Dear all
I’m proud to announce the next Golden Ticket for you here, for your HB15SOTA diploma:
HB/VS, canton Valais . . .
. . . home of cheese fondue and the famous white wine Fendant, made of Chasselas grapes.
Valais is one of our big mountain paradises, located in the south-western part of HB9 and a premiere for me: first time in Valais for SOTA, after 4 years participating in the programme. I’m looking forward to this moment! Meteo should be okay, quite cold on the summits, with some degrees below zero, but no snow.
I’ll be on Croix-de-Culet, HB/VS-240, next Saturday March 20, 2021. I don’t translate this summit name into English, because it’s not very decent in my opinion – but French does always sound fine! It’s probably the easiest summit of HB/VS, since there is a big teleferic starting in Champéry, and the top station at 1,945 m.a.s.l. is already in the activation zone, with the real summit only 17 meters higher. So probably easy to activate, but I’ll be on public transports taking me about five hours for one way from Lucerne. There is a local train from Aigle to Champéry in the track with about 25 stops, hi. So your SOTA adventure requires my very patient side.
One week later, there is unfortunately a big contest taking place. So there will probably be only a first test regarding FT8 from my side, since I’m not that much fond of doing SOTA by calling a few big elephants or crocodiles. Just thought it should be possible to catch some alternative energy from those thousand fellows shouting “cq contest” – would certainly be enough for several SOTA activations!
I’ve tried hard to motivate other HB9SOTA club fellows to fill in your HB15SOTA diploma gaps and to alert even early in any case and in any mode (even CW!) to provide better help for you to be successful even for the S2S HB15SOTA diploma! So my part is done by announcing now this non-adventure, but let’s make one for you out of all the funny ingredients! They speak French in Valais and I’ll try to call on SSB even in the French language.
Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ
PS: HB/VS is not for Eric unfortunately, since HB/VS is already in your HB15SOTA log, but I’m looking forward to hear you all the same! And Roger, F5LKW, who still needs this gem.
PPS: And listen for Stephan HB9EAJ: he will probably be in the HB/NE region on Sunday - the land of pendulum clocks with thousands of clocks – but only 4 SOTA summits!