Fresh back from my trip to Austria, it looked like John VK6NU was going out while on holiday in Ireland to an EI SOTA summit. Mike (2E0YYY) would also head out to give John a call and to round it off if we both could get to our summits early enough Ernie VK3DET had offered to try for a contact. So a contact with either John or Mike would be both an H2S and S2S contact as my chosen summit is in both schemes.
The set-up would be the tried and tested G90 plus Linked dipole and the 6m mast, all of which pack into, or onto my medium-sized rucksack. However, after struggling with carrying the rucksack over the last few days, I decided to try something different and bought a shopping trolley with fairly large wheels from the local Aldi store for €30. when the shopping bag is removed my 40-litre rucksack sits perfectly on the frame and is held there using the existing straps and clips on the rucksack.
As the Long path window to VK had been opening earlier over the last few days, this was going to be an early start to be on air by 0630 UTC – meaning I needed to set the alarm for 0630 local time (0430 UTC) to get up, drive to the parking area, walk with the (as yet untested) trolley to the summit and set-up the gear ready for operation.
The Activation
Berndorfer Buchet – HEMA DL/HBY-064 and SOTA DL/AM-180.
This is my closest summit and it took just over 30 minutes to get to the car parking area early in the morning.
Once parked, it was a single action to take the rucksack on the trolley out of the rear of the car, so that saved a couple of minutes. I set off, half expecting to have a problem with the trolley before I got to the summit and then I would need to stop and “de-strap” the rucksack from the trolley and carry it for the rest of the distance. Luckily this did not happen and the trolley served me well, even when “bush-bashing” up the last (steepest) part of the access, where no clear path is available, there is high grass with nettles and thistles in it and the ground is covered with dead twigs and leaves.
When reaching the summit, I was able to leave the masts in the side of the rucksack, strapped to the trolley, get the linked dipole out of the top of the rucksack, unpack it and thread it onto the top of the mast, run the wires out to roughly where I thought I would be tieing them off on trees and then raise the mast to its full height. This is an improvement on the usual process of screwing the sun umbrella base into the ground, adding the mast and so on.
After also taking my thick painter’s sheet out of the top of the rucksack, I opened up the front of the pack to take out the radio and battery. This whole process worked very well and overall saved me at least 5 minutes, possibly 10.
Once I was set up, I sent Mike 2E0YYY/P a message via the “signal” messaging app (this summit has a good cellphone and hence Internet coverage) to find his frequency. A couple of minutes later we had a contact, weaker than usual but good. At this point Ernie, VK3DET tried to listen for me and gave me a call. Although I could just hear Ernie, it was difficult and again a lot weaker signal than expected. It was no surprise (given the power difference) that he could not hear me. That’s the way the bands are sometimes – however, looking into this later I think I know the reason why;
MUF during the activation – this explains some of the QSB and other problems on 20m (remember as a general rule, you will get the best DX conditions on the highest band under the MUF line). In short, 17m and even 15m might have been a better choice rather than 20m:
Being a weekend, there was of course the hassle of wide splattering contest stations (and wanna-bees) so finding a free frequency was especially hard on 40 metres but in the end, I got a few contacts in the log from around Europe as you will see from the logs below.
After packing up, thankfully, the route back to the car with the trolley was no more difficult than on the way up.
Photos:
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Equipment taken:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack mounted on a shopping trolley.
Xiegu G90.
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
Screw-in sun umbrella support (not used).
SotaBeams linked dipole.
Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole antenna (not used).
4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
Painter’s thick plastic sheet and gardener’s kneeling pad.
Lightweight headphones.
Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms.
Logs:
Berndorfer Buchet
HEMA DL/HBY-064
SOTA DL/AM-180
Contacts Map:
Conclusions:
Weather conditions in Ireland meant that John VK6NU never got properly on the air before having to head back down ahead of the storm front.
Band conditions were variable on 20m and 40m was almost unusable because of contests that were going on, leaving hardly any free frequencies to operate on.
The equipment all worked as it should. The trolley helped with getting the heavy rucksack along the tracks however did have some problems as I went “Bush-hacking” up the final 25 vertical metres of ascent through grass, thistles and fallen twigs on a layer of old leaves. It performed wonderfully, however, as the base support for the antenna once I got to the summit. So “the jury is out” as to whether using the trolley is better than carrying the rucksack on my back. It may be better for some summits than others. It would be easier to pull if the handle was a little higher, so maybe some modifications will happen to the trolley over the next few activations.
For my holiday trip with my wife and dog, I chose the Salzburgerland region of Salzkammergut which is new to the Austrian HEMA scheme. At the same time, I would activate POTA and SOTA as well, if all went well. The trip was to be just 4 days long with half a day needed on Monday and Thursday purely from travelling to and from the village of Faistenau where we were to stay.
There still needed to be a balance between activations and time with the family and the weather needed to also be good for everything to work out.
This is an area where I have not been before, so I didn’t know what to expect except from the travel websites. I am glad to report that from a region to visit, the area fulfilled all expectations and the “Pension” that I chose turned out to be a great choice and I’d like to get this “plug” in for Pension Bayrhammer (Hinterseestrasse 55, 5324 Faistenau ). The host was fantastic and having our dog, he gave us a studio apartment at the back of the building that directly opened onto the rear garden and was separate from the rest of the hotel with its own parking spot. The price (including breakfast) was very reasonable and I would recommend this “Pension” (Bed & Breakfast in English) to anyone looking to spend a holiday in the “Salzkammergut” region.
Before leaving on the trip, I had done a couple of activations to make sure all of the radio equipment was fine and as well as the two rucksacks (one with the Xiegu G90 and antennas, masts and screw-in base), the small rucksack (with the Xiegu G106 and “throw in the trees antennas”) I also packed my three-magnet car roof antenna base to use with the HF-PRO2 loaded vertical which I have in the large rucksack as my back-up antenna. This was because, for the two planned POTA activations, I intended to work from the car.
Hopefully from all the equipment taken, I should be able to get on the air somehow!
Now all we needed was some dry sunny weather …
The Activations
Monday 12th June.
Firstly a SOTA summit on the way down – OE/SB-268 Gaisberg.
This summit is on the outskirts of Salzburg and looks down over the city. There is a good reason why this summit is the most activated SOTA summit in Austria. It is the definition of a drive-up summit with a car park and two restaurants on the top and large areas of open ground to set up on.
I took my large rucksack and headed up to the top where I found a convenient information stand to strap one of my 6-metre fibreglass telescopic poles onto and a bench seat to sit on. It only took a few minutes to get the Linked Dipole antenna up and after spotting, the first call in the log was Phil G4OBK from North Yorkshire followed by EA4BOC in Spain. Then followed some more UK and Spanish stations totalling 8 contacts in the log. 20 metres was starting to be difficult with deep QSB, so, as I didn’t want to keep the other members of the party waiting, I called it a day and packed up to head to the restaurant which was open for our lunch before continuing the journey.
