly, (normally) it is a quick summit to get to, so that early morning activations (Greyline or Long Path contacts into ZL/VK).

I say “normally”, but more of that later.

One thing I had been working on before the COVID pandemic was a directional wire HF antenna, called the VP2E (Vertically polarised 2 Element) – all the details are on this website, here. As the pandemic lockdown situation combined with winter weather, I never got my comparison tests completed. Hence along with trying for a contact with Mike 2E0YYY/P in England, Ernie VK3DET and Ian VK3YFD in Victoria, Australia, this activation was meant to act as a test of my 20m version of the VP2E.

The car was loaded the night before to allow an early departure, the plan to be on the summit operational by 0600 UTC. The weather was questionable having had two evenings with thunderstorms and high winds – one of those storms, bringing down one of my antenna support masts at home (repaired in 15 minutes, no real damage). The forecast was for a mixed day but with several other appointments in the week, it had to be this Wednesday morning or not at all.

The gear would be the new XIEGU G90 and battery box in my rucksack and several antennas including the HF-PRO2 antenna (and photo tripod), the SOTABeams linked dipole and of course the VP2E for 20m. To support the VP2E and linked dipole configurations I packed the surveyor’s tripod and 6 and 10 metre squid poles.  

The Activation

Peissenberg has two good activation points. One on the very summit alongside the church and one in the car park below the graveyard. The first has a nice seat and fence where I can attach the mast and run the wire antenna out to a flagpole in one direction and down around a try to a second bench seat in the other direction. The best for antenna tests with lots of room is the car park.

But first I had to get there! Everything was going to plan as I left home at 7 am local time (0500 UTC) and the trip down over the country roads, I could probably do almost with my eyes closed, I have driven it so often. It was on the last turn-off onto the road up to the TV transmitter tower and church, that I caught a sign that is normally not there, something about “full hours” – Where it was located on the junction it was difficult to see. It became clear what it had said when I got halfway up the road and there was another one (see below) – there were major roadworks in process and the road was closed until the next hour. It was 07:35 local – bang goes my chance of being on the air at 8 am (0600 UTC) – I had to wait the 25 minutes until the road section was opened and the various road working machines moved out of the way to let the traffic through. I guessed at this point that probably the road in the downward direction would be open only on the half-hour as there is no way two-way traffic would work with all the holes that had been dug along the side of the road (more of THAT, later).

I sent Mike and the guys in VK a message to say I had been delayed. Mike let me know that 20m was open to the US and just starting to open to VK.

When I arrived at the car park it was almost completely full of campervans. Obviously, this is a favourite location for the brilliant view. I did find a spot to park, not too far away from one of the two benches there and unloaded and set up the gear.  Half an hour after arriving I was listening for Mike. He was weaker than usual but an OK signal in any case. At this point, I wasn’t going to do any antenna comparison tests, with the lost time I wanted to concentrate on seeing if I could indeed hear the guys in Australia – and I could! The problem was they couldn’t hear me!

The receiver in the G90 is impressive – combine that with a low background noise level and you can hear the weakest signals. The fact that I run 20 watts when I am portable, not 450 watts will be a factor but not the main one. The fact was that despite an SFI in the mid to high 90s 20m was not good and by the time I got on the air. It was already suffering deep QSB on signals and soon went short. I could easily make contacts around Europe and even locally into Munich. Mario DJ2MX compared my signal on his beam and his vertical antenna and I was stronger on the vertical. As the VP2E is supposed to be vertically polarised, that was good news even though Mario would be off the side of the antenna – not in the direction of its gain – that was definitely pointing towards England and Long path to VK over the US.

After spotting on the SOTA cluster I had about 8 more contacts in the log, most of them giving me a good signal report. When those calls dried up and because another station had started called 2 kHz above my frequency, I went back to see how Mike was doing on his frequency. He also had no calls, so I called in again and we both agreed the DX capabilities of the band were gone and we both had storm clouds coming in but before we both packed up, Mike agreed to give me a comparison report between the VP2E and my normal linked dipole. It would have been best if I had had both antennas set up but I didn’t so there was a 10-minute break between the tests and while the VP2E appeared to give a 1 point advantage over the linked dipole, with the QSB on the band, this was probably not a good test. (1 S-point stronger is what it should be theoretically). I think my best bet is to use WSPR on both antennas as a true comparison at the same time or at least switching between them.

One Mike and I finished the test, I saw that half of the campervans had or were leaving – I looked at my watch to see it was quarter past the hours, so I thought, the road must be open at half-past for downward traffic, so I used to pack everything up into the car and get down while the road is open, otherwise I would have to wait another hour and with the storms coming in, that might not have been much fun.

  When I got to the closed section of the road, there was one Dutch campervan waiting at the traffic lights and a sign saying the road opens on the hour. I don’t know where the other campervans went – either they got through late on the previous hour or they knew some other route down the mountain on the farm tracks.  In any case, I had a good half an hour to wait, so I took the time re-packing the radio gear that had been just dropped into the back of the car.

One pile of wire (the linked dipole) had to wait until I got home to be un-tangled – that was a long job as you can see:

 Once the lights changed to green we DID meet some traffic coming up the hill but managed to manoeuvre past each other. There seems to have been a miscommunication between the two workers who were controlling the traffic lights manually. They had intended to get the cars down the hill first and then let the ones free to go up the hill.

  By the time I got home the next rain front was coming through, so staying longer would not have been pleasant. Overall the activation did not deliver what I had hoped for but it was a trip out and next time, I may try some of the farm roads to get up to the summit.

 Photos:

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Equipment used:

• Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
• Xiegu G90.
• Surveyors Tripod and 10 metre DX-Wire fibreglass “mini-mast”.
• Six-metre fibreglass mast.
• SotaBeams linked dipole.
• VP2E wire “beam”.
• Battery box (2 x 5000maH hard-case 4S LIPOs).
• Painters thick plastic sheet.
• Lightweight headphones.

Log:

Conclusions:

• Sometimes unannounced road works can mess up your plans. There is a good possibility that I had been on the summit 30 minutes earlier I may have made a contact into VK3 with at least one of the two guys.
• Comparing antennas alone on a summit does not give accurate results, especially if they are not both set up together and you can switch between them. Perhaps next time I will test using my WSPRLite unit.
• The G90 continues to amaze me with its receiver performance.

73 ’til the next summit.