On Saturday I study the useful frequencies for my activation with the voaprop program by G4ILO. The result from my home QTH at 9 UTC July 1 2007 using setting LOW for power/antenna gain:
DX…distance[km]…80 m…40 m…30 m…20 m
OK/Prague…846…-…S4-6…S1-3…S1-3
GD/Isle of Man.1178…-…S1-3…S4-6…-
DL/Berlin…659…S4-6…S4-6…S1-3…-
F/Paris…391…S7-9…S4-6…-…-
Conclusion 20 m is not useful, but 80 m should work. The 30/40 m are ok for propagation, but this was already known from past experience.
Pointe de Chesery 2251 is one of the easy hiking routes. The summit is on the boarder line between France and Switzerland. It is accessed from les Lindarets ski station next to Avoriaz. The weather forecast gives possible thunder for the Sunday late afternoon or evening. So I wake up 4:00 and leave home 5:00.
This time I have prepared also APRS tracker for testing. I start it at the car in parking place of les Lindarets 1500 m. The route is quite easy. At 1800 m I try a shortcut I found from a web, but I soon return to the direction of ski lift Chaux Fleurie. The ski lifts are already starting for the downhill bikers. Since the GPS is on with the route programmed in I hear an alarm each time I reach next waypoint. Finally on the summit again alarm. I switch the power of the tracker off and on to make sure that one packet is send from this summit.
Setting up the shortwave station takes about 30 minutes. Start from 10116 kHz. At 0759 DL7VKD replies followed by Roy G4SSH. Thanks to Roy again for spotting me. And thanks to all the chasers on 30 m: DL7RAG, GM4FAM, DL2DXA, LY2FE, G4OBK, DL6KVA, DL3JPN, 2E0OOO, F5CQ, S58MU and DL1FU, and on 40 m DL3RAD working 3 W QRP, DL4FCK, DL6UNF, F5PEZ, DJ5AV, HB9AGH and HB9DOT. Try 80 m 0850 UTC, but no result.
Radio: FT817ND, 2.5 W, T1 ATU, low loop antenna
APRS: 60CS, VX-7, OT1x
Packets: F5VGL-7 Location
Map: IGN 3528 ET
Photos: http://sral.fi/oh7bf/Chesery/