In the start of February I flew down to Brüssel for some SOTA action in the famous mountain country of Belgium.
It would be my second visit to Belgium, the previous was a short stay on a long road trip from Norway back in 2022, this time I would have four days and a rental car.
I flew down Sunday evening to get a head start on activating Monday, and joined our weekly stream over on The European Ham Radio Show from the hotel.
Day 1 - February 3rd 2025
Monday was a really nice day for activations, and had the best weather I had on the trip. I activated four SOTA’s and their associated POTA’s where available. This was a beautiful trip through the Belgian and French countryside, and my first visit to France.
Day two was the big point-harvesting day for me. I drove eastwards and activated five summits, with a short stop over to Luxembourg to activate a POTA area near the border.
I activated ON/ON-016, ON/ON-004, ON/ON-010 and ON/ON-001, with a total of 35 points including winter bonuses, which is a totally insane number considering that these were drive-to’s or near drive-to’s, and that most of the summits near my QTH are worth one point for more work than all of these combined. But, this was also the reason I picked this trip.
The weather was very varied, with most of the day dominated by heavy fog and temperatures around zero. This made for some amazing scenery though, with ice covered trees and some lovely views whenever the sun got through the cloud layer.
