51st Mt. San Cristóbal EA2/NV-119 by EA2IF/P on 28/05/2016

Activation Reports
1

Today’s WX forecast was for a possible rain shower at about 09 utc but, fortunately, it wasn’t like that and after dropping my son at the rock climbing place, I started the hike at 08h56, which was a few precious minutes earlier than usual.
I hiked a little bit faster today and got to the summit in 34 minutes, one minute below the average timing.
When I had already installed my 20m monoband mobile whip with the usual single wire radial and I was about to start my activation, a biker approached with his BTT to look at what I was doing and he got so close and asked about what I was doing with that stuff, that I told him about our SOTA activity and then asked him to take a picture of me at the operating position. So he did and this is the result:

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I was initially planning to start my activation on 20m CW, but as soon as I switched my rig ON and tuned 14.062, I found stations calling TEST which, for the non CW operators, is the short for CONTEST in morse code, so I immediately QSYed to 14.280, raised a selfspot and started the activation on SSB.

It was great fun and a pleasure logging 22 QSOs with several regular SOTA chasers, 4 of which were S2S QSOs, while enjoying a very nice warm and sunny morning.

This is the full log:

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And these are the S2S QSOs.

The band was a bit difficult with some severe and rapid QSB.
When I got home I found a whatsapp message from Antonio EC2AG telling me he was calling me for S2S QSO. Unfortunately I didn’t copy him today :frowning: and I always go so fast with so little time in these Saturday morning activations that I don’t have any moment to look to whatsapp or any other messages on the phone. I’m very sorry for this, Antonio.

After QRT and pack up, descent was done almost running, as I didn’t want to be late to pick up my son at the rock climbing training place.

Today, ascent plus descent took me 55 minutes and 57 seconds. As I hiked up in 34 minutes, this means descent was done in roughly 22 minutes.

My pulsometer tells me I burnt 36g of fat and 769 Kcal. The average heart beat rate was 157 BPM with a maximum of 174 BPM.

Another very nice and pleasant time out in the mountain doing some sports.
Thanks very much, dear chasers, for your calls and QSOs.

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I’ll be looking forward to meeting you again soon on the air from another summit.
Have a nice weekend.
73 from Guru

1 Like
2

Hello Guru,
Thanks for the report and contact today.
Well my day started at 0330Z when our dog, Bertie the greyhound, started making a noise. I then understood why because as I woke up there was a huge thunderstorm. I looked out of the window and there were big arc flashes across the Ashdown Forest which is very near. I have got into the habit for many years to always disconnect/earth antenna so I was not worried about it too much. The bands have been troubled, for me, by rapid QSB and QRN - not helped by the K index going up to four.
You told me on air how good the weather was for you and it is revealed in the photos :wink:

Well done.
Cheers
Mike

3

Thanks, Mike, for being ready for the very 1st call and QSO today.
I’m happy for having enjoyed our lovely sunny morning, because, as I told you on air, there were some clouds starting to develop into thunderstorm ones and I can tell you now that our sky is fully covered with clouds right now and I’m already starting to hear storm static crashes on my receiver, so it looks like we might have a thunderstorm here too.
May be not. When I activated Mt Erreniega yesterday evening, I was having QRN and I was seeing a storm and heavy rain towards the NorthWest of my location. The clouds were approacing me and I was almost thinking on making QRT and leaving the summit before the rain started, when something happened up there in the atmosphere, the rain I was clearly seeing far in the distance stopped and the dark clouds approaching me seemed to withdraw back to the NorthWest, so I finally didn’t have to run out of the summit and I could remain there until sunset and it started to get a bit dark.
Let’s see what will happen today…
Cheers,

Guru

4

Finally yes. It’s already raining and the wind is pretty strong.

5

Hi Guru
Vy tks for the S2S-QSO! I was working you with a KX3 with 15W and an endfed Dipole! 73 de DL/HB9BIN/p

28/May/2016 09:50 DL/HB9BIN/P EA2IF/P EA2/NV-119 San Cristóbal 14MHz SSB 2 *

1 Like