G4YSS Second Activation of EA8/ LP-002 Deseadas on 16-04-14
Report 4 of 4 in EA8/LP series. Draft-1.
EA8/LP Series of Reports:
Report 1 of 4. LP2 on 07-04-14, see:
http://www.sotawatch.org/reflector.php?topic=9347#foot
Report 2 of 4. LP3 on 10-04-14, inc. AM band DX see:
http://www.sotawatch.org/reflector.php?topic=9361#foot
Report 3 of 4. LP1 on 14-04-14, see:
http://www.sotawatch.org/reflector.php?topic=9378#foot
Report 4 of 4. LP2 on 16-04-14, THIS REPORT
http://www.sotawatch.org/reflector.php?topic=9386#foot
For Route details and First Activation of LP2 on 07-04-14 see: Report 1 of 4.
Activation No4 of 4:
DESEADAS: EA8/LP-002 (QRO) - Second Activation.
Bands: 20m & 12m CW/ SSB. 10m CW/ FM
G4YSS using alternative personal callsign EA8/ M1NNN/P. Unaccompanied.
All times ‘WEST’ UOS. (Western European Daylight Saving Time - UTC + 1hr and equivalent to BST).
EQUIPMENT:
FT817ND HF/VHF/UHF 5W Transceiver.
SainSonic MX-P50A HF (80 thru 10) 50 Watt Linear Amplifier.
Adjustable link dipole for 20-17-15-10m (built 1992 for CT3).
Two 7m-long end strings for dipole.
5m Telescopic Mast with ground spike. (Guying kit and end sticks not used).
6 Ah Li-Po battery (2 x 2.2 Ah Li-Po’s in reserve - not used).
Packweight: 7.5 kg (16.5 pounds) including food and 1 litre of water.
INTRODUCTION:
After completing all three La Palma SOTA summits, I decided that I liked LP2 the best and wanted to reactivate it. Building on experience gained the first time, I was hoping to drive to a higher start altitude. The previous week, when walking up I had taken careful note of the places on the dirt road where I might have problems if I tried driving along it in our 2WD Opel Corsa hire car with its automatic transmission.
I thought; wrongly as it turned out, that there were only two potential sticking points due to uneven surface. These were at: N28 33 46.3 W17 51 28.9 which is only about 50m into the walk from where I parked on the 7th. It’s just before the PR-LP 15 sign which states, ‘8.1km to the volcanoes route.’ Here there’s rough volcanic rock with a danger of grounding. At N28 33 47.3 W17 51 04.5 it’s a little steep, lumpy and loose. There are skid marks on the surface where people have had problems in the past. I had seen and noted the point where the car would actually refuse to pass but at the time it didn’t look too bad.
ROUTE to LP2 from Mendo:
Not wishing to drive up the PR-LP 15 track in darkness, I set off from the hotel a little later. As before I drove up the LP210 Mendo road almost to its limit turning right up the steep concreted road at N28 33.691 W17 51.582. From there via N28 33.734 W17 51.472 at 1,170m ASL, where I had parked on the 7th then joining the PR-LP 15 forest track at the signpost N28 33.785 W17 51.483. This time, driving further, I was stopped about 20 metres short of the ‘T’ junction at N28 33 44.9 W17 51 13.5, where there is a sign giving the distance to the volanoes route as 6.9km.
I attempted it three times but the wheels would not grip the loose volcanic gravel and the car just stopped. Probably the fact that it had automatic transmission didn’t help and it may also have had traction control. These things take the initiative away from the driver and sometimes I wonder if modern cars are there to serve us humans or is it the other way round? Because the ‘2WD impasse’ consists of a sharp corner immediately before an incline, you cannot get a good run-up at it. I was forced into a tricky reverse in order to park off the track beside a large rock at N28 33 45.8 W17 51 16.5. I made this about 1250m ASL.
However, compared with the first activation and though I’d hoped to do better, I had managed to cut down the walking by 1.3km both ways. With 4WD none of this would have counted because I could have easily got up as far as the cairn where the PR-LP 15 changes from a track to a path at N28 33 51.5 W17 50 43.5. That is assuming I could have successfully shouted for the driver of the truck parked in the centre of the track (today and on the 7th April) at N28 33 43.8 W17 50 58.2, to return and move it.
