Last week we had family holiday in Schluchsee (Black Forrest). When made preparations to my surprise I’ve found 3 SOTA summits nearby, the nearest was DM/BW-849 only less than 3 km away (like the crow flys).
Wagnersberg from boat on Schluchsee, boat 928 m asl !
We travelled by train and limited the luggage to one small suitcase and one rucksack each, not much room for additional SOTA equipment. Only 2m FM hand-held? No, not sure to get 4 QSO. Usually FT-817 and so on? No, to much. So I took my 30 m QCX, a Palm mini paddle, earbuds and a 4 Ah LiFePo from Eremit (indeed to large but the smallest battery in my stock). The usually antennas were also to large and on 30 m only good with an ATU. From a piece of plastic, a toroid core, some screws, wire and 2 m RG 174 I made a EFHW quickly, tuned the wire in the backyard. A new bought 5 m travel fishing pole from Decathlon completed my antenna.
From Schluchsee a train brought me in 4 minutes to the next station Seebrugg and the endpoint of this route.
Train station
From here after 2.x km and 170 m ascend I reached the summit.
Start of the path up in the woodland
AZ with a flat top
The shack
Along the EFHW, pole is standing behind a branch of the tree - fast deployment
Feeding point with transformer
Starting on 2 m FM after a spot was a waste of time. But CW on 30 m was fun. On a Tuesday noon with 2.5 W 16 QSO in 42 minutes was a success for me. Calling some minutes on 2 m FM again: a new waste.
By the way: it was my first CW only activation. Thanks to all the chasers
EA2LU, ON7GO, CT1ILT, F4WBN, EA4R, 9A6ZE, S52CU, OK2PDT, EA2DT, OE6GND, GM4ZMK, OE7PHI, YO6CFB, OK1FMJ, GB2OGI, SM5LNE.
73, Ludwig