First activations and planning more

[OE6JBG]

Hello sotaists,

Today I did my first summit activation and I am planing to do more, step by step.

Basically walking up the Mountains and visit some summits is my first hobby and I try to do it regularily to keep some strength and endurance. At the moment I do mountain hiking twice each week. One walk is over 1100 m difference in altitude and the other is just 400 m. Being on the path alone for a considerable amount of time I wanted an additional communication tool independent of any cellphone masts, just for fun but for safety reasons too. So I came back to my other Hobby, amateur radio, and purchased a ft-65 vhf uhf fm hhtr.

My first step ist getting used to the device and to the handling of it. My qso skills are quite rusty by now, I have to think, what to say next, but this will change very soon. Today I discovered, what I need next: A flight deck to use when walking. So I carry the board with rig, log sheet and optionally an EFHW attached to it in my left hand and can write while listening, talking and walking.

Todays excursion to Fürstenstand oe/st-299 was quite pleasant. Saturday and sunny weather. First I listened with interest to the traffic running. The rig works fine and the rubberducky is quite usable for the beginning. When I started to go back down, I heard oe6wpf Wolfgang from oe/st-129 Rappoldkogel. I stopped, went a few steps back to a better position and we did qso and so I finally completed my first activation. Thanks to Wolfgang. The points are not important and I will visit this hill several times this year.

Next I have to find out, how to organize activation of the summits after a more exhausting and time consuming ascent. e. g. oe/st-248 Schöckl 1100 m sum of differences in altitude up. The days are short now and so is the time I can spend at the summit. The hikes will take place on weekdays. Spotting will be necessary. Better antenna can help. Mast can help. The good thing is, I have time.

73, John

[OE5REO]

Hello Johannes!

Great to hear that you managed to get your first activation done. There is a nice summary about SOTA on the OEVSV webpage with a lot of information:

https://wiki.oevsv.at/wiki/Kategorie:SOTA

And don’t hesitate to ask questions here on the reflector … SOTA people are friendly and helpful!

73 Martin
OE5REO

[OE6JBG]

gm Martin,

thank you for the friendly welcome here. Yes the climate in this forum is remarkably friendly and helpful.

Having seen your frequent activations of high summits in the east alps, I think we will probably s2s in 2m soon.

By the way: I have no antenna and no radio station at home, just portable equipment. My other rig is an ft-817, but I stick to the ft-65 by now. Later, when I will be used to communicate out of the rucksack, may be I will do 40m and 20m. These days I am quite occupied with building up my health condition. (I cannot translate “Kondi schinden”. hi)

cu 73, Johannes

[OE6JBG]

@OE6JBG

Today I discovered, what I need next: A flight deck to use when walking.

Now I made such a thing. The rig is attached to it by its belt clip.

And so it is used.

Yesterday I walked up the 1000 vertical meters to the summit of Schöckl oe/st-248 and tested it. I find it very helpful, everything ist logged immidately, even non sota qso’s while stlll ascending.

It was a fine activation beyond my expectations. 4+ qso’s. Thanks to the op’s. It was a wonderful day in the sunshine above thick stable inversion fog some 300 meters below. Details will follow soon.

73

[OE6JBG]

@OE6JBG

Details

The name of my summit here, Schöckl derives from the slavic word chekalo, which means watchpoint. Chekati means to wait. And the mountain serves this purpose very well. The foto above points to northwest. The summits in the background are, beginning left, Seckauer Zinken, Hochreichart and seemingly very small the Bösenstein. The lonly one in the middle is Grosser Schober. And to the right there are the Eisenerzer Alpen with the most prominent Gösseck, followed by Wildfeld and Stadelstein. I am dreaming of activating one or a few of them next summer. This views kelp to keep my motivation for training alive.

Now to the radio experience. In the presence of many hundreds of kW from professional radio services up there, the ft-65 worked undisturbed, at least with the rubberducky. No additional filter necessary.

We managed a qso to Trofaiach. Thanks to Armin for patience and readjusting his directional antenna. Dx was 42 km and there is the Hochalm in between The Fesnel zone was not free. Some reflexions must have helped or was it diffraction? I like the small wonders.

On the weekday the vy near big city of Graz helped to get replying stations, even a little after lunch break. Notes to myself: Remote summits on weekday will require EFHW or even HF equipment. Getting up even earlier in the morning will make sense too. I have to find out 40m ssb sota frequencies and start listening, when on the path.

hear you, 73

[OE5EEP]

Hi Johannes,

Welcome to the pack! I am glad that you made some activations and that you had fun and success!