The weather was not too hot but sunny and a very nice start to our holiday.
After unpacking at the digs and doing some supermarket shopping we looked to see where we would eat in the evening. In this area, when not in high season, it is often the case that restaurants are only open for the weekend plus Friday, so being closed Monday, and Tuesday is normal with some restaurants also closed on Wednesdays! We found one restaurant in the area overlooking a lake to the west of the village open and getting there was the start of our experience with roads in the Salzkammergut region. It seems that single-track roads with pull-off points are almost normal here and to have a road where you can pass oncoming traffic without having to drive off the road is a luxury. At least we didn’t meet any buses or large trucks on our several journeys down these small roads! The restaurant “Seewirt Strubklamm” was wonderful.
Tuesday 13th. June
This was planned as a POTA day with the ability to also see some of the beautiful countryside and lakes. These POTA parks were both first-time activations and were OE-0082 Fuschlsee Nature Reserve and OE-0055 Schafberg-Salzkammergetseen Nature Reserve.
POTA OE-0082 is a small park on the western shore of Lake Fuschl but the car park is within the park boundaries and there are tracks leading off from it. So while my wife and our dog could go for a casual walk in the park, I set up the radio gear on the front passenger seat and the loaded whip on the 3 x mag-mount on the roof, spotted myself on POTA and hoped for some calls. This was too late for any DX but 20m was quite busy and as well as POTA chasers I also had some others simply calling for a chat which is nice but as in POTA you need a minimum of 10 contacts and the family would return at some point, I pushed on and finished with 17 contacts in the log.
The location I had picked for the next park POTAOE-0055 was near a lay-by where there is an actual “Fish & Chips” stall (actually that lay-by is already in the boundaries of the park). We needed to go past it on the way to a larger parking area that I had picked for the next POTA activation spot. As we came up to it, it was obviously closed. We hoped it was simply too early and it would open after I had finished the next POTA activation, so we went onwards to the large parking area, this time we left our dog in the back of the car and my wife went and sat on a nearby bank to read in the sunshine and I set up the radio again (this time on the back seat so that I could calm the dog if needed (it wasn’t she happily snoozed in her area at the back of the car)).
I had left the mag-mount on the car roof, so the set-up did not take long. Getting contacts however was more difficult but eventually, I managed to get 13 contacts in the log. This was 13 contacts from around Europe on the 13th of June and our room number back at the hotel was 13 – so it’s a good job I am not superstitious!
Both of these parks had not been activated before.They were first time activations.
So having finished the Schafberg-Salzkammergutseen POTA activation, it was time to head back to the Fish & Chips stall near Winkl with the hope that it might have opened. It hadn’t and when we parked and went to see why not (nothing is indicated on the web) it turns out that it only opens on the weekend and on public holidays. A real disappointment, which in the hope to save others the disappointment, I have now added the opening times on Google Maps. As we were then stuck trying to find somewhere for lunch, I turned to Google Maps and found a restaurant not too far away on Mondsee Lake that was open. We had luck again, the “Gasthof See” just over the border in Upper Austria turned out to be a wonderful location with good food and very attentive service – another recommendation if you are in the area.
On returning to our hotel, I decided to take a look at access to the local HEMA summit OE/HSB-152 Kugelberg and also check out a restaurant for Wednesday evening (which was also closed Monday and Tuesday). The result of this was that the quick access route to Kugelberg that I thought I had found on the map turned out to be a private road and parking on the (single track) “main” road to walk to the “TrimPfad” (exercise area) on Kugelberg would not be possible as the car would block the road. On taking a look at the restaurant (the “Bramsaubraü”) however, it had a path to Kugelberg from its Biergarten. Looking at this on the map it would take longer than the earlier planned route but should be possible with the added advantage that my wife and dog could join me for part of the way, which they wanted to do. So a change to the plans was made and ….
Wednesday 14th June
Wednesday saw a mid-morning start to try to ascend Kugelberg (HEMA OE/HSP-152). I had set my plan to get to a point on the map where the track was inside the activation zone.
Once out of the gardens of the restaurant, there was a short climb but then a nice flat track, which, in the morning sunshine was a pleasant walk. We had agreed that my wife and our dog would only go as far as when the steeper track went off up the mountain about 50 metres after the “Trim-pfad” which is what we did. I bid them goodbye and they returned to the car, parked in the restaurant car park and I started off up the steep track tracing on my map as I went. When I got to the point where the map showed the track as finishing, it didn’t as a narrower track continued on as did I. Choosing narrow tracks as long as they went higher eventually I reached the summit where I found a marker stone. I presume this is the equivalent of the German trig-stone or UK trig-point indication used for mapping.
Space was very limited and this was close to a lot of trees. My usual choice would have been the Linked-Dipole antenna however there was no way that I could have fit it in, so my only choice was my backup – the Kommunica Power HF-PRO2 on my small tripod with 8 x 3 metre long radial wires. I was not hopeful of many contacts as using a vertical in among close trees is a bad idea as the trees absorb the radiated RF and to add to my problems I had no Internet coverage on the summit but luckily Mike 2E0YYY in England, who was out on a SOTA summit had sent me his frequency while I was still getting cell tower signals, so I set up and tuned to his frequency and there he was with Dom 2E0KIO (both were operating as 2R0 as they had special callsigns celebrating King Charles’ coronation). I called and there were my first two contacts in the log. For HEMA and SOTA 4 contacts are needed to “qualify” a summit. After moving off to a free frequency, it then took me another 15 minutes to attract another call on 40m and this was a hard contact to make into Switzerland with my report being 3-4. I decided to move up to 20m and I was very glad to find things a lot easier there where I managed 4 contacts in 12 minutes, a lot better than I had been doing on 40m. The key point was I had 7 contacts in the log.
This activation was difficult without reliable Internet coverage but there was also another problem the power lead broke as I was setting up, luckily this is one thing that I carry a spare for and I was glad I did in this case.
I had given my wife an approximate time when I would head back down the mountain and I was already 10 minutes late on this plan so I closed down and packed everything back into the rucksack and headed back down the steep tracks. As I turned onto the flat section, there was my wife and dog coming to greet me and escort me back to the car.
My wife had been very supportive during this holiday but I wanted her to do something she wanted to do in the area while we were in it, so that afternoon we headed to Lake Mond for lunch and for her to take a boat tour of the lake while I looked after our dog by walking her in the parks in Mondsee town.
Wednesday evening we went back to the Bramsaubraü restaurant where we had parked the car in the morning and the views, meal and service were “top-notch”.
This was our last night in Faistenau. the next morning we would be checking out and heading home, but not without another summit activation on the way.
Thursday 15th June
The trip home…
After packing our trip took us to another new HEMA Summit OE/HSB-156 Plainberg (Pronounced “Plenberg”) which is another summit above Salzberg looking down onto the city. This one although mostly a “Drive-Up” with the beautiful Maria Plain church and an up-market restaurant near the car park, there is a bit of a walk to get to the summit.
