Triple activation report

Old Reflector
1

First of all many thanks to HB9CZF and M0GIA, who encouraged me to improve the antenna situation the way I did: I built a ZM-4 BLT and a Norcal Doublet antenna, also I purchased a fiber tower from DK9SQ.

I made my first steps with this new equipment last weekend.

At first I hiked up to OE/OO-281 (Zwieselberg) to do a first activation. With a good map and my memories from skiing in winter I found my trail (no marked hiking tracks at this mountain). The first use of my new antenna brought 11 QSOs on 40m in CW within minutes.

As I was a little bit late I packed my gear and headed to OE/OO-066 (Ploeckenstein) at the border between Austria and the Czech Republic. Because DD1LD activated this summit two weeks ago with 22 QSOs on 40m, I supposed to do a local activation on VHF. But no more than 3 QSOs, it was horrible. So I reassembled my HF system, this time with the ATX-1080 instead of the dipole. So I got 2 additional QSOs on 40m, time to leave.

Next summit was OE/OO-269 (Reischlberg), also on the border, where I built up my dipole. I found a perfect support for it. Here I was rewarded for my activity with 16 QSOs on 40m in CW.

Thank you for all my QSO partners. Because I made no announcement on the Sotawatch page, I was surprised happily by the little time it took for the first contacts. Besides I am also happy about my QSO with Roy, G4SSH, it was his summit 2998 as chaser.

In the evening I was happy about my success, reviewing the day:

12 h (7:30am local time to 7:30pm) total time, parted into
3 h driving (I didn’t count the distance).
6 h hiking 17.25km, summarized ascending heigth 1034m (data from GPS)
3 h resting and being a radio amateur.

I left some pictures in the SOTA photo pool.

Tnx for / to all and 73 de

OE5DIN
Helmut / Andy

2

In reply to OE5DIN:

Many thanks for the report and the excellent photos. I think maybe that 40m CW is the one band / mode combination that does not really need an alert, unless of course the activation is early or late in the day. I have always been pleased with the activity when I have had time to include 40m CW into my itinerary.

I was interested to see that you averaged 1 hour per summit doing radio / resting. Having done many multiple summit activations, I have found that I need to allow a minimum of 1 hour per summit for a good activation including the set up and dismantling time. Sometimes I allow 90 minutes which is much more relaxed. The problem is when you are trying to activate 5 or 6 summits, there are just not enough hours in the day for 1 hour on each!

73, Gerald G4OIG

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In reply to G4OIG:

I had much luck, to need only 1 hour per summit averaged. In my former activations I had good and bad days. E.g. the 28th of February, where I made 16 QSOs within half of an hour from DM/BM-065. Two weeks later, it took two hours for 8 QSOs from DM/BM-012. And on the 12th of April I got not more than 2 QSOs from OE/ST-330 (see my former posting)!!

Because I knew the territory for the last weekend only from winter, I didn’t know exactly about the expected time to walk. But I was in the estimated time and QSOing made no delay, so I decided to make the third mountain.

For unfortunately reasons (“heavy legs”, spending too much QSO-time … ) I had a “Plan B” in mind. Between the second and the third summit I saw an ecape trail on the map, that would have led me to my car quickly. But I was in time, so i decided to hike up to the third summt OE/OO-269 (Reischlberg).

73 de OE5DIN
Helmut / Andy