F/AB-104 Aiguille Rouge 3226m

Activation Reports
1

For our second visit to the French Alps I was fortunate enough to be able to activate Aiguille Rouge F/AB-104. This is reached, in the winter, via a gondola from ARC 1950 and an impressive 1981 built cable car.

IMG_6501
IMG_65011303×1309 476 KB

The top of the summit has a Sécurité sur les pistes hut and a singular opened black run which today was labelled as ungroomed, expert only.

IMG_6502
IMG_65021920×1080 244 KB

IMG_6507
IMG_65071920×1080 704 KB

IMG_6508
IMG_65081920×1080 436 KB

Above the hut a piste-bashed width of snow leads to the actual summit which is about 30m of flat snow with the drop on the other side fenced off. The fence provided an excellent place to velcro my tactical mast to. I was using my FT-817D with 18650 cell battery tray and a 20/30/40m Sotabeams linked dipole

IMG_6504
IMG_65041920×3413 780 KB

Starting on 20m SSB there was S7 noise and I was dubious about the amount of contacts I might make. That fear was soon averted with 19 contacts in quick succession.

Linking for 40m brought in another 11 chasers on a much quieter band. When I moved to 30m I enabled the 500 Hz filter and tried to train my ears to pick out a few letters from the pileup. Hopefully no-one got too grumpy to my ? responses. A couple of great S2S: Manuel @HB9DQM on HB0/LI-009 was absolutely booming in, then after a couple of listens I recognised Colin’s callsign @M1BUU for contact back into the Lake District’s Arnside Knott G/LD-058. Finally Stefan @DL3JPN on DM/SA-003 with very clear sending.

Once finished I packed up and headed down to the cable car. No fun for me on a snowboard tackling a mogul field.

IMG_6503
IMG_65031920×1080 202 KB

IMG_6511
IMG_65111920×1080 463 KB

I noticed whilst having a coffee at the bottom of the cable car that it had been shut due to weather conditions - I don’t think they would have left me stranded up there however!

Thanks to all the patient chasers!

image
image1516×1556 605 KB

image
image1516×1530 623 KB

image
image1516×1530 661 KB

image
image1516×1530 607 KB

image
image1516×1530 582 KB

TIME CALLSIGN BAND MODE RST RSR OPERATOR SIG REF
11:05 E74BJ 20m SSB 59 59 Jelena
11:07 GW0PLP 20m SSB 59 57 Don
11:08 M0RWX 20m SSB 59 57 Robert
11:08 GW0RQC 20m SSB 59 57 Robert
11:08 G0RQL 20m SSB 59 58 DON
11:09 EA7GV 20m SSB 59 55 JOSE
11:09 DL2DXA 20m SSB 59 59 Bernd
11:09 SP9NLI 20m SSB 59 57 Andrzej
11:09 SM4CJM 20m SSB 59 57 Hans
11:10 G0HRT 20m SSB 59 59 Robert
11:10 G4FVK 20m SSB 59 59 DJ
11:11 SQ9CWO 20m SSB 59 57 Jan
11:11 G1OVK 20m SSB 59 59 Paul
11:12 OE3DBX 20m SSB 59 55 Gerold
11:13 EA2CKX 20m SSB 59 52 PEDRO
11:13 M0DLL 20m SSB 55 54 David
11:14 G0FEX 20m SSB 55 57 KEN
11:14 EA6UB 20m SSB 58 55 Xisco
11:15 EA1GKP 20m SSB 55 54 JUSTO
11:19 F5JKK 40m SSB 59 59 Éric
11:19 IK2LEY 40m SSB 59 55 FABIO
11:19 F4WBN 40m SSB 59 59 Christian
11:20 IX1IHR 40m SSB 59 58 CLAUDIO
11:20 DC6PK 40m SSB 55 44 Peter
11:21 IN3NJB 40m SSB 59 54 Roberto
11:21 S57ILF 40m SSB 55 44 FRANCI
11:22 ON4FI 40m SSB 55 55 Naessens
11:23 PC5Z 40m SSB 59 57 Harm
11:23 F5PYI 40m SSB 59 59 Laurent
11:25 HB9DIZ 40m SSB 59 59 Markus
11:27 EA3EVL 40m SSB 55 57 PABLO
12:36 HB0/HB9DQM/P 30m CW 599 599 Manuel SOTA HB0/LI-009
12:41 F5JKK 30m CW 599 599 Éric
12:42 DL1FU 30m CW 599 579 Friedrich
12:43 OE6HMM 30m CW 599 559 Helmut
12:45 DK7MG 30m CW 599 579 Andreas
12:46 GM4ZMK 30m CW 599 559 Richard
12:47 G4AFI 30m CW 599 579 Andrew
12:48 M1BUU/P 30m CW 599 599 COLIN SOTA G/LD-058
12:51 DL3JPN/P 30m CW 559 559 Steffen SOTA DM/SA-033
12:53 PA5KM 30m CW 599 559 Coen
12:55 DJ7YO 30m CW 599 579 Christoph
20 Likes
2

Hi Mark,

Awesome work! I really enjoyed the S2S and I thought that you did brilliantly with the pile up.

I’d gone out to give G4TGJ an S2S, Richard was on Pen Y Ghent, G/NP-010. Currently I don’t have a car, so I caught the train to Arnside, involving one change at Carnforth. The walk from Arnside station to Arnside Knott G/LD-058 isn’t long at all, maybe half an hour at most. I’d got an S2S with Richard on 30m and then started looking at the SOTAwatch spots. I noticed a spot for F/M5TEA/P. My mind works in strange ways and I thought to myself, if I was away in a foreign country, wouldn’t it be cool to contact somebody near my home? I was determined to give you an S2S from LD!

Thanks for the report, seems like you had a great day!

73, Colin

1 Like
3

A pity, one would have hoped for S2 or lower. The summit ski lift machinery is a likely cause of RF noise. Apparently, they are powered by large electrical motors that often use Variable Frequency Drives or inverters to control speed. VFDs are notorious for creating broadband electrical noise that spreads across the shortwave spectrum.

4

The top cable car really was a sight to behold in operation, I’m guessing it took about 50 people. There was a huge concrete counterbalance suspended on cables that was constantly moving whilst the cable car was in operation. Not sure of the source of RF - it could equally have been the comms tower that was about 30m from my location. Given the layout of the cable car I suspect all the high power electrics were at the bottom.

Regards, Mark.
M5TEA

1 Like
5

Spot on Colin, and especially that it was the CW legend that is M1BUU :grinning_face:

Cheers, Mark.

1 Like
6

:rofl:

Are you suffering from altitude sickness?

2 Likes
7

Great report. Ideal summit for SOTA!

1 Like
8

They almost confiscated my Sotabeams tactical mast at security in Chambery. I played the ‘fishing’ card and after a demonstration to the manager of security of how it worked I got waved through after the woman finished cursing ‘fishing! fishing!’ as she examined the wire antenna. :grimacing:

Oh and I did have my mini screwdriver set confiscated at Manchester on the way out. Apparently ‘no tools in hand luggage’ applies to tools of all sizes. I was told it was so I didn’t start undoing random screws in the cabin. I’d hope none of them were mission critical but there you go. I was planning on buying an electrical one, anyone got any recommendations?

1 Like