After we went to see the church and its grounds, bought and sent a postcard (have you realised how difficult it is to find postcards these days?), we went back to the car park where at one end the track to the summit starts. Again my wife and the dog chose to accompany me and this time we all got to the summit – at least I believe it was the summit as the ground dropped off around it in all directions but I could not find any marker stone this time. It would certainly be in the activation zone where I set up in any case and this time, there was enough room to put up the Linked Dipole antenna but again, despite being close to a large city, the cellphone coverage was patchy.
I decided to start on 20m as Mike (2R0YYY) was again out, this time on a HEMA Summit – G/HSP-020 Mow Cop, so we completed the first-ever HEMA-to-HEMA summit contact from England to Austria. The following nine contacts were with stations from the UK, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Germany and Ukraine.
So that was the conclusion to the radio activation week and how better to finish it off than with lunch at the restaurant on Palinberg, before tackling the drive home. We were very lucky with the traffic both when travelling to and returning from Austria – more that can be said for drivers going in the opposite direction where we saw various “Stau”s, “Traffic Jam”s or “Gridlock”s however you want to call them. Indeed on our return journey, we got a message over the SatNav that the autobahn we were travelling on had had to be totally closed in the other direction.
The trip had been a great success and there are lots and lots more HEMA summits in Austria’s Salzbergland just waiting to be explored!
When the weather plays along, it is possible to combine radio activations with a holiday in a new area with the family.
All the radio equipment worked well, the only problems (especially on the less well-known schemes like POTA and HEMA) came when my phone had no, or patchy Internet connectivity.
The main radio rucksack can become a heavy load, especially on the steeper tracks. I will look into some kind of trolley for summits where such an option is usable.
In preparation for my trip to the new Salzburgerland region in Austrian HEMA, I wanted to check that all the equipment that I would be taking (space limited by other people and a dog in the car) were working so I decided on an activation of a combined HEMA and SOTA summit (this is actually also a World castles award and COTA location as the summit has some castle ruins on the top of it).
Recently the long path to VK has been opening around 0630 – 0700 UTC so I would need to start early to drive down into Southern Allgau and to the parking spot at the restaurant before the steep walk up to the summit and then set up and try for a contact with Ernie VK3DET who had kindly offered to listen out for me. Mike 2E0YYY (or 2R0YYY for May and June) was also heading out to a SOTA summit to be there from 0630 UTC. So my alarm was set for 05:30 am local time to make this all happen and I put the fully packed rucksack ready to be picked up after having my breakfast on the following day (Wednesday).
For a change, the weather forecast was for a warm sunny day.
The Activation
Eisenberg – HEMA DL/HBY-036 and SOTA DL/AL-171.
The drive down I know very well but there have been some changes in the last year with one village having been bypassed completely using a tunnel and some very recently opened road sections. There were also diversions for some other closed roads in the area but nothing that affected my route luckily.
I arrived at the car park and was the second car in the (small) car park, so someone was up and about earlier than me! Most likely a local who was taking in the morning air. Also active when I arrived were about 20 cows, who came right up to the fence to the car park to see what was happening.
After “donning” the rucksack and rather than putting my waterproof jacket on, I strapped it to the outside of the rucksack as it was already turning into a warm day, I started the walk up the gravel track and it wasn’t long before I was stopping to catch my breath. I think “Rucksack bloat” has occurred with more things being added to it “just in case”. The result is a 12-kilogram rucksack which should really be about three kilos lighter!
Once I got to the castle ruins, I headed out to my usual spot on the wooden platform at the far end of the ruins, which is closest to the actual summit. It has not weathered the storms this last winter very well and several of the boards had broken or come loose from the metal frame below it. This will need to be repaired soon if someone is not going to break their ankle in a hole or worse still, fall right through as the wood gives up completely.
For my usage on this day, it would suffice in any case. I spread my painter’s sheet on the ground, strapped the 6m mast to a post on the side of the platform and put up the linked dipole with the link disconnected to enable 20-metre usage.
I was expecting some visiting members of the public as the weather was so nice, so I also got out some brochures on amateur radio to give them but the few people who did come by simply ignored me and carried on, on their way.
I spotted myself first on HEMA and called CQ a few times and first in the log was Don G0RQL from Devon in England. Soon after that, I saw that Mike 2R0YYY was spotted as out with another amateur – Dom 2E0KIO so I worked both of them on the “Gun” SOTA summit and then tried for my planned sked with Ernie VK3DET. Sure enough, there he was but only at a strength S4 signal where he will often be S8 or S9 when I am out portable. In any case with 54/44 reports in the log, it’s a contact that would not have happened from home as, even though I am in the countryside at home, the local noise level is often up to S4 or 5. Looking at all the other contacts that I got, it’s fairly clear that the skip was running short and while this is good for inter-Europe contacts, it’s not good for DX. In fact, I did not hear any other VKs on the band at all.
When I finished up with Ernie I put out several more CQ calls and spotted myself again and got a call from a station who was actually mobile in his car running just 40 watts to a mobile whip. Dave G0ODH/M was driving in North Staffordshire (UK) and putting a good S8 signal down to where I was close to the German / Austrian border.
That was 5 contacts in the log and enough to Qualify the HEMA summit DL/HBY-036, so now I spotted myself on SOTA and started calling CQ SOTA. As always there are a lot more SOTA than HEMA chasers and I soon got to better than one contact per minute, even with my “chatty style”. After “draining” the 20-metre callers, I switched the antenna and radio to 40-metres for a lot more chasers. When this flood calmed down, I looked at my watch to see it was just coming up to 10 am local time and the restaurant where I had parked my car would just be opening up, so it was time to pack up, head back down and then pop into the restaurant garden for a leisurely Weissbier before setting off home. The ideal way to end a successful activation.
Below is a map of all of my contacts.
Photos:
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Equipment used:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
Xiegu G90.
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
SotaBeams linked dipole.
Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole antenna (not used).
4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
Painter’s thick plastic sheet and gardener’s kneeling pad.
Lightweight headphones.
Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms.
Logs:
Eisenberg
HEMA DL/HBY-036
SOTA DL/AL-171
Conclusions:
Band conditions at the time of this activation were short skip not as good as they have been.
Most importantly however, the radio / mast / antenna combination worked without any problems and hence is ready for the run of activations in Austria next week – the question is, dare I remove the backup antennas from the rucksack to reduce the weight?
As the weather here, at last, has changed from being cold and wet, to being sunny and dry and “not cold”, I decided to test the radio pack out before my planned trip to Austria in a few weeks’ time.
Rösenau Kreuz is my closest “HEMA only” summit. The high point on the small plateau does not have its own summit name (Schwalbenstein is not far away but is lower than this actual summit), so it is named after the very small metal cross on a concrete base by the track in the forest on the actual summit.
