Later this week I’ll be on business in the Netherlands. Naturally my thoughts turn to getting in an activation, if only I can persuade my colleagues who will be sharing a car with me.
The target summit is PA/PA-004, Torenberg (Apeldoorn).
First, I note that hardly any 2-m QSOs have been made from the PA summits (none at all from PA-004). Should I infer from this that calling on 2-m FM would be a waste of time?
Is there a good café (or anything else likely to keep my 3 colleagues amused for long enough for me to do the activation) near to PA/PA-004?
Not really, it’s typical Dutch Pine Forest and you must stay on the tracks because of unexploded ordinance from army training.
PA/PA-005, Galgenberg is much nicer, it’s an actual hill with picnic benches above a small glider airfield. The airfield has a cafe/bar but check opening times because when I was there (in the winter) it was closed during the week.
Dr OM Simon,
For your activation of PA/PA-004, go to the Kampsteeg in Hoog Soeren (Apeldoorn). This is well within the AZ. Hotel & Restaurant De Echoput is on a distance of abt 700 m from the Kampsteeg on the Amersfoortseweg (N344).
There is a repeater PI3UTR - 145.5750 CTCSS 77.0 - with coverage over whole Holland. From there you can direct Chasers to a non repeater frequency. A Spot will also help to make QSO’s on 2 m.
73 de geert PA7ZEE
Hi Simon,
I did this summit last year, and parked my car along the road “Kampsteeg”, here 52.231098, 5.865326 , and setup my station a bit into the track, which begins with this warning sign
So make sure to use headphones, your radio might be seen as a “playing music device” (spelend muziekapparaat) … hi.
And be polite at all times … you’re on “royal territory” !
GL es 73 Luc ON7DQ
That seems like a very strange repeater frequency. For a start it puts the input in the UK MGM (data modes) part of the band while the output is a common UK simplex frequency.
The frequencies are correct. I seem to recall that the 70cm repeaters in PA are set with the input & output frequencies opposite to those used in the UK too, although it is over 20 years since I was last over there.