I had again the pleasure of activating a new unique today. Mi. Eskintza EA2/NV-148:
Weather forecast was predicting some rain showers but I decided to try it anyway.
This low summit is not far from my QTH -less than 20Km- and it’s close to the small village of Cirauqui/Zirauki, where my oldest known Guru (Gurucharri/Gurutzarri) ancestors were born back in 1625.
At the clean and well gardened summit, surrounded by spine fences (barbed wire) to prevent vehicles from entering, there’s a very nice flat surface with an hermitage and some granite tables with benches by the geodesic vertex.
I started my activation earlier than expected because the ascent wasn’t as long as described on Mendikat.net page. There’s a good dirt road allowing cars to get to the very summit and although I didn’t drive up to the summit, I parked not too far down of it and I only had to hike up in the middle of a very nice humid forest for about 15 minutes.
While I was approaching the summit I was seeing thick clouds and rainbows in the sky just warning me that the rain was around and pretty close.
I installed my 7m GP with the 8 counterpoise wires extended radially equidistant around the vertical telescopic fishing rod holding the 7m of wire antenna inside it.
Before starting activity on HF I called on 2m FM and Ignacio (EA2BD) responded immediately. After some more CQ calls without response, I QSYed to 30m CW.
Starting with Ignacio EA2BD, 22 QSOs were completed on this band in 21 minutes.
Then I QSYed to 20m and 23 QSOs were completed in 21 minutes. The last one was a S2S QSO with YO/DL2DXA/P who called me. Thank you!
Unexpectedly I decided to give 40m a try. I completed 8 QSOs on this band and had an interesting anecdote I want to tell you. After my last QRZ? on 40m I copied EA7HZ calling me at 0843 utc, so I wrote his callsing down on my notebook, repeated his callsign and gave him his report 599. When I gave him over to come back to me, I surprisingly copied a HB9 station giving me 599 73 TU over the EA7 station. Then I transmitted NO, NO, NO and again EA7HZ 599 BK. Then EA7HZ only came back to me and we completed QSO. After this last QSO I called CQ or QRZ? and nobody else came back. It will be interesting to look up the chaser log of this HB9 station in order to see whether he has logged this phantom QSO in the database.
Then I changed to 12m but my batteries were pretty low by that time, only 9v, so I guess my output power was nearly 2,5w only. In these QRPP conditions just one QSO was completed on this band.
It was 9h utc and I was starting to feel a bit too cold and shaking, but QSYed to 2m in order to give a final chance to the local chasers. 6 QSOs were completed this time on 2m FM before I finished this very first activation of Mount Eskintza (739m)
All in all, 61 QSOs were completed in this activation and rain just started when I had packed everything and was about to start descent.
I was very lucky!
Thanks a lot to all chasers for your calls and company. Also to the good friends spotting me on Sotawatch cluster.
Best 73 de Guru - EA2IF
In reply to EA2IF:
Nice one, Guru! Keep on "sota"ing!
73 de Mikel
In reply to EA2IF:
Thanks for report and QSO
73 QRO
Roger
In reply to EA2IF:
report 599. When I gave him over to come back to me, I surprisingly
copied a HB9 station giving me 599 73 TU over the EA7 station. Then I
transmitted NO, NO, NO and again EA7HZ 599 BK. Then EA7HZ only came
back to me and we completed QSO. After this last QSO I called CQ or
QRZ? and nobody else came back. It will be interesting to look up the
chaser log of this HB9 station in order to see whether he has logged
this phantom QSO in the database.
Just in case, I want to explain that today’s activated summit EA2/NV-148 has been correctly logged by HB9CGA and this is 100% OK, as we made a good QSO on 30m this morning.
Best 73 de Guru - EA2IF
In reply to EA2IF:
Dear Guru - EA2IF/p
Sorry, das war ich! Nach meinem Anruf um 08:43 UTC auf der QRG 7.029 hörte ich “…Z” und glaubte, du hättest mir geantwortet. Wegen QRM gab ich dir den RST 449. Es tut mir leid und ich habe das Phantom-QSO aus meinem chaser log gestrichen.
Vy 73 es hpe cuagn
de Peter - HB9BYZ
In reply to HB9BYZ:
Dear Peter,
I don’t understand German language but, with the help of a web based traslator, I’ve managed to understand your explanation. OK about my low signal, the QRM and the missinterpretation of me calling you when I was indeed calling the other station with suffix ending in Z.
Fine that you deleted the “phantom” QSO.
It’s a shame that you didn’t call me back afterwards and we couldn’t complete a good QSO.
Best 73 es hpe to cuagn sn.
de Guru - EA2IF
I have editted this old activation report to add some few pictures.
I hope you’ll enjoy them.