As I wanted to try for a contact with Ernie VK3DET in Australia and the Long path window appears to be getting earlier, this would be an early start so the alarm was set for 6 am and the larger rucksack put ready with the ground stake on Monday.
Rösenau Kreuz, there is a short but steep walk up a forest track to get to the summit plateau, so the weight – probably about 16 kilos of larger rucksack should be OK. In the rucksack are two 6m masts, the G90 radio, its LifePO4 and LiHV batteries, the linked-dipole, the off-centre-fed dipole and “just in case” the Komunica Power HF-Pro antenna and its tripod and radial wires. Oh and of course also, my pack-up and water bottle.
The band conditions on 20m haven’t been great for a while, so I planned to operate on 20m and 40m to make sure I get the minimum 4 contacts to qualify the summit.
Röseau Kreuz – HEMA DL/HBY-040.
Tuesday morning was dry and the sun was out but it was still quite cold at 7 am when I left home.
The drive down was uneventful and I was parked at my usual spot by the cross for St Ursula facing the walk up the track to the summit. Once unpacked I started on the trail, which passes two further religious wooden crosses.
On arrival at the spot which I found the last time I was up here (basically, turn sharp right at the Rösenau Kreuz and head through the forest and out onto the grassed area), I was surprised to find I was waist-high in the grass, given that most farmers in the area have already cut all their fodder and stored it away, this farmer seems to be a bit behind schedule, so I was hoping he didn’t decide this morning would be a good opportunity to mow the top paddock!
At least it was not waterlogged as it has been in the past.
Setting up the mast (N-S to give the best E-W radiation for long- or short-path to Australia) and the radio gear on my painter’s plastic sheet went without a problem and I sent Ernie a message via Signal. A few minutes later I could hear Ernie’s voice. Not as strong as usual but workable and he managed to pull me out of the noise at his end as well, so that was the first contact in the log. Later when Ernie was working Dave G4AKB/PM in Blackpool, he was 1 or 2 S-points stronger, so I think I may have been out a little too early.
Despite spotting myself on the HEMA cluster and Ernie and Mike spotting me on the DX Cluster and on the HEMA Facebook group, It took ages to get any callers. There was of course the usual spaltter from stations 1,2 or 3 kHz off frequency who simply ignore any low-power stations calling nearby. I think I may have someone deliberately jamming me, based on my spots on the HEMA website as a repeated on-off carrier appeared each time on my frequency as soon as I spotted on HEMA.
As well as the nice contact with Ernie, I also was called by Don G0RQL on 20m and worked one Czech Republic station and two Austrian stations on 40m. Interestingly the two Austrian stations were not far away from where I am going on holiday.
In all a good activation but a little disappointing with the number of chasers but HEMA is not nearly as large as SOTA is and I suspect most were still in bed! We’ll see if an afternoon activation is more to their liking on Thursday.
Photos:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Equipment used:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
Xiegu G90.
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
Diamond RHM8B loaded vertical and tripod (not used)
Aerial-59 404-UL 40m OCF dipole. (not used)
Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast (x2 – one spare).
Screw-in sun umbrella support.
SotaBeams linked dipole.
4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
Painter’s thick plastic sheet.
Lightweight headphones.
Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms.
Log:
Rösenau Kreuz
HEMA DL/HBY-040
Conclusions:
Band conditions at the time of this activation were not brilliant and I was a little early for the Long path to Australia but it’s always good to get through to Ernie in Victoria. Attracting chasers for a HEMA summit is a difficult task.
The combination of the Xiegu G90 with its 20 watts and the linked dipole even with the small (effectively 5m high) pole continues to work very well. The radio did sound a little quiet when I first turned it on, so I may need to do a factory reset of its settings before the next activation.
After several cancelled (because of weather and unplanned commitments) tries, I was determined to get out to “a” summit again. Originally I wanted to test out the “wavelength-plus” on-the-ground antenna however following some positive comments from John VA3KOT on the VP2E antenna after I pointed him at it as an interesting antenna, I decided I probably should give it another try after building it nearly two years ago and only using it once or twice!
John VA3KOT, by the way, has a nice and friendly website that he calls Ham radio Outside the box, where he likes to look at unusual solutions used by hams to solve portable operations issues. The site is well worth a read and is where I found out about the wire-on-the-ground antenna while I was looking for a small lightweight antenna to use with my G106 radio while travelling.
I have built two VP2E antennas (actually three, but the third one was an attempt to make the antenna multi-band through the use of links – it failed). So I have a 40m and a 20m version at the moment. Both are twice the size of a normal dipole on the band and hence need space for any tests. For antenna testing, Rentschen is ideal as it is a drive-on summit with a plateau top. So I have lots of space to set up the antenna. I decided I would only test the 20m version as that is the band where some directional gain might prove the difference between making a DX contact and not doing so. It has to be said that, the possible 2 dBD gain in some directions compared to a dipole, is not a lot – but as we know, every little bit counts and the 20 watts of SSB from the G90 radio is hardly a “QRO” set-up, so “all help is gratefully received”.
To find out all about the “Vertically Polarised Two Element” VP2E antenna, a little of its history, how I built mine and my calculator for you to get the needed lengths for whichever band you choose, click here.
Ernie VK3DET had kindly said he would listen for me and Wx dependant, Mike 2E0YYY might get out to his local hill in the UK to give me an S2S contact.
As usual, all gear was packed in the car, the night before the activation, so that I could make an early start. That being said, this would not need to be a really early start as the 20m long path had been opening only from 0830 UTC (09:30 am local time) recently, so leaving home at 8:15 – 8:30 am would be fine.
The weather forecast was for a cool overcast day but, most importantly, no rain.
The Activation
Rentschen – HEMA DL/HAM-014 and SOTA DL/AM-176.
The good drive down in just over 40 minutes and I was parked on the summit by 9 am local time (0800 UTC). 25 minutes later I was all set up, with the VP2E “pointing” due West – my long path direction for contacts into VK. First in the log after a CQ call – Ernie VK3DET 5-4 in both directions.
Mike 2E0YYY had been unable to get out as they had constant rain all morning, so he kindly acted as my spotter and starting with the HEMA designation, I quickly put 18 contacts in the log. Many from the UK and many commenting on how loud and consistent a signal I had, while there was QSB on the band. In fact, surveying the contacts later I can tell that skip was short, which also explained why the band seemed full almost from end-to-end and this on a weekday! Ernie heard a couple of other European stations but none from Germany – perhaps we hit the best time with our contact or perhaps this antenna was achieving a good low-angle radiation pattern as the models show it should do. Some callers were weaker than I normally hear them, especially to the north and southeast – this could be the antenna’s directivity or simple conditions.
