Anybody been to the Azores?

Activation Reports Pre-Planning
1

Good evening everybody!

I am planing a vacation with my family to the Azores in August and was wondering if anybody been there and could share their SOTA experiences?
We are visiting the islands Pico, Faial and Santa Maria and I was planing on operating there holiday style and trying some SOTA activations. Aparently there are some summits that still have to be activated for the first time!

So, any experiences and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

73 de Matthias DO7OX

2

Hi Matthias,

I have been there in September 2017 and have activated (among other summits on other islands of the Azores) both summits on Faial.
CU/FA-001: This is a drive-in summit but I started my walk at the parking place about 700 m north-east of the summit (at Ermida de S. Joao Batista)
CU/FA-002: This is also a drive-in summit.
On all visited islands (FL, FA, SJ, TE, SM) the cell phone coverage was excellent.
Be prepared to drive on ā€œdirt roadsā€.

I suggest that you do a short seach for ā€œAzoresā€ on this reflector to see more information.

Enjoy your vacation!

73, Andy DK7MG

3

Hi Andy,

thank you very much for the reply and the information.

Iā€™ll do a search and see what more come up!

73 de Matthias DO7OX

4

Visited Azores in spring 2018 (FA, PI, SJ, SM). We did relatively a lot of hiking, but due to being with a group i chose to leave my radio at home, so no advice in that regard.

Beautiful green islands with unspoiled nature. Would love to return as long as they do not get too turisty. Enjoy!

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5

On a second thought, now I see that we did visit a few SOTA summits on Azores.
On Faial, we visited CU/FA-001 CabeƧo Gordo. Thereā€™s quite large radio tower on the top, and if i remember correctly, even has partly paved road leading all to the top. But it leads through active pastures with a lot of cows so i canā€™t say if you are allowed to drive there. We went by bus to the viewpoint Miradouro da Caldeira to the east from the summit, from where it is only a short hike to the top. From there we hiked along the crater rim and descended to the west partially along the access road.
On Sao Miguel, we visited two SOTA summits.
CU/SM-002 Pico da Barrosa is a simple drive-on summit. Paved road leads to the small parking, from there it is only a 200m or so walk to the summit. Only a few small towers there and a great view to the lake Lagoa do Fogo below. Plenty of space for an antenna.
Photo of our ride at the summit of Pico da Barrosa below.

IMG_20180502_174824453_rezultat
IMG_20180502_174824453_rezultat.jpg800Ɨ600 74.9 KB

At CU/SM-005 Pico das Eguas thereā€™s a nice marked circular hiking route around the area (Serra Devassa trail, cca. 4 km), starting at the parking at the main road. Not much space, but has a trig point that could be suitable for attaching the antenna pole to it. No permanent towers there.

Hope it helps. Enjoy your stay there!

6

Thank you very much for the information! It is a big help, also photos are very good so I can better envision what the conditions will be like.

I plan on using a mag loop antenna so setting up a pole will not be necessary.

One bit Iā€™ll need to figure out completely is the legal situation. I only have a Novice licence and I want to make sure I use only allowed frequencies.

Really looking forward to the trip!

7

DARC CEPT-LƤnderliste is a perfect source in that case:

CS8/ is your prefix.

2020-01-25_13h43_19

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8

What a nicely put-together document.

9

Thank you very much! I have tried to download the list before and failed - probably because I was using an iPad.

So that confirms that I can use 20 and 40m in Portugal! Exciting! Iā€˜m not allowed to use those bands in Germany.

I think I will take a lightweight multiband (10,15,20,40m) endfed + small mast with me and my KX3.

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