Alto do Anxelio EA1/CR-020 by EA2IF/P on 19/07/2017

I had a new chance to activate in the afternoon-evening and I chose Alto do Anxelio EA1/CR-020, which is near La Coruña, capital city of the province with this same name.

It had been raining in the morning and the sky wasn’t looking very promising when I was driving to the target:

Despite the dark grey clouds above the mountain, I decided to go ahead and try to activate.

With my AWD Ssangyong RODIUS, I managed to drive up to the AZ and parked about 200m away of the summit trig point.

I hiked just the few remaining meters to the trig point and set up very close to it.

This was today’s set-up:

Again the same thing as when I started my previous activation: as soon as I switched my rig ON and tuned on 20m CW, I found an activator in action.

Unlike the previous day, this time I had my notebook and pencil ready, so I called him and we completed our S2S QSO.

I remained on his frequency for a while and he soon announced QRT or QSY (I don’t remember now), so I decided to start CQing on that same frequency. I had a short run of 12 QSOs in 13 minutes, one of which was a DX from the USA with Bob, AC1Z.

When 20m CW dried up, I QSYed to SSB. There, given the good signals both ways, I had a nice brief chat with my first chaser Don, G0RQL and logged 2 more QSOs, one with Karl M3FEH and the other with Pedro EA2CKX. Signals with these last 2 were not as good as with the first one.

No more callers on 20m SSB made me QSY to 30m.

My friend Jorge EA2LU had told me through whatsapp that he wasn’t copying me on 20m.

When I selfspotted and started CQing on 30m, I had no chasers and Jorge EA2LU told me on whatsapp that again he wasn’t copying me on 30m.

Since there seemed to be no chasers on 30m and I wasn’t willing to let Jorge wait longer for me, I QSYed to 40m and we finally completed a QSO. Thanks, Jorge!

I kept CQing for about 15 minutes on 40m CW but not a single chaser came after EA2LU.

So I QSYed to try 17m and after a selfspot followed by CQing with result of no chasers at all, I decided to switch into S&P mode.

On S&P I completed QSO with AM625VQ and IK0YVV before going back to 20m CW looking for some other DX with Northamerica.

A new selfspot followed by CQing produced 4 more QSOs, with Italy, Denmark, Belarus and Germany.

Then, with no more chasers coming in, I switched mode again into S&P and completed a QSO with EU4U.

A complete scan of the CW segment on 20m band revealed not a single station from Northamerica was coming in, so I QSYed to 15m.

On 15m I could only copy one single station CQing. He was a LU8 from Argentina and I answered several times to his calls but he, unfortunately, wasn’t copying my QRP and kept CQing :frowning:

It was almost time for me to QRT, but I QSYed back to 17m, where I made S&P again and completed QSO with Emilio EB4IC in Badajoz.

After packing up, I took this picture of the city of La Coruña as it was seen from the summit of Alto do Anxelio.

It finally was worthwhile trying because it didn’t rain and I enjoyed another successful activation and a new nice time in the mountain and on the air.

Thanks dear chasers for your calls and QSOs.

Best 73,

Guru

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