PA 2m and cafés

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?

Thanks,

Simon

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.

73, Colin G8TMV

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

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Thanks Geert, that looks very smart. My colleagues would significantly lower the tone! :smile:

Great idea! I will programme that into my VX7.

I certainly would not claim any musicality to my CW Luc! So hopefully I will get away with it. :blush:

Ok Colin, but it’s further off route and I think my chances of persuasion are at best 50% as-is.

Thanks all, Simon

Outrageous! I bagged PA/PA-004 onto a trip to Aachen. I even got an upgraded car from Enterprise, a Mini Cooper S instead of some Hyundai Noddy car.

Have fun.

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.

73, Colin G8TMV

Hi Colin,

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.

73, Mark G0VOF

Quite a lot of the UK ones now have a “wide-split” which is several MHz and negative rather than the usual positive offset on older 70cms repeaters.

73, Colin G8TMV

My activation of going ahead. En route now.

Sadly I’ve had to cancel the activation after all due to heavy traffic. :frowning2: