Dear all
We had a very nice tour to the Grünhorn summit today, OE/VB-353, thanks for a dozen of contacts, among these @DL6FBK, first activator here. Grünhorn is located at the borders of the Austrian OE/VB regions Kleinwalsertal and Bregenzerwald. There is a considerable hike to the Grünhorn summit from the village of Baad or from the top station of the Walmendingerhorn cableway. The summit is the top of a small ridge and offers splendid outlooks and a great flora - never seen that much Alpine roses and all sorts of other flowers, simply great.
The Walmendingerhorn, OE/VB-376, itself is an easy summit due to the cableway. We got there on the way back from Grünhorn, 1 hour prior to the last run at 15h45 local time. The activation started well with 3 contacts on 20 m. So 40 m would bring the final 4th contact - I supposed.
But SOTAwatch didn’t accept any spot. I filled in the form of SOTAwatch 2 and 3 several times each on the browser of my phone, SOTAwatch 2 simply showed my last spotting on 20 m on the first line but not my new spot for 40 m or any other new spot, and SOTAwatch 3 didn’t recognized my taps on the submit button - simply no reaction. APRS2SOTA didn’t spot, either. Calling on the frequency was in vain, too, since only those fellows with the small ears and the big . . . had remained there at that time, so no opportunity for a 4th contact unexpectedly. At 16h30 and a slowly nervous partner to the side we decided to leave the summit incomplete with 3 contacts only, so as not to miss the last run down to the valley.
So, this was a special lesson of what can happen on a simple summit - a story for the Murphy logbook. Maybe Jon @G4ZFZ or one of the tech guys can have a look at the spotting facility if something unusual had happened between 14h15 and 14h29 today, thanks.
Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