Once the callers dried up, I asked Mike to spot me again but this time on the SOTA cluster and the DX cluster and again I had a pile-up – another 18 contacts in the log. Of all the 36 contacts, Bernie was the only one from outside of Continental Europe. the majority of callers were from the UK, including one G0POQ from my town of birth – Hull in East Yorkshire. several of the contacts were conversations rather than only a report exchange, so the band conditions and the antenna were holding up well. After the second pile-up finished, I decided to pack up as it was only 3°C and the primary 4AH LifePO would have been somewhat drained after about a full hour of constant usage at 20 watts output. I did have a second battery with me (a LiHV 4 AH one) but I had achieved what I had come to do in testing the 20m VP2E and I am glad to say all worked well. None of the equipment had any issues on this outing.
Below as an extra in this report, I have the SOTAMapping map of all of my contacts.
Photos:
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Equipment used:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
Xiegu G90.
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
Screw-in sun umbrella support (not used).
Converted Surveyors tripod.
SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole antenna (not used).
20 & 40m VP2E antennas (20m one used).
4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
Painter’s thick plastic sheet and gardener’s kneeling pad.
Lightweight headphones.
Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms.
Logs:
Rentschen
HEMA DL/HAM-014
SOTA DL/AM-176
Conclusions:
Band conditions at the time of this activation were short skip not as good as they have been, which makes the contact into Australia (albeit an arranged, scheduled one) all the more of a success.
The equipment all worked as it should. The combination of the Xiegu G90 with its 20 watts of SSB and the VP2E (Vertically polarised 2-element) antenna on the 6m-high mast supported by the surveyor’s tripod worked very well from the first moment it was plugged into the radio. I now believe the antenna has “some” directivity however I suspect its greatest asset is the low-angle radiation and the amount of wire in the air, being twice as large as the dipoles that I normally use. The fact that it is purely a single-band antenna is a drawback as is the need to use the large tripod to support the mast.
As Andrew VK1AD was going out using the VI10SOTA special event call sign to celebrate 10 years of SOTA in the ACT, I decided to go out at the same time and try for an S2S and an H2S. If the long path band conditions were as they have been, it should be possible with a little luck.
Mike 2E0YYY/P and Ernie VK3DET would get on as well.
The set-up would be the tried and tested G90 plus OCF dipole from Aerial-51 and the 6m mast, all of which packs into, or onto my medium sized rucksack.
All was prepared and put in the back of the car for a 7:30 am start on Sunday morning.
I decided that I would go to my closest summit, Berndorfer Buchet, which is a HEMA summit as well as a SOTA summit and so I alerted in both award systems of my intention of activating it.
The Activation
Berndorfer Buchet – HEMA DL/HCN-004 and SOTA DL/AM-180.
The good drive down in just over 30 minutes and I was parked at my usual spot by 8:05 am. The walk from the parking spot to the summit takes 15 minutes and with another 15 minutes to set up the station, I was on the air by 07:40 UTC. I messaged Mike 2E0YYY who had just arrived in his local park and Ernie who was heading to his radio shack.
Tuning around 20m was already active with me but dead with Mike in the UK but as time went on this changed. I heard a JI1 (Japan) station but could not get a reply from him to me calls. I also heard and worked very easily EA5S/M in Spain, so I knew I was getting out. VI10SOTA was spotted on several different frequencies, Andrew was obviously having to move to get away from the normal weekend QRM. On some of his spotted frequencies I could hear the chasers calling him but not Andrew himself and that was to be the story of the activation. Although I eventually got an easy contact with Mike in The UK, I couldn’t manage one with Ernie. On a couple of occasions I could hear someone in the noise but I couldn’t say if it was Ernie or not. He of course could not hear anything from me.
As well as 20m, I also got lots of contacts around Europe on 40m. I tried 10 metres as well but it was the DARC 10m contest and so the band was full of loud, wide stations. Even if the band had opened for DX I would not have been able to get through the QRM from the contest stations.
One positive point from the outing, was that the new power lead which I made after the problems I had on the last activation, worked perfectly. Overall this activation in the cold (maximum +5°C) was a bit of a let down compared to “what could have been” but propagation is like that. I would have like to have worked Andrew on his summit in Australia and although some home stations in Europe managed it, it was not to be from where I was.
At least this time, i did not come home with a list of problems to fix, the equipment worked correctly for the whole 2 hours that I was on the summit.
Photos:
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Equipment used:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
Xiegu G90.
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
Screw-in sun umbrella support.
SotaBeams linked dipole (not used).
Aerial-51 404-UL OCF dipole antenna
4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
Painters thick plastic sheet and gardeners kneeling pad.
Lightweight headphones.
Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms.
Logs:
Berndorfer Buchet
HEMA DL/HCN-004
SOTA DL/AM-180
Conclusions:
Band conditions at the time of this activation were not as good as I had hoped they would be and 10m was totally unusable with the local contest being in full swing.
The equipment all worked as it should. The combination of the Xiegu G90 with it’s 20 watts and the Aerial-51 OCF dipole even with the small (effectively 5m high) pole continues to work very well. This is definitely a good combination for single backpack portable operation.
As the weather was forecast to be sunny and I wanted to test the G106 radio against the G90 again from a summit to make sure the RFI problem is removed after the modification, I looked around for a summit to activate, where we might make this a family out with the wife. Kaufbeuren is a town about 40 minutes’ drive from where we live and sometimes they have exhibitions in the art galleries or museums that could interest Gabriele. Also about 15 minutes south of Kaufbeuren is the HEMA summit of Sattlersbuckl, which I thought I had last activated in 2021 (in fact that was wrong, I activated it early in 2022, so I would not get a point this time around).
The band conditions on 20m and up have been good for some days and so I planned to try not only but perhaps 17,15 & 10m as well if I had time. My modified SOTABeams linked dipole covers 80,60,40,20,17 &15m but not 10m, so the “backup antenna”, the Komunica HF-PRO-2 with its tripod would be used for 10 metres. These two antennas, the two radios, the mast with its screw-in mast foot and the needed batteries all added up to a heavy rucksack but at least I managed to get it all and my water and my pack-up into the one rucksack.
The Activation
We hadn’t realised it but Monday, October 31st 2022 seemed to have been defined as German road maintenance day! We already have rod closures on our route to the autobahn and the slightly quicker route to Kaufbeuren, so I had planned an alternative route “cross country” that should only take about 5 minutes longer. Before leaving we went to our local supermarket, only to see that our planned country road route had also been closed to resurface the road, not far from our home, so another re-route was planned and apart from one wrong turning worked out fine later in the day. Little did we know however that midway along our planned cross-country road route another road had been pulled up and while not announced, the navi knew nothing about this. the first we knew of it was roadsigns with villages crossed out on them and then later half-closed roads with “locals only” signs for carrying on. despite this, I passed three of these and half-road-closures and when we arrived at the actual roadworks, it was a simple job to take some smaller roads within this village to get past the blockage!
