Motivation
The EA2 SOTA day (SOTA Eguna in basque) was held past Saturday June the 13th.
A group of friends met to do a joint activation in EA2/NV-080.
As this was a new one for me I add some details of the trail and how it went with the radio.
The climb
There is a good road leaving the village of Leiza to a high point where you can start the hike. Lat/Lon coordinates are 43.085757, -1.880633, and there is a hotel there called Basa-Kabi (this seems to be closed nowadays).
Opposite this hotel there is service road going up the hill towards a telecom relay tower. This road is okay for a regular car. You can drive up 2.6 km and park at 914m elevation, at Lat/Lon 43.099507, -1.900337.
From this point the real hike starts.
- Trail length: 2 km (one way)
- Mount elevation:1083m.
- Elevation gain from the parking: 178m, a gentle slope.
- Walking time to the summit: 35 minutes
The trail is obvious and clear (blue line: get on with the car).
We met in the hotel at 08:00 utc and moved together sharing cars to the parking. We were 12 ops in total.
The climb was easy and pleasant as we get there chatting and enjoying the nice views (drone views) .
This is a view of the summit while approaching (photo taken on the descent)
The activation
The summit is wide and half of it is well covered with high trees, that provide a good shade. The other half is clean and offers wide views towards the West.
We separated a bit and several stations were build up:
EB2FDT settled his trusty VHF FM, the only mode he uses routinely, with EA2DXY.
EA2CQ & EA2DCA installed a VHF SSB station that later evolved into 432 and 1200 MHz bands.
EA2ECA tried hard his Delta loop in 50 MHz and moved later to 10 and 15 meter.
EA2ETB and EA2FHK installed an EFHW to run 40 and 20 meter.
EB2DJB and EA2BHE deployed a Doublet and tried FT8.
EA2EUS & EA2FDI used a drone and a camera to record some videos of the activation. I run briefly CW in 20 meter using my short 4m vertical antenna. Setup was easy as I just laid the pole supported by a tree trunk. It worked right!
We all used the special call EG2UNA.
VHF 2026 challenge from this summit
Every logged QSO was nice, but if I had to highlight some special contact I would pick a number of long distance QSO recorded in 144 MHz SSB from that summit. We were lucky to get the aid of marine tropo that facilitated the duct to North France and even to Jersey island, at 675 kilometer!
Later, we had also long distance QSO within EA, towards EA1/EA4:
After a nice morning operating, we called it a day and packed. Then moved to a restaurant to end the party sharing a meal and chatting.
Thanks all the chasers for working us in different bands and modes.
73 Ignacio
