To our surprise we found much more snow than expected. After a short break we agreed that four people and four kids would return and only my friend Andreas and me went for the summit.
It took us another 90 min to reach the top (2280 m asl) It was impossible to find the track so we went straight up.
We set up the antenna and I started CQing on 20m cw. It was very strange because after Five minutes of calling I had only one QSO. On 30 m it was Even worse: 0 QSOs and on 40m a very weak station started CQing on top of me.
In the meantime a large black cloud was forming above our heads. I quickly checked antenna and coax but couldn‘t find a problem. So I resumed CQing on 40 cw but agreed with Andreas to pack up as soon as the rain begins. Finally I managed to log three more QSOs but it was tough going. Then we immediately took the antenna down and packed up.
Only today (when we had inernet access again) I noticed that I haven‘t been spotted on SOTAwatch. Probably because I was QRV more than one hour before the time I set in the alert. With my tiny signal (MTR 3B and EFHW) it seems only few people were able to find me without cluster spot.
Nevertheless it was fun and we enjoyed the trip which led us further to „Kleiner Daumen“ and back to the lake before we returned to the Hut.
Thanks for the QSOs and sorry if we missed each other!
73, Roman - DL3TU
Hi Roman,
I’m surprised that none of the people who chased you didn’t spot you. I guess they were simply people who were tuning around the band and found you rather than SOTA chasers per se? Lesson learnt may be to ask whoever you work to spot you (Dx cluster or SOTAwatch) that way you should get some contacts quicker if RBN doesn’t auto spot you for whatever reason.
… thanks, Martin. I didn‘t know how to set a wider time window for RBNhole. On long hikes (especially with kids) very useful.
My first idea was that there must be an issue with my equipment when no one came back to my CQ.
Then, what Ed wrote came into play: one QSO was S2S and two were defenitely no regular SOTA chasers. They coldn‘t/ didn‘t spot me. Only the last QSO was with a well known chaser but it was already decided to pack up. So I didn’t ask him to submit a spot on SOTAwatch.
All in all it was a great day. Despite the black clouds we only got a few raindrops and could complete the crossing of „Großer- and Kleiner Daumen“.
73, Roman- DL3TU