Once we got to the Neugablonz suburb of Kaufbeuren (which also had roadworks in progress) I was able to drop the wife off at the first of two museums that she wanted to visit and then set off for my HEMA summit. Guess what, on leaving Kaufbeueren on the road south to the summit, there was a sign – first of all, it said bridge closed and then later, only bridge closed for heavy vehicles. In any case, as I had been successful so far with roadworks, I carried on and while there were some traffic-light-controlled roadworks just before Apfeltrang where the summit is, the more major bridgeworks were apparently still further to the south on the road.
Sattlersbuckl – HEMA DL/HAL-019.
Having arrived at my parking spot, just after going under the HV power lines and by the junction where there used to be a sign saying no motor vehicles allowed (but it seems to have been removed now), I got the rucksack on and set off up the track to the summit.
I had forgotten how steep the track is, especially on the first part and I was feeling the extra weight from the loaded rucksack! At one point I saw a fox on the track but before I could take a photo it was gone. Having got to the sign for the “Mammutbaum” (Mammoth tree), I thought – nearly there … No this was only about 2/3 of the way. Onwards and upwards!
When I got to the spot that I had used last time the grass on the area had been cut but was laid in rows ready to be picked up – I hoped the farmer hadn’t decided to come up and collect this “winter fodder” today as once I put my antenna up, it would certainly be in the way. Later in the activation, a couple of tractors did come by, but they were heading to chop up cut-down trees to sell as winter fuel in the next field. Firewood logs are a very valuable and profitable resource in Germany at the moment!
Although sunny, it was still not warm so I decided to set everything up, firstly the G90 and then the G106. Well, after getting the mast and antenna set up, I had a nasty surprise with the radio. Although apparently working, it was picking up what sounded like a noisy carrier, only when I turned the 20m band it was right across it and on 17 & 15m. I wondered if this was some new installation nearby. If it was things would be difficult. But then it stopped suddenly and I thought, OK, let’s hope it doesn’t come back but it did soon after. I thought, perhaps it was an antenna fault and sure enough as soon as I touched the PL259 plug I could turn the interference on and off! When I had what was in fact a good connection, the incoming signals also improved drastically. So I diagnosed that it was a broken connection on the plug – most likely the centre core of the coax (this was a true diagnosis as I found out later in the day at home, where I have since repaired it). I was able to position the radio on the co-ax to hold the plug in a position where it worked and that is how I worked my eight contacts from the summit.
With this fault, however, the plans had to be changed – I could not switch the antenna back and forth between the G90 and the G106, so further tests of the G106 will have to wait. I decided changing bands would probably not be advisable as well.
To add to my problems spotting myself via the HEMA website went wrong and pressing the submit button for my spot didn’t appear to do anything – actually it did and I posted 10 identical spots from the summit! Well, at least it brought some contacts with Don G0RQL from Devon in England being the first in the log. Most contacts as you will see from the log below, were into the UK with very strong signals to east coast stations while those in the west while strong were not as strong. I guess the skip distance on 20m at the time, from where I was, was into the east coast of the UK.
During the activation, I did make two “H2S” contacts with activators on SOTA summits. Generally, I got very good reports on the 20w signal from the G90 with Peter M0PBR in SE London being astounded at the signal level for “only” 20 watts. At around noon, I decided to pack up as it was time to head back to collect the wife from her museum/gallery visits and then home in time for our dog’s afternoon walk and feeding time.
We took the faster autobahn route home and apart from the one known road closure did not find any more surprises on the “German roadworks day”.
Photos:
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Equipment taken:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
Xiegu G90.
Xiegu G106 (not used)
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
The broken centre core in the antenna plug was quickly repaired and strengthened at the same time. these things can happen and that is why I always take a backup antenna.
The rucksack is too heavy with both radios and their batteries in it, especially on summits with a bit of a climb to them.
The Xiegu G90 and linked dipole are a great combination and enable me to even break mini-pileups calling other activators even when the other chasers are running more power.
The G106 tests are still open but I won’t be taking it to next week’s SOTA Transatlantic S2S event. I will have time to do some more work – adding speech compression capabilities, to boost the effectiveness of the little radio’s 5-6 watts.
As Rob G7LAS was heading out to G/HNP-009 Grizedales in the UK, I wanted to try for an H2H (HEMA summit to HEMA summit contact) with the UK. As I have applied the Xiegu-approved modification to my G106, I wanted to test whether that had indeed stopped the RF Ingress that was around when I operated from Laber. I also wanted to make a comparison between the G90 and the G106 signal strengths, so I decided that I would use both with the same linked-dipole antenna.
Rösenau Kreuz is my closest “HEMA only” summit (Berndorfer Buchet is closer but that is both a SOTA and HEMA summit that I have recently activated). The high point on the small plateau does not have its own summit name (Schwalbenstein is not far away but is lower than this actual summit), so it is named after the very small metal cross on a concrete base by the track in the forest on the actual summit.
The day before, Monday, it rained non-stop all day, so I wondered whether the weather forecast of a sunny, dry Tuesday was to come about or whether I might have to call off my activation. As Rob was only going to be on his summit by 2 pm his time, 3 pm mine, I would have Tuesday morning to see how the weather actually was.
I packed what is probably my heaviest rucksack for some time with two radios and batteries and the linked dipole and mast. At Rösenau Kreuz there is a short but steep walk up a forest track to get to the summit plateau, so the extra weight – my guess is about 16-18 kilos of rucksack would be somewhat of a test, however, packing in the rucksack is preferable than to try to carry multiple bags as it is supported on the back and shoulders with strong straps.
The band conditions on 20m on Monday were short skip, as they would be on Tuesday, but I decided that I would plan to operate primarily on 40m and then switch to 20m if needed.
My biggest worry was what the ground was likely to be like on arrival.
The Activation
Röseau Kreuz – HEMA DL/HAM-002.
Tuesday morning was dry and the sun was out (in fact this was the day of a partial eclipse of the sun, so it was lucky for the sun watchers that the clouds had cleared). I am unused to setting off in the afternoon to head to a summit as most of my activations are morning ones in the hope of contacts with VK & ZL, those would not be part of this activation.
The drive down was uneventful and I was parked at my usual spot by the cross for St Ursula facing the walk up the track to the summit. Once unpacked I started on the trail, which passes two further religious wooden crosses as you will see from the photos and takes about 10 minutes. I then sent Rob a message via the “Signal” web messenger to find that as I arrived on the summit plateau, he was just starting his climb, so I would have plenty of time to set up. Also on the Signal messenger “listening in” was Mike 2E0YYY, he would not get out today but was happy to act as “pilot” spotting me to the HEMA UK followers on FaceCrook as well as to the HEMA spotting website.
On arrival at the spot which I found the last time I was up here (basically, turn sharp right at the Rösenau Kreuz and head through the forest and out onto the grassed area), I was glad to find it was not waterlogged and while needing a small groundsheet as the grass was wet, it wasn’t going to be a bog-like experience.