I just have two recommendations for you:

• Try to get a better 2m antenna than the rubber ducky and try to get it further up, e.g. on a short fiberglass pole. You willl be surprised what difference this can malke.

• Don’t forget your FT-817! This is a great radio for SOTA and many of us have started with this set-up. For serious SOTA I would recommend an external battery pack with it.

When you go into shortwave you will need a pole anyway. So why not get it soon and use it on 2m for now.

All the best and hope to work you S2S soon,

Heinz, OE5EEP

[OE6JBG]

Servus Heinz,

thank you for the welcome.

Your “recommendations” are confirming the plans I mentioned above…
ft-817, Tuner, 40m antenna, masts and battery pack are ready. I will set the hf portable station to operation, when its time to do so. I build up my sota thing step by step. There are many other things to do and this hobby must not occupy too much time in one piece. Among other things I have to deal with severe health issues.

Now I have to reorganize my training. The walking on relative high and remote summits will take place on saturdays, when the hills and mountains are populated by yl’s and om’s.
EDIT:
This means, I’ll do my short hike on a weekday. Then I have time to operate the HF station and mostly there are trees to conveniently pull up a V (non inverted) dipole for nvis mode on 40 m. An inverted V efhw over my telescope Mast of course ist also possible. Equipment weight is not that critical on those shorter excursions.

Next is looking for a 2m efhw ready built, with sheath wave blocking and the suitable cables. (Tinkering ist not an option by now.) No, I will not be surprised by considerably better results, I expect them.

Next thing after this will be listening to 40 meter sota ssb traffic and find out the usable qrg’s.

Having seen some of your activations I am sure we will hear one another s2s soon. It will be a pleasure to me.
73, Johannes

[OE6JBG]

Hello,

for the locals I show the map:

The walk was over 1100m upwards and 23 km in distance (roundtrip). Its a convenient variant with very moderate steepness. Starting point is the bus stop of the city bus # 53: “Fuss der Leber”.

For a look into the map and scrolling around use:

OpenTopoMap - Topographische Karten aus OpenStreetMap

For the international readers there is one more foto.

Qth is near Graz, south of the eastern end of the Alps. The foto is directed to the main ridge. In the middle you see the Hochschwab. Dx 53 km.

73, Johannes

[VK3SQ]

…thanks for the great photos…

Geoff vk3sq

[OE6JBG]

Hello,

today I activated Fürstenstand again and I did earn points. There was bright sunshine and the summits were busy. So it’s real fun to go for a walk up and to play radio. Thanks to the chasers and the two s2s stations.

The foto shows Schöckl, the qth of my last activation seen from today’s qth:

cu or hear you 73, Johannes

[OE6JBG]

Hi all,

on tuesday it was again time for a long walk. For reasons I went up Schöckl oe/st-248 again. Of course no points were earned, but I dont consider the excursion pointless. Weather was cold and windy, quite uncomfortable, but I put my bivvy bag on and this worked very well. Its a valuablepiece of equipment and doesnt add noticeably weight. The planned external antenna will help sheltering while playing radio and maintaining good radio contacts at longer distances.

Due to circumstances I radioed just a short time, but there were three qso’s. Thanks to Endi oe6end/m for coming back the third time and to Martina @S54TIM and Marjan @S56IHX, “hvala lepo” for patiently exchanging the Info.

Being familiar with the paths up there, it is easy, to adjust the exercise volume to my needed achievment level. I am cranking up my vertical range by a mean increase of 30 m per week. 30 vertical meters is very little, but it will sum up in 20 weeks to 600 m, provided no acute health problems will show up. Now I am at 1200 m. In spring I hope to reach 1600 m. Beeing an old man of 71 I am quite happy how it develops now. My motto is “stick to it prudently and carefully, but stick to it, stick to it”.

On my way back down I met two chamois. The chamois is the heraldic animal on my avatar. I consider it a good omen.

All the best, 73, Johannes

[M6GYU]

Johannes The maps are good for me - it gives me an idea of how far you were from roads, paths and towns etc.,

Well done for the activations OM

David

[OE6JBG]

Hello,

saturday again, time for a short walk.