It was at the later time of 08:20 before I left the car. A forgotten breakfast and a litre of water forced down, delayed me. I kept up a brisk pace on the deserted track in cool conditions but I reached the same small truck parked with once again no occupants in sight. The rest was a repeat of proceedings on the 7th April except that this time I found the short cut around the crater to the true summit on the east side. It wasn’t found immediately however and a little time was wasted in missing the junction before turning right to contour a steep incline with loose material. That’s when I spotted the ‘handy’ little path below me and descended to it for GPS marking.
The higher reaches of the path were white with a light frost which my feet disturbed revealing the dark volcanic gravel below. The summit cairn was reached after 1 hour and 37 minutes of walking; quicker than last time. It was sunny with almost no wind and not cold. As before, the only extra required for the ascent was a 100 weight fleece pullover.
The mast’s ground spike was shoved into the same crack in the crater rim and the dipole end strings were tied off at ground level to the same rocks. There was no rush so I sat a while admiring the view.
DESEADAS, EA8/LP-002: 1,950m, 10pts, 09:57 to 15:47. Shade temp: 4C initially - 16C at the end. Wind 0 to 2mph. Bright sun throughout. No lying snow or frost. (LOC: IL18BN). Orange (EE) phone coverage on summit and all parts of ascent route.
I planned to start on 17m but following a briefing on current band conditions from Roy, the decision was made to open on 20m.
14.052.6 CW - 37 QSO’s:
A 30 Watt test QSO with G4SSH resulted in reports of 589/ 549. After Roy and now with 50 Watts, I worked son Phil G0UUU/A who was using my IC706-2G SOTA rig from my home QTH. Mine is a noisy QTH and I think Phil was struggling to copy me at 229 - later 559. I worked Kevin G0NUP in East Ayton and G0VOF/P wisely out portable again to avoid noise problems. Mark goes to a lot of trouble which more often than not rewards him with a good result. I only regret that this was 20m and not 160m! I would have loved a night activation of this summit.
This was a very lucrative session and stations were too numerous to mention individually but countries worked with 50W were: G; DL; EA; HB9; OK; N; OZ; PA; OE; ON; EI; YO and S52. The 37 ops were worked in an hour and the decision to switch to 20m was clearly a good one.
There were two S2S’s with two different ops using two different modes from the same summit, namely Bishop Wilton Wold, G/TW-004. The activators were: Dave G4ASA/P at 1019z in CW and Mike 2E0YYY/P, worked later in SSB.
14.265 SSB - 19 QSO’s:
At 1044z, Roy picked up my ‘SSB; SSB; SSB’ and advance posted the mode change. There followed a nice QSO with CT2HME - John using 5 Watts to a multi-delta loop from an FT817. Often there’s time for a brief chat with whoever calls in first after a QSY. It gives time for the sotawatch spot to ‘work’ and for chasers to net in. Sometimes that takes a short while if channel occupancy, unnoticed on the initial ‘QRL ?’ forces an adjustment up or down.
Next in was Mike G6TUH with a ‘57 to 59 QSB’ response to my 30 Watt signal but it wasn’t long before the power was increased to 50 Watts to make it as easy as possible for chasers. Call areas worked: G; HA; EA; DL; MW and OK. As mentioned earlier, there was an S2S with Mike 2E0YYY/P on G/TW-004 but initially I couldn’t even tell he was there. Mike G6TUH passed a message to him to try again while I listened intently but to no avail. A little later conditions peaked enough for us to exchange without much difficulty at 51 both ways. A half hour lunch break followed.
24.907 CW - 24 QSO’s:
I must say my first SOTA experiences of 12m had left me pleasantly surprised this week. There seemed to be very few chasers it couldn’t reach and it reached them efficiently too. My personal paradigm that 24 MHz was a bit of a backwater had to be drastically revised, so it was going to be offered again today. Admittedly, this was a big jump from 14MHz right up to 24MHz. Perhaps I should have put on 17m or 15m but there wasn’t sufficient time to do everything.
I selected 10m on the dipole and added the drop wire for 12m. Power was reduced to 30W; or so I thought! Roy gave me 559 so maybe 12m band conditions were not that brilliant at just before noon UTC today. That said next in was N4EX with a 549 RST.
After working 14 stations, I discovered that the linear amp was switched off and I had been running barefoot with 2.5 and later 5 Watts. I must have pulled the MX-P50A’s 10 Amp circuit breaker before having lunch. That situation was noticed and rectified from 12:12 UTC whence we really were putting out 30 Watts. In bright sunlight it’s often difficult to see what’s happening with equipment. This session gradually accrued the following countries: G; N; DL; OK; ON; HB9; U; S52; PA; EA and SP.