It took about 15 – 20 minutes to set up. First of all to check the equipment was working I called and had an easy contact with another portable station on 40m, Jean-Marie F5NLX/P was activating a castle in central France. we exchanged true 59 reports – yes the radio and antenna were working fine! This was the 20w G90, so while waiting I also unpacked the QRP G106 radio, ready for tests later.
As Rob was still climbing to his summit, Mike suggest he spot me and I could get some HEMA chasers in the log. Which I did, and bagged eleven contacts in quick successions – many being true 59 reports on the G90 and linked-dipole. The QRM was getting constantly worse on 40m with more and more stations along with some military-sounding transmission going up and down the band. I wondered later if in fact, that signal might have been coming from the 1940’s vintage two propellered (perhaps a Junkers?) aircraft that circled the area again and again and again – perhaps they were doing some kind of soil survey from the air using RF signals? Mike then told me that despite the fact that I had had several contacts with the UK, there were stations saying that they could not hear me on 40m and would I try 20m? Well, as I was still waiting for that H2H with Rob G7LAS- I agreed to move to 20m to get some more contacts in the log.
After I had a contact with a UK station activating a Lighthouse in devon in the UK, Rob called in and we made that H2H contact.
I also asked Rob then to listen for me using the same antenna but using the G106 instead of the G90. He did and while the signal report dropped more than I expected (from 56-7 on the G90 to 41 on the G106) at least he said the audio sounded fine – no sign of any RF ingress into the audio. Of course, it would have been better to test with a stronger station, but at least there was no obvious audio problem. The drop of 36 dB (6 s-points) going from 20w to 5w is not as expected. The difference should not have been that great. This was a subjective report, however, it does tell me that (even though others later told me they had also heard the g106), something is not correct with the signal strength of the G106.
Given that the G90 has speech compression enabled – its actual 20w+ output can “seem” like up to 50w and the g106 has no speech compression. This power difference is therefore an “effective” 10x or 10 dB which would be 2-3 s-points difference – not the complete 5 s-points reported by Rob but if the G106’s 5w could have speech compression added (it’s not a feature of this radio) it could appear as 10w, then the perceived signal difference would be less.
Following another eight contacts using the G90, mostly into the UK, on 20m, I decided to pack up as a herd of ants had found I was present and were starting to investigate all of the equipment! Once everything was packed again into the rucksack, the walk down the track back to the car, was somewhat easier than the walk up!
In all a good activation but as it often the case, more work to be completed before the next one!
Photos:
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Equipment used:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
Xiegu G90.
Xiegu G106
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
Diamond RHM8B loaded vertical and tripod (not used)
Band conditions at the time of this activation were short skip on 20m, making contacts into the UK possible when normally they would not have been. 40m was both busy and full of QRM from whatever sources.
The combination of the Xiegu G90 with its 20 watts and the linked dipole even with the small (effectively 5m high) pole continues to work very well. This is definitely a good combination for single backpack portable operation. The G106 on the other hand – even with the good antenna, needs some more work – possibly speech compression, to boost the effectiveness of its 5-6 watts.
As long path band conditions on 20m were good I wanted to get out and work VK from a portable location, away from “metro noise” and with a simple antenna and low power. The problem was that the terrestrial weather was not nearly as good as the space weather and we were having constant rain most days. Friday and Saturday mornings looked like they might be better. while I saw that Ian VK5CZ was going out to celebrate 10 years of SOTA in South Australia on Saturday the 1st. October. I thought this would be the best option however as the summit planned for Saturday needed a two-hour walk-in / out it meant that Ian would not be there when the 20m band has been opening up around 0600 UTC so the alternative was to head out on Friday as Ian planned to camp on a summit overnight and hence being on the summit at 0600 UTC (8 am with me, 3:30 pm with Ian) would not be a problem. So Friday it would be and as it turned out with a CME hitting the ionosphere on Friday afternoon, it was the better day in any case.
I decided on going to my closest summit, Berndorfer Buchet, which I had already activated twice this year and hence would not get any points for the activation but that was secondary in this case. This is a HEMA summit as well as a SOTA summit and so I alerted in both award systems of my intention of activating it. I set the HEMA time 15 minutes before the SOTA time.
The Activation
Berndorfer Buchet – HEMA DL/HCN-004 and SOTA DL/AM-180.
The drive down was uneventful and I was parked at my usual spot by 7:05 am. The walk from the parking spot to the summit takes 15 minutes and with another 15 minutes to set up the station, I was on the air by 05:50 UTC. As this was still too early for 20m, I started on 40m and having found a frequency spotted myself on the HEMA website and started calling CQ. Unfortunately, I got a limited response and so at 0600 UTC, I spotted myself on SOTAwatch where I got several more responses. Once these dried up, it was time to take the antenna down and un-link to make the linked dipole into a 20m antenna.
I was very happy to hear Ian VK5CZ/P on VK5/NE-093 come back to my call. he was followed by four other stations from Australia; Gerard VK2IO, Peter VK3ZPF, Andrew VK1AD/M and Ron VK3AFW. So in a matter of seven minutes, I had been called from four different Australian states and all from people I know from my time in Australia. Two more European stations finished the activation. I looked around to find other VK stations and one – Joesph VK3DXJ was hammering in but by this time there were a lot more people on the band and he had an enormous pile-up that I couldn’t break into. As it was starting to rain, I packed up and was home before 10 am (0800 UTC). This was a short but very successful activation.
The weather forecasts for the next few days (both terrestrial and space weather) don’t look very good, so it’ll be a few days before I get out portable again. perhaps next time with the new ultra-small G106 radio?
Photos:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Equipment used:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
Xiegu G90.
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (not used)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (not used)
Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast.
Screw-in sun umbrella support.
SotaBeams linked dipole.
4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
Painters thick plastic sheet.
Lightweight headphones.
Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms.
Logs:
Berndorfer Buchet
HEMA DL/HCN-004
SOTA DL/AM-180
Conclusions:
Band conditions at the time of this activation were very good on 20m, making the run of five contacts possible via the long path. the following day a CME hit the ionosphere and I wonder how I would have faired, had I gone out as originally planned on Saturday morning.
The combination of the Xiegu G90 with it’s 20 watts and the linked dipole eve3n with the small (effectively 5m high) pole continues to work very well. This is definitely a good combination for single backpack portable operation.
As part of my short holiday away from home, I had hoped to activate some higher HEMA and SOTA summits that I had not activated before however as it turned out with uncertain weather and the fact that my wife and the dog wanted to come along, I decided on some simpler summits mixed with some sightseeing around the southern part of Allgau, Bavaria.
As it was to turn out, this was a good decision and we had two enjoyable days and one where it rained all day and we came home early. At this time of year that was probably the best, we could have hoped for.
Preparation for the trip was limited by the space available as the rear area where I would normally load all of my radio gear was taken up by our dog “Bonnie” meaning all luggage had to fit in our small car on the rear seat.
