The weather report for Good Friday was initially quite good, so I decided to try a fairly easy double activation in the Fischbacher Alpen; starting with the Plankogel and then the Schweineck in the afternoon. With fresh snow the parking spaces at the Plankogel were barely accessible:
_The Plankogel is dead easy, just a short walk from the car. That said, I was very glad I brought the skis and climbing skins. My skis are all mountain skis, and even over a short distance they felt really heavy; mental note: buy the very lightest touring skis and pin bindings possible next year! There was not much to see today at the summit today unfortunately, no sign of spring here:
There was a southern Föhn wind blowing today, so I took shelter on the north side, still just in the AZ:
The snow pack was very wet and slabby, which made it very easy to build pole supports and fashion a nice place to sit:
When it came time to tune the Fuchskreis I found I had forgotten the MCX/SMA adapter for the SARK 110: ****! I had also charged the battery up to 12.1V, so I was very wary of what might happen to the finals on the MTR3b. Luckily, I had left the inductor set for 40m, and with a little fiddling with the capacitor I found I was able to get a very clear peak in the signal that was also quite narrow. I took a chance and can happily report that the MTR3b is non the worse for the experience. The Föhn wind brought plenty of moisture with it and my gear was icing up nicely by the time I came to pack everything away. You can see the antenna wire sagging under the weight of the ice build-up:
Unfortunately it started to rain steadily as I headed back down the valley to the Schweineck, so I decided to call it a day, having just broken through the 200 point barrier. Hopefully I will be able to at least double that this year. I also found out that the Schurr SOTA Wabbler works well even when quite damp.
de OE6FEG / M0FEU
Matt