24.970 SSB - 21 QSO’s:
G6TUH was on the ball again and first in the log. Like many others, Mike had shown a lot of enthusiastic chasing over the past few days. With 30 Watts, I worked: G; HB9; OK; OE; SV; N; LZ; EA; IK and SQ. There was an S2S with Carolyn G6WRW/P on GW/WB-011. Reports were 58/ 57. G6ODU was heard to remark that the 10 points gained had taken him over 25k chaser. Glad to oblige Bob.
After working DM5BB at 13:00z, the 6 Ah battery, which had provided power since the start, gave up. I think we were close to the natural end of the session but possibly a few stations were lost because of the delay in substituting the spare battery - two 2.2 Ah Li-Po’s harnessed together in parallel.
28.032 CW - 16 QSO’s:
Roy was copying my 30 Watts on here too. The exchange was 569/ 559. Between 13:17z and 14:47z the following stations were logged: G4SSH; NE4TN; S52CU; PA0SKP; HB9BQU/P - S2S HB/AG-003; EI2CL; SM7GUY; G0NUP; HA5LV; F6EDO; OK2LW; IZ3QHA; IK2ECC; HA6ZG; LZ2DJA and SQ3A.
29.600/ 29.200 FM - 7 QSO’s:
At this point a certain sadness began to creep in. The next 25 minutes would contain my final QSO’s from La Palma. On the plus side,10FM is a nice friendly place to have them.
Stations worked with 5 Watts: OE3KAB - Karl with whom I had a nice long conversation; HA5LV - Viktor; IK0NOJ - Daniele, using a 2eyl beam and half a kW in Rome; DJ5AV - Mike and IW5EKR - Aldo in Tuscany. The final two stations logged were GM0IQI - Paul near the Butt of Lewis Outer Hebrides (EU10/ NB56) and IK2OFS - Marco. Both were worked with 50 Watts which in FM means lots of current. Blow the expense, the battery would see these out. I tried 500mW with Paul and he still copied me, though readability had decreased to a three.
145.500 FM - Nil:
After three tries and no QSO’s, I didn’t repeat this band.
Descent of LP2:
After packing up, I was on a quest for a one hour descent but things kept distracting me. There were further rock samples to gather and a pine cone picked up from beneath the highest tree, which was thriving on the summit crater rim. I had to stop to put these into the rucksack.
In order to bypass some of the zig-zags, I took the direct line in a few times. Once again the route was deserted, which is one of the reasons I like LP2. Achieving my minor goal, I arrived at the car in exactly an hour by 16:47.
I felt some regret when it suddenly sunk in that after months, even years of planning this trip, my role as an EA8 radio amateur and SOTA activator was now well and truly over. The next day was our last full one and I would be needed for the mundane task of driving everybody to Santa Cruz to buy presents. Would I ever see my favourite La Palma summit; Deseadas, otherwise known as EA8/LP-002, again? In all probability the answer was no.
Ascent/ Distance - Deseadas EA8/LP-002:
-
First Activation on 07-04-14:
From the concrete road (N28 33.750 W17 51.466) above Mendo.
Ascent: 790m (2,592ft) inc 10m reascent on the return.
Distance: 2 x 9.2km = 18.4km (11.5 miles). -
Second Activation on 16-04-14:
From further up the PR-LP15 at N28 33 45.8 W17 51 16.5.
Ascent: 710m (2,329ft) inc 10m reascent on the return.
Distance: 2 x 8km = 16km (10 miles).
Walking Times (16-04-14):
Ascent: 1 hr-37min.
Descent: 1hr.
QSO`s
20m CW: 37
20m SSB: 19
12m CW: 24
12m SSB: 21
10m CW: 16
10m FM: 7
Total: 124
Zero SOTA points.
Observations:
I went back to LP2 because it was the hardest, the least touristy and most remote of the three La Palma SOTA’s. Once again LP2 didn’t disappoint.
Compared to the first activation on the 7th, the route had been shortened by 1.3km each way. If I’d had 4WD, I would have got much further up the PR-LP15 track to the point where the path leaves the track. This would have reduced the ascent/ distance walked requirements to less than 350m and 2.5km one way.
