SOTA at Mallorca, EA6/MA-040, Talaia d'Alcúdia

Hi All,

For 37 years I visit Mallorca and went up the Talaia d’Alcúdia, EA6/MA-040 many times but last year I took Hamradio gear up for the first time. This was quite a disappointment. Using an antenna that didn’t performed that good on a mountaintop with only 5 Watts and a small battery last year, I choose a slight different setup this year.

First of all my battery has now 7 Ah instead of 3.2 or so. This caused me also the first time being announced at the airport :wink:
Need to get to the security desk of Eindhoven Airport. After I unpacked my bag and get out the battery, we discussed this as Lithium cells are not aloud to take with you on board above a certain capacity level. As I used a Lead (Pb) battery with plastic covers on the terminals, all went well and after 5 minutes I could get back to my coffee :wink:

Second; I will use a wire antenna and a tuner instead of the HF-MP1 vertical portable antenna.

With these two new things and my brother in law who will do the catering (pans con queso y jamon y una cerveca) and help me a bit with setting up the gear this will be a more successful trip to the summit then last year.

Planning on going on SOTA day, September 9th @ 9.00 UTC so I hope to be heard trough all the other SOTA stations.
I will probably operate on 7Mhz and 14MHz SSB. Setup will be a Yaesu FT-817 and a tuner in combination with an wire antenna.

Hope you all to work me and I will also post a brief report after the activation. Now going to enjoy the nice temperatures here and get back to the poolside :wink:

Rick, EA6/PE2AAB/P

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Hi Rick,

I wish you a succesful activation this time. I didn’t activate that summit, but did many others last May, see my reports here :

Maybe you will be inspired to leave your “pool comfort zone” and do some more summits …
73 - Luc ON7DQ

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Did I miss something Rick? when was SOTA day announced? Or is this just a Dutch SOTA day?

In any case, well done getting the heavy 7AH SLAB battery through the airport and good luck carrying the weight up the hil (or will this be in your brother’s pack?). Although vertical antennas DO work from summits, they need a good counterpoise or radial configuration, a dipole or end fed half wave wire antenna is easier to set up and get working (in my experience). From your description, I think you are going with an end-fed wire of some kind (by the way, they also need a good counterpoise or radial wires for the best operation), so attach some wire to the screw on the back of the 817 and throw it out somewhere (two or thtree different lengths, would be even better.

Good luck with the activation.

73 Ed DD5LP.

Hi Ed,

Not sure if you missed something. Only thing I have seen was many Austrian stations that are active on 9-9 as can be found on the Sotawatch Alerts website so that’s why I mentioned it. :wink: (OE5 SOTA Day)

I will work with an end fed antenna with a 1:64 transformer to adjust the impedance. This should work ok.
And the 7Ah battery is a must I think. With less you can’t handle a nice Pile Up :wink:

Maybe investing in a nice foldable solarpanel and charge regulator would be something nice for the future.

But The operation will be Holiday style and not a vacation fully adjusted to Hamradio. I have my 1,5 Year old QRP with me so Platja would be more it this vacation :smiley:

Hi Luc,

It was very nice to watch your movie of you activation!! This inspires :wink:
But, as mentioned above, it is a Holiday style activation so my main interest would be my 1,5 year old QRP and the rest of the family :wink:

Still; looking forward to conquer the EA6/MA-040 again :wink:

AH! OK, the OE5 SOTA day - yes that has happened for a few years now and it ceratinly increases activity on the bands! Unfortunately because of skip distance from here, I can’t hear most of the activators - the chasers calling them are booming in, but nothing from the activators in about 70% of the cases.

Ed.