Just 300 vertical meters up to Buchkogel oe/st-303. Sunny but cold wx and a little snow on the ground. May be the latter was reason for neither hearing nor reading about an activation in reach of the 2m ht. Lesson learned, summit activation traffic depends largely on weather and path conditions.

@oe6chd christof was on another Buchkogel just in sight (oe/st-311) but times and frequencies didnt match.

But four watchful oms in the area just below my qth answered the cq sota. Thanks to them.

73, Johannes

[OE6JBG]

Hello,

it was tuesday again. Time to do another (relative) long walk. Now I am used to get up early, to have a long day in spite of the season being. After a bus ride of half an hour I started in the dark at 6:30 lt from bus stop Stattegg Sonnenhang. About an hour later this view promised a wonderful day:

The first sun rays enlightened Hohe Rannach, oe/st-290 which I pass by at a distance.

Niederer Schöckl is not a sota summit, but its beautiful anyway. I love the colors of the mixed forest: Mostly larch, spruce and beech.

My route is planned to get my currently needed quantum of ascends: 1200 vertical meters once again. The time needed for the first 1000 vm was 12.5% less than in the week before. The training plan is working nicely.
At the summit of Schöckl oe/st-248 again I did my third activation there. 4 qso, 0 points, and some useful experience. When receiving strong local signals, I did not notice any qrm from the professional radio services. They have quite a lot up there.

The weaker signals from s5 were interfered. Luckily its possible to duck behind an edge of the plateau to get out of sight of the big mast while having free sight to the wanted stations and still being in the az. Walking down for just 5 vm is enough. This time the Slovenians came in 59.

After playing around for some time, I noticed the influene of the northern atlantic had inreased. The clouds hiding the main ridge of the alps were coming down south more and more.

Above: Rote Wand oe/st-230 and Hochlantsch oe/st-183
Below: Speikkogel oe/st-117 no longer valid hides Lenzmoarkogel oe/st -597, which is immidately behind it.

Took some last views, walked down, catched the bus and sat down according to a motto of mine: Walk and let drive.

On my long walks there is little margin for more comprehensive radio experiments. Have to do this on the short walks or in the seasons with longer daylight and higher temperatures. Getting more physical power will help too in this respect.

Doing the same mountain over and over again has huge benefits. I am walking in very well known terrain, although on different routes. So I dont need to plan for much reserves. I do not waste much of the day travelling up the country. My wife knows exactly where I am, just in case. If needed, help would be available very quickly. In the light and warm part of the year, this restrictions will cease.

With joyful anticipation I am looking forward to visit the mountains again, where I have been some time ago. Niedere Tauern, Eisenerzer Alpen and Hochschwab area for example.

73, Johannes

[2E0OMX]

Loving the views Johannes.

[OE6JBG]

@VK3SQ, @M6GYU and @2E0OMX thank you for the feedback about my postings. It is a pleasure to read, that other poeple too like what I appreciate so much.

73 Johannes

[OE6JBG]

Today I did another little activation. Steinkogel oe/st-381 was the destination.

Assuming to know the hill well, I did no accurate calculation of the time needed. When I realized that I was late, I tried to save time by using a shortcut through the bushes. That was my second mistake. It was rather an elongation of the time needed for my way up. It added to my delay. So I missed the best cq calling time which is before lunch. Ok, its clear what du do better.

Never the less, three nice qso on a sunny hill with many trees. I liked it and I will come back, maybe in winter, as it is close to the city and just about 400 vertical meters difference to walk.

73 Johannes

[MM0FMF]

There are some nice pictures Johannes.

For me, it is always interesting to me to see how broadcast masts differ across Europe. They don’t paint them red/white in the UK and it’s only in Austria that I have seen uWave hogshorns still in use. Hey, if they work and they stand up to the WX they why spend good money changing them for change’s sake.They’ve all gone from the UK now. But there again, huge numbers of uWave links have gone from the UK replaced with fibre.

[IU1KGS]

@MM0FMF

it’s only in Austria that I have seen uWave hogshorns

Funny you should mention it Andy, this is a picture I took today of a transmission site from another hill, from behind they look suspiciously similar to two horn antennas.

It’s not a SOTA summit, otherwise the RF environment would be a bit hostile.

Another edit: same picture taken at sunset, the silhouettes are unmistakable.

[OE6JBG]

On my way back I passed by the Castle Ruin Gösting. Sadly most of it is in a very poor state. But this part, the church and the tower, looked nice in the bright sunshine.

73, Johannes