Mt. Esparatz EA2/NV-095 by EA2IF/P on 03/04/2016

Activation Reports
1

Although I yesterday wrote in my activation report of Mt. Alaitz that I would try to activate Mt. Itzaga today, I changed my mind last night and decided to go for a closer 4 pointer one, as I knew my wife and children would be back by about lunch time and I wanted to be home by that time.
So I chose Mt. Esparatz, which is at sight from the village where I live and I had not activated since 2014.

I drove the 25Km from my QTH to the little village of Argiñariz and this is the GPS track I followed.
However, I didn’t notice when I was hiking but I have realised now that I did the long tour at the right hand side contouring the mountain instead of the short direct one. Honestly I didn’t see where I missed the track to the short route. Well, it was a good walk which gave me great views and nice pics.

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This is the montain seen from the village where I have my QTH:

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After parking the car in the village of Argiñariz, first thing to do if you want to hike Mt. Esparatz is going to church:

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Just kidding…
You just have to enter and exit through the gate at the opposite end:

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This is a view of the very little village of Argiñariz taken during the ascent:

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One of the nice views I enjoyed during the ascent:

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Once in the wide and comfortable summit, I enjoyed beautiful views like these:

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I set-up the endfed antenna with my 7m pole attached to the trig point concrete cilinder.
Today I started the activation on 40m CW for a change and it produced a good number of QSOs, although the frequency I found initially clear became pretty noisy with RTTY after some minutes.
After 40m, I QSYed to 30m, then 20m SSB and finally 20m CW.
I had a lot of fun and after 1 hour and 40 minutes of non stop activity, I collected nearly 70 QSOs and an unusual big number of S2S. Several SV2 were in the mountains today and they all called me on 20m SSB. Thanks guys!
This is the full log of today’s activation:

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And here is the S2S log:

By the time I ended my activation, a big group of people (men, women, children and a dog) had got to the summit and they all were wondering about my fishing :slight_smile:
While I was packing up, I briefly explained a bit of what I was doing there with my fishing pole.

On my descent I took this picture where you can see the city of Pamplona far in the distance.

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It’s been a great weekend with 3 successful activations, 12 points gathered and a lot of fun.

Thank you very much for your calls and QSOs.
I’ll be looking forward to hearing you again soon.
Have a nice week and best 73 de Guru

5 Likes
2

Thanks for the QSO Guru!

I didn’t even hear VK0EK, never mind work them, so it was nice to pick up some SOTA points!

I was at my parent’s place in Carlisle, I had built an end fire array for 17m and I had my usual linked dipole for 40/30/20m.

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I was operating from the garage with a borrowed FT857D. It took quite a bit of planning and preparation to get on the air with 100 watts this weekend!

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I worked you with the dipole, but the end fire array will be awesome for SOTA, the front to back was extremely impressive!

Now back to QRP…

73, Colin

2 Likes
3

Hi Colin,
It was great pleasure for me to be chased by you.
I’ve chased you 11 times so far but I’ve been chased by you just once: today!
Nice pictures of the shack with that FT-857 and the arrays your parents let you put in their garden.
I’m pretty sure they will ask you to dismantle all those poles and guy ropes before the grass has to be mowed again. And we are now in spring time so that will happen more and more often from now on.
Interesting for me to learn about end fire antennas. I think I had never heard about them and I’ve been reading and learning about them now on the web.
Let us know which band will you build it for and which direction will you choose when you install it on ground, as I understand you wont make it rotary.
I’ve read that WX changes may change setting, so you’ll probably have to adjust it for wet weather, which is the most common in UK, but it’s something difficult as it will force you to work outside on the antenna during the rainy WX.
Let us know your thought on this, please.
Perhaps you wish to open a new thread to speak about endfire antennas.
Best 73 de Guru

4

Hi Guru,

Nice to see I wasn’t the only one testing antennas on the garden, hi. Colin, impressive QRO shack! Very interesting also that antenna setup.

I chased Guru this morning while adjusting my new End Fed (5 bander) in a park near my house. My flat is too narrow to extend the aerial as it passes across the kitchen, living room and bedroom…
Glad to have tested it when you were in the middle of the pile up.

Jorge EA2LU was so kind to aproach the park to visit me and he took this shoot:

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So Guru, glad you enjoyed that much. Have a well deserved rest and CU soon.
73 de Ignacio

5

Very nice to learn that you chased me while testing a new antenna in the park.
You should have signed /P despite being close to your QTH, shouldn’t you? :wink:
Would you, please, let us know the endfed antenna design you tested today?
Is it like the one you kindly home brewed for me and I was using today with great pleasure or is it a different type?
For your information, I have used the endfed antenna with a 6 to 7m long counterpoise wire today and yesterday and the logs of these 2 activations show many more QSOs than that of my Friday afternoon activation, in which I wasn’t using any counterpoise.
This may not be proof of anything because propagation conditions on Friday were not great and the number of chasers around is significantly lower than on a Saturday or a Sunday, but it’s worth mentionning, I think.
Best 73 de Guru

6

Hi Guru,

your endfed is a general purpose one that requires the use of a Tuner for any band.
Mine is a resonant endfed with a true half wave length for any of the bands it is designed for (7-10-14-18-21 MHz). It’s a EFHW.
I always deploy the antenna as inverted Vee because it’s longer than 10m and I use a 5m tall pole.

Nowadays I’m ending its construction but promise to post a detailed article because it is an hybrid version and I believe it is an original concept.

For your endfed it is recommended to use a counterpoise if your coax is not very long or if you sit next the feeder. Your results are very good so stay testing more and more and lets see if it confirms you get the best of it.
Raising the feed point over ground is also advisable.
If you don’t mind carrying the Tuner and get used to the approx settings for each band you can be happy with it and perform fast band changes.

Keep on enjoying with this toy. Take care on hills and have a nice week.
73 de Ignacio

7

Guru, I do not wish to hijack the thread, but also I do not really want to start another!

The antenna is just two ground plane antennas for 17m, spaced ¼wave apart (4.15m) and fed with 90° phase difference. In one direction, the 90° feed line phase difference plus the 90° physical spacing results in a total phase difference of 180° - cancellation. The antenna was aimed to fire at 135° (South East) towards Heard Island.

The antenna was temporary, only up for 24 hours, my parent’s garden is now back to normal! My operation was almost /portable, but I was using the garage electricity supply :smile:

I heard you on 30m CW but I think I had the 17m array coupled up.

Got back home just after 1700utc, the journey from my parent’s is about 180km.

I’m hoping to activate G/DC-001 at the end of the coming week, would be nice to meet on the air again. I’ll be back to QRP CW.

73, Colin