The other two licensees in the family can’t work abroad, so I’ll not have my usual captive chasers!
Assuming airport security don’t lob any wooden shoes into the gears I’ll by toting my FT817 and travel pole around a few of the summits in the north of the island. EA6/MA-066, Puig se San Marti, will be one for sure, and probably EA6/MA-040, Talaia d’Alcúdia, both being close to the accommodation. I’ll hold off promising any more until I know what’s what. We’re only there for a few days. My first activation should be on 30th May (evening) and the last on 2nd June.
I’m fighting flakey hotel WiFi and a non-functioning mobile data package so that spotting is difficult and monitoring spots impossible from the summits. But so far managed two of the little ones.
EA6/MA-032 was lost in the cloud and heavy rain. The restaurant provided shelter for a while but it became inevitable that I would be getting wet. The activation was accomplished using my linked dipole on 40m and 30m CW. At the end the QSB was getting really bad and the QRN too, so that I lost some of you at the end - sorry.
It was late by the time I left for MA-066. A couple had stopped at the start of the TX site access road, noting the restriction to unauthorised vehicles, so we parked up there and the route was therefore doubled in length.
After scrambling to the summit I started to erect the dipole again but soon reconsidered, noting the rockiness of the summit and swapped to a 20m GP, with the radials lobbed off the summit. Match was FB. No answer to SSB. So back to CW. Still not easy and I think I lost one but 4 good-uns logged, including N4EX and AC1Z.
More tonight from MA-060.
Probably a first-time summit activation tomorrow, hopefully with time to stay a bit longer.
Thanks everybody. Full report and logging may have to wait for my return.
Thanks for the QSO in MA-066. Finally picked up enough courage to try CW ( Which was quite good in 1979 but is taking a suprising amount of effort to re-learn! ) 73 Paul G4IPB
Thanks for the QSOs Daniel - today’s also. After your spot it went a bit mad and I have 32 to log for just 40m.
M6HMK was waiting with the children so I stopped after 40m and Ricardo fed us at a nice local pub! All very good.
EA6/MA-069
Thanks for your QSO today and to the many others. I must apologize for getting some self spots wrong. Please everybody be sure to log EA6/MA-069. I have no excuse as today I even had my varifocal spectacles on! But I’m not used to having bright sunlight on the screen!
Maybe another summit or two yet, if I can fit in some radio after riding horses tomorrow…
Well, I was able to get going early enough this morning to find my way out nearly to the end of the Formentor Peninsular, to follow Phil, G4OBK’s track up to Fumat. It was a very pleasant hike up. As this was to be my last activation (I don’t think I’ll be out this evening) I thought I’d better have a go with my 2-m Slim JIM, but it was a complete bust. Nothing heard except a carrier keyed up once. I thought with a reasonable antenna I’d make it back to the EA Peninsular or southern France. Oh well.
As I was on the trig point (vertice) convenient for holding the travel pole a bit higher and because the summit is not wide I again opted for my 20-m GP. An RBN spot from GW got me a stream of chasers, so the disappointment of 2m was quickly cancelled out.
After just over an hour on summit I was obliged to pull the plug and there wasn’t time to plug in the mic. I’m sorry if anybody was still trying for me. And yes, the horse riding which followed was a lot of fun too.
Hi Simon
Super to you work on your early morning. activation of Fumat. Glad that you found my SMP GPX track useful. Your SMP track for Mynydd Mawr was useful to me last week and there are more tracks in there from you I will use when I return to North Wales next Friday, thank you for taking the time to add them to the project.
Mallorca is a great holiday island and brilliant for SOTA, I’m sure you will agree. Haste ye back!
