With the first part of the 10/6m challenge coming to an end on Friday and my activator contacts on 10m looking very poor indeed (not allowed to run 6m portable here in Germany, so the relevant band is 10m for me), I have decided to slot in another activation tomorrow (Thursday August 13th.) in the hope of bagging a few 10m chasers! I know the summit is only a 1 pointer but it does then allow me to carry all of my gear to the summit so that I will, for example, have two antennas to try on 10m. One a Sotabeams linked dipole, using the 30m section with some short extensions on the third harmonic and an Aerial-51 UL-404 OCF dipole.
Unfortunately my amp doesn’t work on 10m, so it will be real QRP - just the 5W PEP of the FT817ND.
Of course I’m hoping there may be some sporadic-E propagation bt if not I’ll be very happy for any ground wave contacts from Germany or Austria.
I also plan to operate on 40m to give the chasers a chance to catch this summit if they can’t reach me n 10m.
Currently I have set me expected activation start time as 08:00 UTC but I could be even earlier than that. It is expected to get very hot here tomorrow, so I’d like to be finished, packed up and back in the air conditioned car before midday (UTC 10:00).
on my last activation of Buchberg the owner of the property seemed to be very interested what people are doing on his area. As soon as I started to set up my antenna he came up to me and asked me what I’m doing. I explained to him that’s just an amateur radio antenna and because the meadow was recently mowed I’d not do any mischief. So he soon settled down and friendly explained to me that recently some mountain bikers were flatting the high grass in his meadows and he would not accept such a rude behavior any more.
So I would recommend to “behave well” on this summit and especially keep out of the meadows in order to lower the risk for getting banned from this summit.
Hi Stephan,
I also met the farmer on my last activation of Buchberg last year - he was OK and explained that he was responsible for keeping the cross in good condition. He was quite interested in what Amateurfunk was all about. It seems he may have had a similar conversation with you, so in the meantime, he probably realises what we are doing and that it is not a threat to the cross or the area at all. As the cross is in one of his fields, the standard rules apply of course - approach along the edge of the field, do not simply go diagonally across the field to get there etc.
Thanks to all 10 stations who worked me on 10 metres this morning.
I was surprised as Karl called me before I had even spotted myself! And at such a strong signal strength. Given the almost zero background noise on 10m from this summit and the way that Sporadic-E works most of the early contacts were booming in, so easy to listen to and no QRM. Crikey, the chasers even called me in sequence, waiting their turn, no pushing in a pile-up. A real pleasure to operate!
Later QSB become a problem taking my signal and that of some of the chasers from fully readable into the noise - but that’s Sporadid-E I guess. I was lucky that the band was in such a good condition this morning.
Armed with knowledge of where you going to be and await your signals to appear as well as they did this morning. But its best to find freq make sure its clear and then spot away… This happened to me other day when up kit hill with EA2LU he was awaiting me.
Mind you best 10m so far today
DL/BE-093
OE/OO-126 X 2 OPS
S5/KS-023
OE/VB-432
OE/OO-110 X 2 OPS
Later,s in morning EB2GKK/P not being heard to well no reach
And the OE5RTP & IRO/p reached there 3rd summit and no propagation at all.
Mind you 20m seems subdued as well 40m
10m been quiet since
Great to catch you when I did.
Rattled up me challenge points a few more
Hi Stephan,
All went well, no visit from Farmer, but he was OK last time in any case. I did get a visit from a mountain biker though and there is now a direct track cut from the road up to the cross over the (thankfully fallow) field, so I suspect someone has brought out a mountain bike route via the cross! Which is probably what the farmer is not happy about. The rule was always, go around the edge of the farmers field, but it seems the bikers are ignoring this.