Garita do Limo EA1/CR-015 and Mt. da Herbeira EA1/CR-009 by EA2IF/P on 02/08/2017

After my activation of Mt. da Herbeira EA1/CR-009 last Sunday July 30th, I realised of the vicinity of Garita do Limo EA1/CR-015, so I decided that it would be my next target.
The chance for a new SOTA activation arrived on Wednesday, August 3rd and I headed North towards Garita do Limo.
This is its location by the Atlantic Ocean:

This is how it looks like.

I left the road DP-2205 at the point where you can see the white hand of my computer mouse, with the GPS coordinates displayed in the top right corner box,

parked the car at the small parking area of the panoramic spot at the base of the mountain, put my brand new boots on and started the hike with the summit of the mountain at sight, progressing in more or less straight line without a clear track other than some short cattle tracks I could find here and there.

In about 25 minutes of a pretty steep but not difficult nor too hard hike, I reached the summit.

From the top, I enjoyed the beautiful view of a well known chaser birth land.

This is where Manuel EA2DT is original from. A beautiful place indeed.

The summit was very rocky and I managed to find a slot to fit the bottom of my telescopic fishing rod and then locked it in place with the help of two medium size rocks.

I started the activation on 20m CW and the 1st QSO was logged at 12h27 utc, just 3 minutes before the announced start time in my alert. This initial run produced 22 QSOs in 25 minutes, one of which was a DX with the USA (N4EX).
After my last QSO in this 20m CW run with Jorge EA2LU, the wind force had increased and slightly changed direction, making the fishing pole lean aside.

Initially, I had the feel that the fishing pole had broken, but, after going to the base of the pole, I realised, to my relief, that the force of the wind had only made the bottom of the fishing pole push the locking rock out of place.

I put it back in place, placed and better secured the locking rock, corrected the tension of the only guying line I used and returned to the operation, but this time on 40m CW.

This 2nd run produced 8 QSOs, being the last one with Manuel, EA2DT. I was particularly pleased with this contact given the fact that I was activating a never activated summit in his very birth land,
Let me tell you that I only found out this summit had never been activated before, after I uploaded my activation log. What a nice surprise! :slight_smile:

After 40m CW, I QSYed back to 20m, but on SSB this time. Here I logged 9 QSOs.
The last QSO was logged at 13h43 utc and after 1hour and 16 minutes of operation, I switched off, packed up and descended.
This is the full log of this activation:


Descent took me about the same 25 minutes of the ascent and I was installed in the car by 14h15 utc ready to go for a new activation of Mt de Herbeira EA1/CR-009, just 3 or 4 Km to the SouthWest.

This Mt da Herbeira is a very visited place and the parking place is big and capable for several cars and even buses.
This is the place seen from the parking.

There are so many people most of the time in this place that I decided to set up at the right hand side between the rocky wall and the fence wooden poles.

I started the operation on 40m CW mainly because I wanted to give my friends in Pamplona who missed me when I activated this summit last Sunday, the chance to chase me.
This first run on 40m CW produced 10 QSOs in 12 minutes.

Then, I QSYed to 20m SSB and after a selfspot, I managed to log 8 QSOs,
Conditions were not good at all. They had very much changed with respect to what they were during my previous activation.
After some unresponded CQ calls, I QSYed to CW and this run let me log 3 QSOs in 6 minutes.

No more callers made me QSY to 30m CW where I logged 9 QSOs in 15 minutes, with no little efforts sometimes due to QSB.

I forgot taking a picture of my set up but I took this picture of the impressive fall from where I was operating.

This is the full log of this second activation of the day:

Thank you very much dear chasers for your calls, spots and QSOs.
I’ll be looking forward to copying you soon from another summit.

Best 73,

Guru