Another weekend, another Saturday summit activation.
Mt Torbreck, VK3/VN-001, is the tallest summit in the Victoria - North Central region at 1516 m ASL. The access to the summit starts at about 1180m ASL and rises to 1470m ASL in 1.2 km, the track then levels off for about 300m before rising the last 46 m of elevation in about 200m. The access track varies from a 3m wide slashed path in the lower sections to nothing more than a scramble up slippery rocks and some over and under recently fallen trees.
This activation was my fifth climb up and, it took me 1 hour 20 minutes to reach the summit. When I left the car, the sky was clear, the sun was shining and the temperature was about 14° C, when I reached the summit cairn the temperature had dropped to about 8° C and the low cloud robbed me of any views.
I set my station up near the rock cairn, using a burnt-out stump to support my 6m squid pole with my hourglass antenna attached. I got on air just after 0000 UTC and made 15 QSOs on 2 m SSB in about 35 minutes, then nothing for the next 15 minutes. During this quiet time the wind briefly whisked the clouds away, although the temperature didn’t lift.
After seeing a spot from @ZL3DRN on ZL2/CB-735, I rigged the station for HF, with an Inverted L antenna on the squid pole, logged the S2S QSO, and other 43 QSOs on HF.
Wanting to continue trying 2m SSB and hoping to catch Gerard @VK2IO on 40m during a WWFF activation, I moved the Inverted L wire to the top of the cairn, allowing me to reinstate the hourglass on the squid pole.
Returning to 2m SSB I logged another 5 QSOs making a total of 20 QSOs on 2m SSB ranging from 89 to 162 km. I also managed eight QSOs on 40m with the inverted L wire draped up the stone cairn and then out to a tree.
Leaving the summit at about 1220 and pausing to take some photos of the obstructed views part way down, I was back at the car in just over 1 hour.
