May 27: Nagelfluh SOTA Tour - 4 SOTA Summits / 9 Summits

Dear all:

Tomorrow, I will try the famous “Nagelfluh” ridge, a series of nine summits in the Allgäu region. Four of the nine summits are currently eligible for SOTA, and I plan to activate all of them, if weather permits.

We will start at the ridge around 6:15 UTC. The total duration for the ridge is said to be seven hours, plus time for the activations.

Here is the list of summits in the order we will approach them and VERY approximate QRV times:

6:30 UTC - DL/AL-132 Hochgrat, 1833m, 8 points
7:45 UTC - DL/AL-131 Rindalphorn, 822m, 8 points (activated 3 times so far)
Gündleskopf 1748m, no SOTA summit
9:00 UTC - DL/AL-129 Buralpkopf, 1772m, 6 points, (activated 2 times so far)
[formerly: DL/AL-128] Sederer Stuiben, 1737 m, no longer a SOTA summit
10:15 UTC - DL/AL-127 Stuiben, 1749m, 6 points (activated 4 times so far)
Steinköpfle 1670m
[formerly: DL/AL-126] Steineberg, 1683m, no longer a SOTA summit
Mittagberg 1451m, no SOTA summit

Callsign
I will operate as DK3IT/P.

Frequencies and Mode
The activations will be CW-only. I will start with 40m, first around 7.031 MHz and if there is no unused frequency, around 7.002 MHz. I will only move on to 30m or 20m as a last resort.

The tour is pretty long, and the weather not perfectly stable. Thus, I kindly ask all chasers to support me in this endeavor, and to understand my constraints:

  1. Please QRS 12 wpm!
  2. Please spot me and indicate the correct summit reference. I will set up an alert for DL/AL-132 Hochgrat and a wildcard alert for the entire day.
  3. Please give your callsign ONCE only. Once I grasp part of a callsign, I will request it with the part that I got (like SP?).

Because of the constraints, I will be forced to limit my time on the air, in particular for the first two summits. If we make good progress and if the weather remains stable, I might have a bit more time on the last two summits.

Please help me make this ambitious SOTA project a success by chasing me!

Many thanks in advance!

73 de Martin, DK3IT

An overview of the region and summits is here:

Hi Martin

I can’t help but to congrat you to this idea. We’d been there last summer and I love this ridge. The full ridge to Immenstadt would have been out of my possibilities indeed - I was happy with Hochgrat (very busy on a nice weekend) and Rindalphorn (a place to loose the soul for a moment, hi - see me there on the pic, the yellow dot at the fence).

Enjoy your day!

Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ

Thanks, Markus! Nice picture and report!
My initial plan was to try this as a skitour in Winter, for you can earn 4 x 3 points winter bonus and thus 40 points in total in a single day. The problem is that you can only do this as a skitour in a relatively short period of the year: It has to be late in the season for reducing the avalanche risk, and yet it need to be early enough to find sufficient snow conditions. And often these matching weeks will be after the winter bonus closes ;-(

73 de Martin, DK3IT

I am back safe and sound. Sorry that I could not activate the 4th summit (Stuiben): When I had just erected my EFHW @ 6m carbon-fibre mast, I got a very light stroke from touching the BNC, and the very same moment, the mast attached to a wooden post started “singing” from tiny electrical arcs. I somehow managed to tear down the mast and pack up. This was close and hard to see coming. From the weather and clouds I thought we’d have at least 45 more minutes. But the air was very charged.

Report to follow!

73 de Martin

1 Like

Thanks for this heads up. Good to keep in mind for my future life as a SOTA activator.

Looking forward to your report.

73 Joe

I have only experienced that once and it was thrilling (and a very good impetus to get off the mountain top quickly, as you note!). Looking forward to the report.

73,
Joe