Hard work at Mt. Harriaundi EA2/NV-108 by EA2IF/P on 12/09/2021

With a great nice warm and sunny weather, I chose this summit for today’s activation in order to test my own strength and ability to carry out a 20-25 minutes hike with 100m of elevation gain.
Its located near Pamplona to the North-West as you can see in the map below:

From where I parked the car at the village of Osacar, this was the look of the hike to be done and the summit:

The hike was absolutely fine and I found myself in a really good shape for such a mild demanding hike. When I got to the summit, I took some pictures with my new smartphone, which is supposed to make them with better quality than those I made before with my other phones, but it was quite hazy and I will post the pictures of the views I took from the summit at the end of the activation, when the air was clearer.


This picture was taken at the start of the hike.

Once at the summit, we find this:

My setup was the usual 14m long endfed wire as a sloper hung from the top of my 7m long telescopic fishing rod. The wire going down to a 9:1 unun from which a 5m long counterpoise wire was extended on the grass following the same direction of the sloper antenna wire. The antenna was connected to my SOTA kit formed by a MFJ-941B antenna tunner and my Yaesu FT-817ND rig at 5W.
I also installed a Diamond mobile vertical whip antenna connected to my HH Yaesu FT-23R. You can see it in the following picture:


The antenna wire was invisible in the original picture, so I’ve drawn a red line.

This is the first time I’ve been for so long in a SOTA activation, with a total of 4 hours between the 1st logged QSO and the last one. It’s the first time I’ve exhausted my battery. I’d have probably stayed even longer, but I realized the voltage of the LiFePo4 battery seen by my FT-817ND was 11V, so I went QRT to avoid risking any damage to my trusty battery, which has been giving me great service for several years now.
In all this time, I started on 30m CW, then went to 40m SSB, followed by 20m CW, then I had a looking for and working S2S on several different bands and modes. This is something I enjoyed doing thanks to my endfed wire and the flexibility that my antenna tuner gives me. Then I had a run on 40m CW, then some more S2S chasing, another run on 20m SSB and finally a couple of QSOs on 2m FM.
All in all, I logged 91 QSOs and 18 S2S.
I won’t post the full log this time as I often do in previous reports because it’s a long log, but you can always check it on the database in case you are interested.
I’ll post the map here:

During my time activating I had the chance to copy Pat @WW4D on the 2 passes he made by 20m CW. I called him, but he never seemed to copy me, big shame!..
When I had just made my S2S with HA5GB/P on 20m SSB, I heard @VK5PAS calling him and making the QSO with him. I asked him to QSY 5 up for a QSO with me, but he never seemed to copy me. An even bigger shame!..

It’s been quite a hard work but I really enjoyed very much the hike and the long activation.

Now it’s the time to share with you some of the pictures I took from the summit at the end of the activation:

Thanks dear chasers & activators for your calls and QSOs.
I’ll be looking forward to copying you all again from a SOTA soon.

73,

Guru

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Hello Guru. Another great activation report and photos with your new phone camera as well. :grinning:. Tell me, what is an “ermitage”, looks like fun to be involved with. Nothing like that in VK; What frequency did you hear vk5pas and time?

How did you find your stamina for the day? Were you happy with what you achieved for the day? You certainly had a lot of gear!

We are out of lock down in my district of VK3. Which is good but I haven’t wanted to go out and mix. Very concerned about this virus even though we are both inoculated.

Cheers Guru, stay safe, take care. :grinning:

73 Geoff vk3sq

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Hi Guru,
great to see you back in action again.
Indeed nice pics, your new smartphone is doing the job.
Congrats for another succesful activation and fun.
733 de Ignacio

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Thanks Geoff,
Yes, I’m quite satisfied with the quality of the pictures my new Xiaomi smartphone took.
I’ve realised I should have written that word starting with an h.
I made the mistake because in Spanish it’s written without that h at the beginning: Ermita.
I’ve found this definition in English and I think it’s accurate to explain what this one is or was:

You can see a closer picture of this pre-romanic hermitage devoted to Saint Gregory.

Regarding my copy of VK5PAS, it was on 20m SSB at 14h20 utc.

My stamina was very good indeed, particularly during the ascent. Descent was a bit worse, but bear in mind that I had spent +4 hours at the summit setting up, activating and dismantling and I had not had any lunch other than 4 Oreo cookies:


I’m very happy with how I felt during the ascent and during the whole day. I even activated on SSB, which is quite exhausting to me. I think I’ll soon be ready to attemp a slightly more demanding hike, but don’t worry, I won’t go too far and I’ll be extremely careful, only attempting such endeavour when I’m sure I’m ready for it. My rucksack weight is only 7 Kg, so not that much. And I have only recovered 2.5 Kg after the 10Kg I lost in July, so I could almost say, that I’m carrying no rucksack :wink:

I’m glad for you because you are out of lockdown in your district. Well, we all need to keep being careful even after having received the 2 shots of the vaccine, but this doesn’t mean we can’t go out and live our lifes having social relationships and so on. It’s just that we need to keep being very careful.

Good luck with your progressive and slow return to normal life.

73,

Guru

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Thank you, Ignacio. I really enjoyed the whole activation and I look forward to a joint one with you sometime soon.
By the way, let me tell you that I had my FT-23R connected while I was hiking and I heard EA2BV calling to EA2BD. I heard him calling you once only and then silence…
I was surprised by that call because I don’t think I’ve ever heard EA2BV before and also because I assumed you were still in EA3. Is that right or you are back in Pamplona?

73,

Guru

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Hi Guru
It was lovely to speak to you so thanks for the QSO. I am pleased you are feeling well enough to go for a hike, but please don’t over do it mate. Anyways you stay well and Best 73 to you and yours.
Catch you on the next one hopefully
de 2e0AGB Allen

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Thanks for the report and pictures Guru.

I really need to make the effort to chase you during an activation one of these days.

VY 73, and take care.

Colin

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Thanks dear Colin,
It would be a great pleasure to be chased by you, but not having you a permanent base station in your QTH and my usual short notice before my activations, makes it really difficult for you. I don’t think you have to feel the need to make the effort to chase me. This is something that will happen only when the planets align and it’s best not to force it. I’m sure it will happen soon.
I usually can’t have a clear view of when and which summit I’ll be activating and most of my expeditions are decided just the night before and sometimes even 1 or 2 hours before the activation.
The best way for you to increase your chances to chase me is setting up a permanent base station at your QTH :wink:

73,

Guru

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Hello Guru,

I’m pleased your activation went well and thanks for the S2S. I do hope that next time I’ll be able to work you on CW, I promise to keep practising!

73,
Jonathan

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@EA2IF So sorry that I missed you Guru! I have been using an old MTR 3B recently since it is a nice size for backpacking trips, but for some reason it hase very poor reception. I had made some adjustments to it, but it is still quite deaf. This activation was a just quick drive-up for testing the MTR, but unfortunately there was little improvement. Maybe next time!

73, pat - ki4svm

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