Motivation
I decided to activate a new one for me I never visited before.
I also wanted testing second time my new rig FX-4CR.
Activation date: Nov 29th 2024.
The climb
The summit can be accessed from the near village of Piedramillera.
This one is a two headed mountain, and perhaps that’s the reason for its name (Dos Hermanas = Two sisters).
As you approach Piedramillera you see the whole mountain. There is a concrete road going up to a relay station in the Western summit (820 m), while the SOTA summit is at the Eastern peak (863 m). The hike from the relay station makes this a very easy summit, reducing the effort and the elevation gain.
The road up to the relay station is about 2 km from Piedramillera.
- Trail length from the relay to the summit: 0,8 km (one way)
- Mt. Dos Hermanas elevation: 863 m
- Elevation gain from the relay: abt. 50 m
- Walking time from the relay to the summit: 17 minutes
A few meters before the relay you see the start of an obvious path right-hand side towards the ridge.
The path is easy and it passes by a oak forest with boxwood plants in the way but not very dense, and it clears at some points.
A few steps are left to the summit when you look back and see the whole ridge down to the relay.
Then you reach the summit with its geodetic vertex. There is enough space for a wire antenna.
The activation
Gear: FX-4CR rig + 3 x 21700 liIon batt and a loaded EFHW inverted vee on a 5 m carbon fishpole.
I ran briefly on 145-FM, 7-CW, and then spent almost all the time on 14-SSB to do an extensive testing of phone using an adaptor to use my regular cheap PC headset with the FX-4CR.
On my previous activation I used the stock microphone, but it is too bulky for this little radio.
This time I brought a very simple adaptor for the headset, which worked fine. Audio reports with the headset were fine, they told no distortion nor bad audio on my voice.
I ran middle power set to 9 w from the rig to avoid overloading or RF feedback issues.
At home my voice sounds just similar when monitoring on the shack with the stock mic or with the headset.
I closed my activation with 37 in my log. All seems going right with the rig by looking at the QSO map:
Thanks all, 73 Ignacio