I did look at hiring a Suzuki Jimny for the day but why spend 55 Euros just to save some walking. In fact the only reason to do this was to try to cram a full day’s activation into half a day to placate the XYL should that become an issue. A mountain bike at 15 Euros per day was also available. Yes, I may be a coward but I would pay out good money for a peaceful existence!
Used in conjunction with the FT817ND on three out of four activations, the SainSonic MX-P50A 50 Watt Linear Amplifier did more than its fair share of work and hopefully allowed easier copy for the chasers. Against this was a minimal weight penalty of just over 1kg. I did slim it down a bit before the trip by replacing the thick aluminium baseplate with honeycomb composite material and eliminating the power connector pair along with two SO239’s. Flying leads using RG316 miniature coax and BNC’s completed the exercise. The heatsink is heavy and though it got quite hot at times, further weight reduction may be possible there. Compared with winter activating in the UK, pack weights were light.
A discussion on some of the other equipment is contained in the equivalent section of the first LP2 activation report.
Band conditions were good today and I hope a few stations welcomed a second chance to work LP2 if they had missed it the first time. Only three bands were used but despite that, the log showed 124 contacts at the end of the day. Even when you consider that many are band repeats, it makes LP2 by far the most worked La Palma summit with a total of 257 QSO’s to its name.
For months before going, I thought I would be ‘roasted out of existence’ on these activations but I need not have worried. Typically, I was drinking a litre before setting off and not much more than half a litre for the rest of the day. The first day saw me lugging 2.5 litres of water up the mountain but I soon reduced that. Setting off at first light certainly helped a lot. Tree lined tracks and paths helped too. Up to mid morning only a thin mid layer was needed. The lowest temperature encountered at any summit was 3C at 10am and the highest was 16C in mid afternoon. Waterproofs remained in the rucksack for the entire 2-weeks.
Regarding the WX; I had certainly been very lucky. Summit wind speeds never exceeded 5 mph and a lot of the time they were almost zero. There was no wind chill factor and perhaps more importantly, no fine volcanic grit blowing about, which is what G1INK Steve had to put up with for 90% of his EA8FU & EA8LA activations in late March.
As for sunshine, I see it as a negative weather condition except in the middle of a UK winter. The Thomson rep warned us of people getting badly burnt through cloud the week before we arrived. My ridiculous looking Legionnaires hat did a fine job. I put cream on my face and backs of hands before setting out but not subsequently. The one time I forgot on LP1, I suffered a burnt hand from holding the log.
La Palma SOTA QSO’s:
LP2-1: 133.
LP3: 116.
LP1: 55
LP2-2: 124.
Total: 428.
La Palma SOTA’s: Totals for LP2 x 2 + LP3:
Total Ascent: 2,204m (7,231ft); 45.2km (28.1 miles).
Total Walking Time: 8hr-47min at 5.1km/h (3.2mph) ave.
(Note: LP1 involved minimal walking so is not included here)
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to all stations worked and to G4SSH; N4EX; G6TUH; SV2CLJ; OE3KAB for spotting. Being teamed with Roy G4SSH for telephone liaison, advanced alerts, spots, advice and up to the minute band condition information was essential in making this trip the success it was. I hope I can do it again sometime. If not I hope someone else does!
73, John G4YSS
(Using EA8/ M1NNN/P).
…
Appendix:
La Palma in General:
I liked La Palma because it is not overburdened with tourists. Many who visit are walkers and the well marked routes cater for this activity very well. Reasonable maps are available but I didn’t see any that were up to UK OS standards. That doesn’t matter so much when most of the walking is done on quality paths where it’s hard to get lost. In April, it got light at 07:30 and dark around 9pm and local time is in line with the UK winter and summer. As in the UK Spring, Blackbirds were sitting their eggs there too.
As well as SOTA we had a few nice outings but places were generally not well publicised or were very difficult to find. There were none of the usual racks of brochures and leaflets at the hotel and we made the mistake of not visiting the tourist office until well into the second week with the result that we spent two hours finding the ‘wrong zoo’ near El Paso. It was all boarded up, with nobody in charge save three parrots and a friendly dog. The real zoo, Maroparque; was near Santa Cruz (N28 40.941 W17 46.704).
There was a silk museum along with a decent supermarket with cafe at El Paso and I have mentioned the visitor centre east of there in the LP3 report. At N28 38.717 W17 53.754, also near El Paso, there was an under-publicised but excellent Cactus garden called Palmex and run by a very knowledgeable French Couple who would only accept donations.
