I activated EA5/AT-001 Aitana today for the first time (this was something I wanted to do long ago). The summit itself is inside a restricted military zone, but the activation zone extends outside the fence to the east. A patch of local evergreen oaks (“carrasques”, Quercus Ilex) at 38.6498, -0.2622 allowed me to attach a 5-metre fishing rod and an end-fed antenna, and I worked CW on 20 and 40 and SSB on 20: 36 QSO total.
Phone coverage was unstable but I successfully used SOTAMāt to spot myself via an FT8 message. I didn’t even try VHF as I could hear FM broadcast bleeding in some frequencies (yes, there are also some broadcast FM stations in the military zone).
I’ve been to this summit a few times, but 40 years ago. The usual way to approach it is through the Passet de la Rabosa (‘the fox’s little mountain pass), as I did when I was young but it scared me a bit, so I decided to take a much longer route. I started at the Font del Partagat (the Partagat fountain) next to Benifato and then walked up a 1.7-km dirt road east up to the Portet de Tagarina (the little mountain pass of Tagarina), where I took a clear path west that went up and down along the crest of the range for about 3.7 km.
One of the most dramatic places is the area of the SImes de Partagat (the Chasms of Partagat), where the land breaks into a tortured landscape (this is where one gets to through the famous Passet de la Rabosa).
Just before the place where I ended up stationing myself, there’s “Aitana Oriental”, a minor peak just 9 metres lower than the main summit, and inside the activation zone.
It took me about 2½ h to get to the summit, and about the same time to return.
No snow, but I got the 3-point winter bonus: total, 9 points. Yay!
