Dear all
March at last – still winter, but spring is not far. A good opportunity to escape from the daily routine and to enjoy last winter pleasures «from above» in the Swiss Alps.
There are many opportunities to do so even for pedestrians and users of the public transport system like me. Considering the activities of others, I had opted for Weissfluh, 2844 m.a.s.l. It took me 4 hours each way to get there from Lucerne. The ascent from Davos Dorf (1560 m.a.s.l.) consists of two funiculars and a cable car.
View up to Höhenweg, connecting station of the two funiculars.
View from Weissfluh summit station to the South: a big steamboat of clouds over one of the ridges.
The summit is the top station of a big ski circus covering the northern summits of Klosters and Davos, so there are several slopes starting from the Weissfluh summit. There are a weather radar, some military installations and a restaurant on the summit. You can certainly combine SOTA here with some skiing.
The activation zone starts nearby the restaurant, and I chose my place just nearby one of these snowed up cabins at the radar station, at the starting point of the black slope #1. The #1 sign was my mast support and I could sit on a snow step using my protection mats. So I folded myself up to sit there and was happy to have beautiful sunshine, no wind and some curious skiers considering what I was doing there. One asked me if I was an agent transmitting secrets, hi.
Link: operating position on Swisstopo Maps.
The activation went quite well, beside sitting there in a tailor seat position for an hour (but you know: we enjoy suffering for our hobby!). There was same constant noise covering the bands, probably from the summit installations, so I switched from my common 14,3xx frequencies to 14,260 kHz. One chaser from far away gave me 57, others were weaker than common. HB9BIN/p on Mount Rigi got a 31 only after cutting him out of the noise and recognizing the melody of his voice. 40 m was better, but much QRM. I had to wind one leg of my EFHW around my backpack, so this may have cost some dB, but most counterparties came in well, even a German mobile station not far from Hamburg. I was finally happy to have 22 SSB contacts in my log: 3 on 20 m and 19 on 40 m.
One fact to consider in Switzerland is always the price. There are many lifts accepting the Swiss half fare card, but not here. So calculate CHF 44 for your SOTA adventure for the fare from Davos to Weissfluh summit.
Thanks for all contacts and see you on a next one!
Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ
PS: There is a listing “Swiss Cable Car Summits” on our HB9SOTA club website presenting Swiss SOTA summits that are well accessible by a cable car, cog railway, funicular, ski lift, chair lift or gondola. This summit is one of them.
Presentation of Weissfluh summit from the cable car station on the arrival: restaurant (left), radar station and a snowed-up hut, my operating position.
This was my position: Number One today! Start of slope #1. This black slope disappears soon into the nowhere.
Do you understand the antenna wire layout? 
This was not the most comfortable position for me, but it was ok! Sunshine and no wind brought additional fun to the SOTA ingredients.
Panoramic view from the activator’s position on the left side at the #1 sign to the cable car station and the restaurant on the right side.
Each 5 minutes the same procedure: arrival of the skiers and self-distributing to the slopes. They have to walk some meters upwards from the cable car, and it looks like a procession.
View to the ski circus between Davos and Klosters: Totalp region, just east of Weissfluhjoch.
View down to Weissfluhjoch, top station of the upper funicular and a big junction to all directions. Weissfluhjoch is the home of the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF (Link)
HB/GR-250 was popular on this weekend. Ralf, HB9GKR, activated only one day later.
