I drove up to the top of our local SOTA summit this morning.
The summit was inside the cloud and everything was very wet.
I setup with a 14m long wire as a sloper from the top end of my 7m telescopic fishing rod to a 9:1 unun with an elevated 6m long counterpoise wire.
Condensation on the antenna and counterpoise wires:
The activation went like this:
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30m CW: 24 QSOs, 2 of which were S2S, after about 30 minutes QRV.
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20m CW: 17 QSOs after about 16 minutes QRV.
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40m SSB: 79 QSOs after about 50 minutes QRV.
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40m CW: 11 QSOs, 1 of which was S2S, after about 15 minutes QRV.
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20m CW: 5 QSOs, 1 of which was DX with the USA.
All in all 136 QSOs, 1 DX USA and 3 S2S after 2.5 hours on air.
By the time I finished this activation, the cloud had vanished and I could have some views like this:
I had great pile ups on 30m CW and 40m SSB, which I enjoyed very much. It was very nice having the chance to exchange 73 and Merry Christmas wishes with you all.
Thank you!
73,
Guru