So the activation equipment was limited to what could go into or be attached to the side of, my 40-litre rucksack. I even chose not to take the lithium battery charges to recharge batteries overnight and rather took three battery packs of different sizes with the expectation that I would not drain them all. This of course added to the weight of the rucksack, as did the screw-in mast base attached to its side.
No experiments with antennas, I would take the linked dipole and the 6m mast with the HF-PRO2 loaded HF whip and its small tripod inside the rucksack as the backup option (which I needed on the second summit).
The Activations
As the weather looked fine, it was decided to fit in one activation en-route to our hotel.
Burgkranzegger Horn – HEMA DL/HAL-033 and SOTA DL/AL-181.
This is a summit with not too difficult access – especially in late summer (the last time that I activated it was in winter and a big problem was fighting through the deep snow as no track was obvious). The summit itself has an open area where the dog could entertain itself. The reason that this summit is in both the HEMA and SOTA schemes is historical and while its prominence is just 125m it fits nicely into the HEMA range of 100-150m while being well under the SOTA 150m minimum.
On arriving at the parking spot at the clinic on the outskirts of Mittleberg village, the weather was fine and we all three set off up the track. Unfortunately, my wife was unable to complete the last part of the climb (she got over 85% of the way there) but rather than risk anything, she said after sitting and taking in the views for a while, she would start off slowly back down, with the dog and wait for me at the car. I continued on to the large telegraph pole sized holy cross on the summit and started to set up on the bench below it. Before I could get set up 5 cyclists arrived, they were doing a tour around the whole of Allgau and were interested in knowing what I was doing. I gave them one of my leaflets in german about “what is amateur radio” and realised that I had forgotten to re-stock my supply so I would not have any more brochures should other visitors happen by – which they did. A younger couple arrived about 20 minutes later and showed interest and so I broke off operations to explain to them what our wonderful hobby is all about.
At some point between the visitors, I managed to get enough contacts to activate the summit. It was very clear however that there is a far smaller following for HEMA than for SOTA. Indeed I think all of my HEMA contacts were people who just happened to find me on 40 metres, not people who had seen my spot on the HEMA website.
SOTA was the usual pile-up following just one spot and a couple of CQ calls.
One thing is for sure, the radio and linked-dipole did their usual sterling service with lots of good reports and in SOTA we do tend to give real reports.
After 45 minutes on the summit, it was time to pack up and head back down to the car park where my wife and dog would be waiting. As I had however texted to say that I was packing up, by the time I was halfway down the steepest part, I could hear the barks of a dog that I recognised and when I finally got down onto the level track, it wasn’t long before I found my wife and dog waiting for me on a sheltered bank under a tree. They had set off to meet me halfway.
That was the end of activations on Tuesday, it was now time to head to the apartment hotel in Pfronten and en route buy some supplies at a supermarket. Once we got settled in and went out for an evening meal, the discussion was about what I would do on Wednesday. Whether I would go off alone to a higher summit or do something easy again.
The weather was looking like it would “hold out” until at least Wednesday afternoon and after some thought, we agreed that we would visit the local farmers market first thing, then head on up to Falkenstein followed by a tourists visit to Fussen about 30 minutes away.
SOTA DL/AL-167 Falkenstein.
This is a summit that I have activated several times (but not this year as yet). It has a quirky one-way private road that opens one-way at times related to minutes past and before the hour. (to be safe there are also traffic lights) so a bit of bad timing on arrival and you might have to wait 20 minutes before you can drive up the road, once you have bought your €4 ticket for use of the road.
We started Wednesday with a rather disappointing weekly market in Pfronten with just two stalls there, so we grabbed breakfast at a cafe and then headed off to the start of the private rod up to Falkenstein, arriving at the start of the road as it closed to allow those at the castle to drive down. No problems we had enough time.
Falkenstein is the highest castle ruins in Germany and was the last of the famous King Ludwig II’s castles and was going to be his base for hunting in the surrounding mountains however he drowned under suspicious circumstances in Starnberg Lake before it could be finished.
The walk from the car park takes you past a 4-star hotel with expensive luxury cars parked outside, belonging to the hotel’s guests. After what was already a steep walk up the road, the last section is a series of natural and manmade steps up to the ruins themselves. I was glad to see the message that the ruins are open at the bottom of this last climb. Both my wife and dog were determined to get to the ruins to be with me this time while I was operating. It was a fairly hard climb but the views from the top reward you and my wife was very impressed. There was a hefty wind coming up, so I would need to get set up and complete the activation before any bad weather arrived. So I went to the gate to the inside of the ruins, which has a sturdy platform with solid steps up its two levels and even has a round wooden table on the top level – ideal to set the radio up on. The gate was padlocked shut. Whoever put the sign to the ruins being open at the start of the last climb was having a laugh at our expense now!
The problem now is that although there is room inside the ruins to set up the 6-metre mast and linked dipole, outside there is not. So after carrying the bigger antenna and mast and support up all those steps, I had to revert to my backup antenna – the Komunica HF-PRO2 loaded vertical whip on my small photo tripod and with my homemade radial wires. Thankfully once I got set up, this antenna performed like a champion on both 40 & 20m (it actually covers from 80m through to 70cm). Despite being close to the ruin’s walls contacts were made from around Europe with good signal reports.
Just as importantly, the dog had settled herself down and my wife was able to sit on a stone seat (of sorts) and enjoy the views and fresh air.
Once the callers dried up, I was able to pack up and we headed back to the car park to wait for the traffic light system to tell us that we could go back down the single-lane road. we then had a nice afternoon looking through the old town of Fussen before returning back to the hotel and heading out to a closer (and better) restaurant than the night before, just as the heavy rain started.
Thursday was literally a wash-out but we had had two great days and activated a couple of nice summits – a low-stress holiday.
Photos:
Burgkranzegger Horn
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Falkenstein
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Equipment used:
Mountaintop travelling 40-litre rucksack.
Xiegu G90.
Komunica Power HF-Pro2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna. (used on Falkenstein)
Modified mini photo tripod with clip-on radials (used of Falkenstein)
Lamdahalbe 6m mini-mast (used on Bergkranzegger Horn).
Screw-in sun umbrella support(used on Bergkranzegger Horn).
SotaBeams linked dipole(used on Bergkranzegger Horn).
Battery box (2 x 5000maH hard-case 4S LIPOs) .
4000maH LiHV battery (not used).
4 Ah LifePO4 Eremit battery.
Painters thick plastic sheet.
Lightweight headphones.
Smartphone to spot and back-channel comms.
Logs:
Burgkranzegger Horn
HEMA DL/HAL-033
SOTA DL/AL-181
Falkenstein SOTA DL/AL-167
Conclusions:
Despite the uncertain weather it was possible to have a low-stress and an enjoyable couple of days including some summit activations.
The HF-PRO2 on its small tripod worked very well and I wonder if I would have made any more contacts with the linked dipole on its 6-metre mast had I been able to put it up at Falkenstein.
DD5LP / G8GLM / VK2JI blog 
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