tomorrow I will drive to Sondernach in the FL/VO region. And stay for 5 nights.
I will try to activate some of my missing summits. I will be mostly active on 30 meters with my homemade QCX and HyEndFed. As backup I take with me, the 40 meter QCX, and HyEndFed 40/20/10. Ten meters fibre mast and 12V / 4000 mAH accu.
My ( rough ) planning is:
19/8
FL/VO-053
FL/VO-150
FL/VO-118
Maybe in the evening FL/VO-082 for some DX hi.
GL Tonnie, hope to hear you, but even for me FL/VO is difficult from my QTH (Oostende) : distance often too short for 40m and up + heavy local noise masks most QRP signals.
Great to see that you still had time for the NTC party last night,hi.
QUESTION : does anyone know if 60m /Portable is allowed now in France ? (it used to be forbidden).
Today I activated only 2 summits because of trafic. Not much chasers and QSO’s. After 10 minutes calling without chasers I stopped and went to the next summit.
FL/VO-118 is not easy to enter. That’s why I skipped that summit. So I went to the hotel in Sondernach. I arrived at 18:00. So not much time for another summit.
I also have my KX3 with me. So maybe I will try 60 meters. I will let you know in the alerst.
Today all three planned SOTA’s done. Unfortunately, during the first SOTA it rained. I tried to keep it dry with my umbrella. Unfortunately, the CW paddle had gotten wet anyway, so my CW sending was not really good. Sorry for that. Occasional dry blowing helped.
In total about 25 km walked and the three summits are in the pocket.
Hoping for dry weather for tomorrow. Thanks all the chasers. 73 - Tonnie - PA9CW
Today was a very nice day for sota. All planned 5 summits where activated.
On the first summit, FL/VO-003, I had a huge pile-up. It’s a very nice summit for SOTA. No wind and vy sunny. So the 10 meter mast was standing up nice.
All the next 4 summits where activated. I ended up at 18:00 local time on FL/VO-101. There is a tower on top of this summit. But in te tower there where a million ants. So no 360 view or activation from the tower.
I walked about 30 km.
Thanks all chasers, cu tomorrow. 73 - Tonnie - PA9CW
FL/VO-082
FL/VO-172
FL/VO-096 this one took me about one and a half hour to reach the top. It was extremely exhausting. As you can see. After 20 QSO’s I went down. I was around 18:00 local time back at the parking place. So no time for another SOTA today.
Made a lot of contacts. A lot of S2S and on FL/VO-082 a very nice 360 view.
Today was a very hot day with 31 degrees. The last summit, FL/VO-171 was a climb from 400 meters to the top 813 meters. It took me one hour to get to the top.
Tomorrow on the way back home, 3 summits.
Thanks all chasers. I had a great time.
Today was my last day in FL/VO, and activated FL/VO-023, 090 and 092 on my way home. These three summits can be activated in about 5 and a half hours. I stayed about 3 quarters on the summit and about half an hour air-time. Totall distance 8,5 km and climbed 416 hm. FL/VO-023 was very crowded. And on FL/VO-092 there was no shadow. And also not much chasers. Temp was > 30 ℃.
Great job Tonnie, your name should be Tonnie Filmmakers! hi
Nice to see the many familiar summits where I’ve been, and discover new ones that I still have to visit someday.
73,
Luc ON7DQ
Well done Tonnie! I was in Vosges in August as part of my motorcycle tour. I think it’s a lovely little part of France, and of course, there are many summits to enjoy. I met up with HB9CYV (Chris) whilst I was there and we did a double activation of Le Grand Ventron:
