Tag Archives: POTA DE-0963 Weisengänger NHT

DD5LP/P 31st July 2025 – POTA DE-0888 Staffelwald and DE-0963 Wienengänger national historoc trail

Posted on by

Preparation:

As my wife wished to visit an art gallery in Kaufbeuren, this gave me a chance to activate the 2-Fer POTA park and trail on the outskirts of the town. This time, this would be a real portable activation, not from the car (PLOTA), if the rain held off long enough. We had had rain every day for two weeks and this Thursday morning looked like it might have a gap in the rain, at least in the morning.

All equipment was put into the car on Wednesday. To be safe, I also loaded the three-magnet antenna base and the HF-PRO2 antenna, so should the weather forecast be wrong, I could always operate from the car.

The Activation

POTA DE-0888 and DE-0963

I’m glad to say that the drive was uneventful and the weather stayed dry right up to when I planned to pack up. (The drive back home was through showers.)

I decided to start on 20m with the slim chance that I might still get a contact or two into VK, but at almost 11 am local time (0900 UTC), the long path had already closed. Despite that, I did get a good quantity of contacts from all around Europe (see log below). The first in the log was Mike 2E0YYY/P, who had stayed up on a windy Merriton Low in the Southern Pennines area of England to give me a contact.

The equipment set up was the often-used combination of Xiegu G90 and a linked dipole antenna on a fibreglass mast at about 5 metres off the ground in the centre of the Inverted-V.

After twelve contacts on 20 metres (including two park-to-park contacts) I switched to 40 metres for four more contacts but that action was foreshortened as the skies darkened and a cold wind came through, threatening to be followed by rain, so I decided to pack up, head back to the car, collect my wife in Kaufbeuren and then head home, happy that all equipment had worked well and I had a nice set of contacts in the log before the rains came.

Photos:

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-90 radio.
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna (not used).
  • Three–magnet car roof antenna mount (not used).
  • 2 x 4Ah LifePO4 batteries (not used).
  • 8Ah LifePO4 battery
  • Inverted-V linked dipole
  • 6 metre fibreglass mast
  • Screw-in sun umbrella base
  • Small headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

POTA DE-0888 & DE-0963

Conclusions:

I was glad to get out and set up in an open space again. The equipment configuration, apart from the larger battery, is one I have used many, many times before, and I was happy to see that everything worked normally.

73 ’til the next activation!

DD5LP/P 11th March 2025 – DE-0963 Wiesengänger NHT, DE-0964 Wasserläufer NHT & DE-0858 Via Sancti Martini NHT (3-fer)

Posted on by

Preparation:

Although I already had another activation planned for the following day, the combination of a dry sunny day and having spotted two, as yet unactivated, POTA trails while entering my activation from the previous day spurred me to get out and activate the two trails, along with a third, which I had already activated but coincidentally met with the two new ones above the town of Marktoberdorf, about 45 minutes drive away from my home.

I already had all my equipment ready for the following day packed in a small rucksack, so I took this to the car and drove to this 3-Fer location!

The Activation

POTA DE-0663 / DE-0791 / DE-0968

The drive down was uneventful and has in the past formed part of my drive to several SOTA and HEMA summits. On those occasions though, I had only driven around Marhktoberdorf, this was my first time driving into the town and indeed the point where these trails shared the route is up on a hill overlooking Marktoberdorf which also has a large church and a music academy on top of it. Indeed the car park was quite full and soon I saw why, as there was a constant stream of school groups with their instruments going into and coming out of the academy.

I parked as far away from the buildings as possible in the large (free) car park and despite that something was putting out a horrific electrical interference, making communications on 40 metres absolutely impossible. While this was around 1 pm, 40 metres was the band where I expected to get the ten contacts I needed, the quickest. I tried for about 15 minutes, but it was hopeless, so I re-adjusted the coil on the HF-PRO2 to 20 metres and then tuned around. Thankfully whatever was creating the horrible interference on 40 metres was not affecting 20 metres. As I tuned around, I came across a really big signal from SP9VNL who was calling CQ, so I called him to make sure that I was getting out and had a nice chat with him. I then went searching for a free frequency and started calling “CQ POTA” having spotted myself. It took a while but I did start getting called – two of them from stations in other parks. Or in one case, it was to turn out, another activator on one of the trails I was activating but a lot further north along its run.

I had to move frequency once because of QRM from another station, but this is normal on 20 metres when only running 20 watts to a loaded vertical antenna and the new frequency worked out fine. With 13 contacts in the log, the calls dried up and as this was a “spare of the moment” activation, I decided it was time to pack up and head home – after all had an early start planned for the next POTA activation, the next day!

After entering my logs at home, I was amazed to see that the two new POTA trails had changed from being unactivated to one having been activated in September 2024 and the other in June 2017! Before these trails were added to the system – upon investigation, the POTA organisers allow, indeed wish activators to enter logs from activations at the POTA park or on the trail that were completed even before the entity was added to the award scheme.

“POTA welcomes your log files for QSOs predating POTA, as long as your activation was POTA-compliant! If you operated in a POTA park per POTA rules, your log would likely be accepted in the POTA system, even if your activation predated POTA.”

https://docs.pota.app/docs/activator_reference/activation_styles.html#activations-prior-to-pota

Once again, the other purpose of this activation was to make sure the radio operates normally again before leaving for Cyprus, I am relieved that this activation went so well.

Photos:

  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • National Trail Information.
  • National Trail Information.
  • National Trail Information.
  • View around site.
  • Music Academy.
  • Music Academy.
  • View around site.
  • View around site.
  • Antenna.
  • Station.

Equipment taken:

  • Xiegu G-90 radio.
  • Komunica Power HF-PRO2-PLUS-T loaded vertical antenna.
  • OPEK single-magnet car roof antenna mount.
  • 4 Ah LifePO4 battery.
  • 2Ah Eremit LifePO4 battery (not used).
  • Lightweight headphones.
  • Smartphone for spotting.

Log:

POTA DE-0663 / DE-0791 / DE-0968

Conclusions:

The activation went well. What is wrong with the POTA database will decide if, at some point, I get one or two more “first activation” tags on my account. If the next activation using the same equipment goes without issues, I will be more happy with the equipment planned for the Cyprus trip.

73 ’til the next activation!