Car on Petru Paler

Mata Nacional do Vimeiro

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

First outing with the QMX — tough conditions under tree canopy.

First time using the QMX. Was planning to try FT8 first but couldn’t get a stable connection to the phone. Sat at the picnic area with the wife and kids. Antenna was completely obscured by the tree canopy and probably way too close to tree trunks. Was difficult to get a signal out even after switching to CW. Only managed one contact.

Praia do Pico da Mota

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Beach activation with CW-only due to mic issues.

Beautiful ocean view and waves. Handheld mic issue — weak audio signal and kept switching between internal and external mic inputs. Ended up making only CW contacts.

Serra de Alvaiázere

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

SOTA with a nice view and drive up.

Nice view and drive up.

Senhora do Socorro

Sat, 04 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

SOTA transatlantic S2S event in a storm.

SOTA transatlantic S2S event, hence the already-activated summit. Very windy (storm) and cold — gave up after 4 contacts. Began to rain just as I finished packing.

Serra de Sicó

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Cold and windy triple activation.

Cold and windy — should have brought some layers.

Senhora do Socorro

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Three-way activation: SOTA, POTA, and WWFF.

Serra da Melriça

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

SOTA activation by car.

Bachtel

Sat, 21 Oct 2017 22:22:44 +0200

High volume activation.

We had visitors over the weekend. One of them had brought his mountain bike along and wanted to sample the Swiss trails. Wanting to help out, I figured this is also a good occasion to activate a summit. Bachtel seemed like a good candidate, since I knew from a previous attempt that it’s possible to drive all the way up and there’s also a MTB trail starting there. We loaded his bike and my radio gear into the car and off we went. While talking on the way I didn’t realize that I was going too fast, so I got a 250 CHF ticket for going 65km/h in a 50km/h zone. Oops, and lesson learned.

Once on the summit, my friend set up his bike and took off. There’s a tall metal tower accessible to the public, so I went to the top observation deck planning to operate from there. I had brought a Chameleon vertical antenna, thinking I would clamp it to the tower and use its metal structure as a counterpoise. The view from the top was great, but it was also windy and cold. It would have been too uncomfortable to stay there, so I went back down.

I set up the operating post on top of a small mound next to the tower, which also had a metal railing that I jaw mounted the antenna to. The KX2’s internal ATU quickly tuned it up on the 30m band. I found a free frequency, spotted myself on SOTAwatch, and called CQ. A bunch of people responded, and they kept on coming. This was my second ever CW activation and my Morse still has a lot of room for improvement, but the chasers were patient and the short, formulaic QSOs helped. Before I knew it there were 17 contacts in the log.

Once things quieted down on 30m I switched to 20m and worked a few chasers there. It got quiet again, so I looked at SOTAwatch and saw that N1EU was activating W2/GC-010 on 17m. The odds of being able to work him were very low, but I tuned up and gave it a try anyway. The signal was barely copiable but it was there, so I called and we had a S2S QSO. Given that 17m conditions were good I picked a free spot there and called CQ, which resulted in another 2 QSOs one of which was also in the USA.

To top it all off, as I was getting ready to call it a day, I noticed on SOTAwatch that KB9ILT was activating W4V/BR-006 on 15m. Emboldened by what seemed to be really good propagation, I tuned up and called him. It worked, sort of: I think he copied my report and summit reference well, but I could barely hear him (RST 229 with a lot of QSB) and I’m still not sure if I copied his report correctly.

It was getting cold and my friend was almost done riding so I stopped and packed things up. As I was leaving, I turned around to check that I hadn’t forgotten anything. I had that slightly uneasy feeling that comes when the subconscious is trying to get your attention towards something but nope: nothing left behind laying in the grass, everything was in the backpack. I went to pick up my friend, who was grinning ear to ear after having enjoyed himself on the trail, and drove home. Later on, as I was copying the logs from paper into Log4OM, I realized that I left the antenna jaw mount clamped to the metal railing. Oops.

Lessons learned:

being able to quickly hop across bands is very nice
large metal objects can serve as effective vertical antenna counterpoises
Morse is a lot of fun (not news, but this activation confirmed it)
always pay attention to speed limits (this time it was thankfully just a fine)
trust your gut, it seems to have a good handle of what you’re forgetting

Chasseral

Sat, 16 Sep 2017 19:05:45 +0200

Shifting weather activation.

It’s the weekend: time to pack up the family and radio and activate a summit! We headed out towards HB/NW-015 but after an on-the-go change of plans to accomodate the baby sleeping schedule we ended up doing a longer drive to Chasseral instead.

The summit is on a really nice looking ridge with no trees, and fully accessible by car. It was raining quite heavily several times on the way, making me worry about the radio part. It all stopped by the time we reached the top, but between the risk of rain and the rather cold air I didn’t want to set up a HF antenna. I had thankfully thrown my VHF/UHF handleld into the backpack so I picked that up instead.

After spotting myself on SOTAwatch and calling CQ on 2m I scored a nice QSO with Beat HB9TWG/M who was somewhere on a freeway (couldn’t quite understand all of the German :). One other quickly followed then, once I managed to open up my squelch, also heard and worked DJ5AV.

Three down, one to go – but nobody else was answering. I tried the 70cm band with no success. After moving back to 2m and calling CQ for a while longer, HB9FRA/P came back and helped complete the activation.

Finishing up, we had lunch watching the clouds go by at the Hôtel Chasseral nearby then drove back home.