The Hotel:
The La Palma Princess all inclusive hotel was very much to our liking. Nowhere does it exceed three stories and it has friendly staff with good entertainment especially for children. It also had a free ‘Kids Club’ but grandson Jack refused to join in. A down side is that it is a 20 minute drive down a twisty road but it’s easy to see why it was built there. More often than not, it’s below the level of clouds which can form on the mountains in the afternoons.
Though we didn’t experience heavy traffic, Santa Cruz is a thriving town with a harbour featuring the odd cruise ship. It has no large shops or department stores but there is a nice pedestrianised street of shops which runs parallel to the sea front. I was pleased to find a few places which are best described as ‘pound shops.’ Great if you need amateur radio support items such as epoxy resin, should anything break or antenna support line etc. It was good to see a few old British Land Rovers in use on the island, some blowing smoke but a pristine one parked in Santa Cruz.
Though we were obviously visitors, nobody seemed eager to ‘fleece’ us and without exception shop assistants would greet you on entry with ‘Hola.’ Nothing seemed to be ‘in your face’ in La Palma. It is as yet, underdeveloped from a tourism viewpoint and thereby unspoilt. Not much English is spoken there.
There is a lighthouse at the southern tip with a little museum on the subject of sea pollution. Like the El Paso visitor centre, it’s free. Nearby are three large generating windmills, a nice looking lattice radio mast and grey/ black beaches where the locals enjoy their bank holidays.
3km to the north there is another museum at Volcan San Antonio which attracts a fee and we made friends with a field full of camels nearby. Another volcano here; Volcan de Teneguia, erupted as late as 1971 causing one death. It’s not surprising that La Palma is regarded as a danger island which may one day ‘fall apart’ an event which could potentially drown New York.
It may look so on a map but La Palma is not a small island when you try to drive around it. From the southern tip to the north coast might take you three hours or more.
Hire Car:
I was disappointed that CICAR rented us a car with automatic transmission without any up-front warning. Due to this and the nature of La Palma’s roads with hairpins and an absence of much in the way of level driving, it only returned 29.7mpg (about 10 km/L). However in compensation, ‘Gasolina-95’ was costing us just 92 pence per litre (1.06 Euros) and diesel fuel is cheaper still. This is 2/3 of the UK price.
With hindsight we would have been better off hiring via the Thomson rep at the hotel the day after arriving. That would have avoided trying to first find the car, followed by its controls, light switches etc, in the dark and after a long day travelling. That is to say nothing of its extraction from the airport building via various parking lot barriers etc. Not only that, the Group ‘E’ car, turned out to be an Opel Corsa with barely sufficient capacity to take all of our luggage.
It was booked a year in advance but all my efforts, including emailing their main place in Germany, to find out the cost of the ‘full tank’ which we would have to pay for in advance on arrival, came to nought. In the end I was casually asked to, ‘bring it back with the same fuel gauge reading.’ For these reasons I would not hire a car from CICAR again. The cost was 498 Euros (426 GBP) for 14 days, which included three or four layers of insurance. It was used every day apart from the first, covering a modest 1,240km.
The Return:
La Palma airport security were less keen than Manchester had been two weeks before. The Li-Po’s sailed through the hand baggage scanner unchallenged whilst I was thoroughly frisked after failing similar treatment. Having removed most of the metal items to put in the tray, I removed my belt. After that the priority was to prevent trouser loss which made me forget to remove my wristwatch with its metal bracelet.
The return flight in G-TAWM with a takeoff run of 31 seconds was not at a civilised time; landing in Manchester at past midnight. After that came a 2-hour drive back to Scarborough, arriving at 03:30, which is coincidentally my usual SOTA set off time. The track recorded on the Garmin Geko GPS was interesting however. At the greatest point of deviation from the flight down, we were some 650km further west. This was a fuel and time saving exercise aimed at picking up maximum tail winds; in this case I recall 120km/h? Coming in over the lights of Dublin and Liverpool, we landed on time having set off late at 20:36 for a journey time of 3hrs-49min.
I hope there will be a chance to do something similar again. Because I had real aims this time, other than merely putting an island on IOTA and climbing a mountain or two as I have done in the past, I had SOTA. That made for a great experience. So - Thank You SOTA; the management and the chasers!
I can just cope with going up a ladder now to clean gutters!