Sunday October 21. Weather is cold but clear with 0 C limit around 1000 m. Leave home 6:15. I arrive at the Flaine ski station at 1600 m 8:30. The path is easy to follow on the ski resort and I arrive at the end of the Aup de Veran ski lift 2196 m in a little more than one hour. The Alpine walk to the summit is marked with blue paintings. It is more difficult that the normal mountain trails and my touring ski book gives D- to this outing.
On the top the cold wind from north is freezing my ears. Fortunately the south slope gives me shelter of the wind and sun is warm enough though my sitting position is not ideal for cw. 0948 UTC CQ on 10117 kHz. 0954 UTC DL4FCK replies on 7032 kHz. Thanks for spotting and sorry that I missed the name again - was not ready to copy it on the paper. The other countries LX, HB9, F and G. Try again 30 m, 80 m and 20 m. 17 m sounds to be open to east. I have a QSO with Pavel RZ3DCJ. The SSB QRP frequency 7090 kHz is busy, so I do not bother to go there. QRT 1030 UTC.
Before the expedition I checked the expected propagation for October at 1000 UTC. GD was S1-3 on 40-20 m, F S7-9/80 m, S4-6/40 m, S1-3/30 m, and DL S1-3/80 m, S4-6/40 m, S4-6/30 m. This seems to correlate with the QSOs mostly of the HB9s and DLs worked on 40 m.
APRS: F5VGL-7 Location
Map: IGN 3530 ET
Radio: FT817ND 2.5 W, T1 ATU, 2 x 12 m random loop
Photos: http://sral.fi/oh7bf/Veran/