Hello everybody, today I decided to go for my first SOTA activation.
The destination summit was not fare from my home QTH, NL-046 Gullstadfjellet (174 masl)
The WX was great and not to much wind.
Packed up my rug sac with the Icom IC-703, a 10 meter long telescopic fibreglass mast and a end fed dipole, 4 parallel connected 10 amp/hour LiFePO4 battery cells, each 3.3V plus a JVC GZ-MG575E videocamera.
The trip up took me about 1 hour, including back walking for filming.
Before leaving the house I went on the SOTA cluster for report my planed activation.
I was a few minutes late for the planed start time.
The first station in the log was DG6SA with good signal report at 18.11 o’clock, I was glad the antenna was working well.
I made contacts during about 45 minutes then the battery was down to about 10.5 volt and the radio started to miss current.
I was a little discontented about the capacity of this expensive battery pack, tough it should hold longer, but I was transmitting with 10watt all the activation so it’s probably OK.
I made 29 contacts into; DL, HA, G, SP, S5, F, ON, HB9, UR, UA3, EA, I, OE. not bad to be my first SOTA activation.
Tanks to all stations who signed in.
Coming back later with a Youtube link when the film is ready.
Best 73’s from
LA3DNA/P Leif
Donna Island (EU-062)
In reply to LA3DNA:
Congratulations on first activation, was a pleasure to be one of your first 29 SOTA QSO’s. Keep it up. Looking forward to having a look at your video once posted. M0EPR
Congratulations to your first activation. It was an excellent start, well done! I monitored your operation for a few extra QSOS; even if I had a strong carrier jamming your QRP signal, I received you with 34…56 report all the time.
I am sure, you could have been even more successful stating that you are not only a SOTA but also an IOTA activator station, authorising you to work on the distinguished 14.260 IOTA QRG as well. Or course, I know, not the chaser activity but your battery capacity was the limiting factor on your QSO number… (BTW you connected your LiPo cells serial, not parallel, didn’t you? )
Hope to hear you from other summits soon!
In reply to F5LKW:
Hello Roger, yes! I’m landing in Provence the 17 of july, staying for 3 weeks.
Hope we can shake hand this time Roger and maybe even make a small
SOTA trip together. You propably still remember my mail address, please send me your phone number and I take contact.
In reply to HA5CW:
Hello Jóska and thank you for working my small SOTA activation.
Yes, it might be a good idea to announce that I am on an island but I almost had enough to handle the “pile up” there was during the 45 minutes I had battery power
And yes my LiPo cells are only 3.3volt each so they had to be serial connected
Hope to hear you soon again.
I maybe try a new summit the weekend 4-5 of june, but weather depending.
In reply to M0EPR:
Thank you Eddy, yes this was my first officially SOTA activation but I’ve already made another summit trip back in 2009 but that time there was no registered SOTA tops here.
Take a look at; Midnight QRP Hike to the summit "Dønnamannen" (SOTA: LA/NL-038) Dønna Island EU-062 by: LA3DNA - YouTube
and you can see this trip from the highest summit on this island (858masl)
By the way the islands name is Donna (Norwegian=Dønna) and the IOTA-number is EU-062.
Best 73’s and hope to hear you soon again.
de Leif
In reply to LA1KHA:
Takk for det Kjell, det var artig å kjøre min første SOTA.
Driver å redigerer på et lite filmoptak fra turen, skal prøve å få lagt den opp på Youtube når jeg blir ferdig.
Prøver meg kanskje på en ny topp til neste helg hvis været ikke blir for fuktigt
Welcome to the “SOTA-Famely”!
I joined the SOTA activity inspired by LA1KHA - Kjell, LA1TPA - Mads and LA1ENA - Åge, all also members og LA1G, Grenlandsgruppen of NRRL. I hope to chase you from a high summit soon, hi, hi. I also hope you will be QRV when I’m activating some summits during this summer and fall.
Well done Leif! You had better luck than me. I attempted my first SOTA activation today at Ditchling Beacon G/SE-006…and not much joy at all. For starters, I was an hour late due to having to finish a job I was doing. Then, during setting up, I threw my water bottle with antenna support line attached to it over a small tree, and it landed straight in a load of cow dung.
I intended to work around 14285 and 7090. Both frequencies were packed with QRO stations, so I moved up a little and found a clear space, started calling CQ, but no luck. The bands seemed really poor. But then as I was tuning around 20m I heard E711AMRS (club station in Bosnia Herzegovina), replied to his call and he heard me straight away, 59, and he was 59+20 to where I was. So dunno what was going on that made my trip so unsuccessful!
I just read your info about your first activation. Congrats! I started SOTA about 1/2 year ago. For activation I also use the IC-703. I use a 4000mAh NiMh-accumulator, 10 cells for 12V nominal. I can work more then 2 1/2h, although my charger says I only get loaded about 3000mAh, not more. I have reduced the display illuminaton, but run with the full mixer current for best RX performance. So I think you should get much more time to work with 10 Ah. Even with full illumination you should be able to work several hours! Something is wrong. Can you display the mAh you charge in the batteries?
In reply to DJ5RE:
Thank you Tom, very excited to do the first SOTA activation, more will come.
About the battery, no I can not monitor the charging current, I’m not even sure that I’m using the right charger.
The charger I’m using is a Gebe Model: DFC530 (http://www.premio-shop.ch/images/pdf/Usermanual%20DFC530.pdf)the charger is marked for Normal & Gell Cell and can charge with 6 and 12 volt, charging current is 3500mA DC and 5300mA RMS, what will be correct to charge with the charger in Normal position or in Gel position?
When you are using your IC-703 are you running 5 or 10 watt output?
Hello Leif! Attention! You are using a charger for Pb-Batteries. It is not allowed to use it for LiPo’s!!!
I would NOT try it again. Try to get the right charger. Or buy a Pb-gel cell batterie (7 AH for example…but they are pretty heavy) Those fit to your charger.
Or course, I know, not the chaser activity but your battery capacity was the limiting factor on your QSO number… (BTW you connected your LiPo cells serial, not parallel, didn’t you? 
)