I got up at 7AM local (5AM utc). The drive to the parking spot and start of the hike for Garita do Limo EA1/CR-015 was about 55 Km from our holidays QTH in Ferrol city.
The temperature was about 16 C but with a nice rising Sun I did the 150m vertical hike in about 20-25 minutes wearing shorts and T-shirt.
Once in the summit, there was a constant wind which I estimated in about 30Km/h, so after a few pics
I put some warm clothing on and proceeded to set-up.
I managed to lock the bottom of my fishing rod with the rocks in the summit, and I guyed it with a couple of ropes to some other rocks around.
I started on 30m, where I logged 13 QSOs in 15 minutes.
After a number of unresponded CQs, I QSYed to 40m, where I logged 9 QSOs in 12 minutes, 2 of which were S2S.
When 40m CW dried up, I QSYed to 20m SSB and selfspotted on 14.305, but then I saw on SOTAwatch that Mark EA7/M0NOM/P was spotted on 14.320, so I QSYed there and spent 15-20 minutes calling him until conditions improved enough for us to finally make our S2S QSO.
After this hard-to-achieve QSO, I found EA6KB spotted on 14.260 and QSYed to his frequency for a call, an immediate pick up and a quick S2S QSO. Then I moved 10Kc up for a clear frequency and selfspotted on 14.270, where I had a prolific run of 33 QSOs in 26 minutes, 2 of which were S2S.
No more SSB callers and I QSYed to CW. My very 1st CQ call on 14.062 brought Roy G4SSH to my log and 9 QSOs were logged in 9 minutes.
All in all 66 QSOs, 6 of which were S2S.
This is the log:
This is the S2S log:
Thanks for your calls and QSOs.
It was time for pack up and descend as I still wanted to activate a second nearby and drive on summit.
Just a new picture from the summit before leaving:
Descending the 150m took me about the same time as the ascent. This picture taken soon after having started my descent let’s you see the road downhill and my car parked down there:
Once in the car, a brief drive of nearly 4-5 Km and I was in the parking of the drive on summit of Mt. da Herbeira EA1/CR-009. I walked a hundred meters or so through the group of cows pasting there and I set up with the help of the fence wooden poles you can see in the following picture.
The cows soon let me alone and they all moved away to the other side of the road and the parking lot.
I had not time for an exhaustive activation and I only worked 20 CW as I had to join my family for lunch and an afternoon-evening in the beach.
As soon as I started CQing on 14.062, RBNhole spotted me:
I gave my SOTA reference but some times I did it in the short way, like it’s often done in the contest (sending TTN instead of 009) but Sake PA0SKP seemed to get it wrong and he mistakenly spotted me with a wrong reference:
THIS SPOT WAS WRONG. I WAS NOT ACTIVATING THIS SUMMIT.
Pascal PA1BR helped sending a correct spot some minutes later:
But André F5UKL/p arrived to the frequency, asked QRL?, he didn’t, apparently copy me nor my chasers and started to call CQ SOTA, which produced a spot for him from RBNhole:
and thus the chaos…
From this moment onwards, a lot of QRM on the frequency with André calling CQ SOTA and chasers making QSO with either me, with André or both at the same time made everything very confusing. Some of the chasers I had QSO with called me André and I had to clarify to them that I wasn’t André and I was Guru EA2IF/P.
I’m not sure if all this chaos made Lothar DL3HXX misunderstand what summit I was indeed activating or it was a typing error, but he sent a new wrong spot for me. This time with a different wrong number:
THIS SPOT WAS ALSO WRONG. I WAS NOT ACTIVATING THIS SUMMIT.
At one point, André seemed to go QSY and I continued for a few more minutes making QSOs on my frequency until a couple of non SOTA stations started a standard QSO on top of me probably unable to copy my QRP signal. Then I decided to call it a day, pack up quickly and drive to join my family at the beach, where we had a very nice time.
All in all, 36 QSOs in 42 minutes, 2 of which were S2S.
This is the log:
This is the S2S log:
One more picture of the stunning view from the operating spot before leaving,
Thanks for your calls and QSOs.
73,
Guru