Chance SOTA meeting on Hohe Salve

Having ruled out my first choice of summit Gefrorene Wand-Spitzen OE/TI-746 due to the requirement for Via Farreta gear that I was unable to obtain in Mayrhofen I activated my second choice, the much easier Hohe Salve OE/TI-517 via cable car from Hopfgarten-Markt.

Shortly after setting up the MPAS 2.0 and IC-705 I added a spot for 20m, then whilst scanning the SOTA Spotter App for S2S I noticed my own summit having been spotted on 2m by Michael OE7MPI. I swapped the antenna briefly for a whip but didn’t hear anyone on 2m, then just having plugged the HF antenna back in Michael realised the same thing and wandered over to say hi.

Confirming what Joe @OE5JFE had told me before my visit - that a 2m only activation is quite tricky in OE7 - Michael confirmed that it was not only because there are only limited operators in the area but obviously that the geography is very much against 2m contacts. He had got two contacts on his handheld. He did say that they had a local simplex repeater in the church tower (shown behind him in one of the photos).

After a chat I offered the IC-705 to Michael to complete his activation - apologies to chasers who got confused at this point!

Great to get a couple of S2S in the log. After a photo opportunity I had a call from my wife who had found that there was no easy way to get back to Hohe Salve and I bugged out, back to the car to move it to a resort that they could access Scheffau, but having misjudged time in the afternoon we ended up being on the last chair lifts up out of a valley and could only then descend via the cable car at Ellmau so had a four bus trip to get back to the car at Scheffau. It’s never been that close before!

Happy New Year 2023 to all and hope to speak to you on the radio from a summit soon (hopefully tomorrow now we’re back in the Lakes).

TIME CALLSIGN BAND MODE RST RSR OPERATOR SIG REF
09:45 EA1DHB 20m SSB 59 55 Ricardo
09:46 SA4BLM 20m SSB 59 59 Lars
09:46 EA1AAP 20m SSB 55 55 Fernando
09:47 EA3IJB/P 20m SSB 59 55 Daniel SOTA EA3/BC-010
09:47 SV3IEG 20m SSB 59 57 Dinos
09:48 SM5LNE 20m SSB 59 57 Jan
09:50 2E0VRX 20m SSB 59 54 Craig
09:53 EA2DT 20m SSB 59 55 Manuel
09:54 EA2BD 20m SSB 59 44 Ignacio
09:56 RC7A 10m SSB 59 59 Valery
10:07 SQ9BQW/P 20m SSB 59 59 Wojciech SOTA SP/BZ-043
10:27 G4OBK 20m SSB 59 56 Philip
10:28 EA3EVL 20m SSB 44 57 PABLO
10:28 SA4BLM 20m SSB 59 55 Lars
10:48 SP6KEP 40m SSB 55 33 Radio
10:55 G3TQQ 17m SSB 55 55 J
10:55 SV2OXS 17m SSB 55 57 Christos
11:07 EA2BO 17m SSB 55 55 Raul

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