Dear all
Thanks a lot for all your kind words of appreciation. I’ve enjoyed reading all postings and seeing your hearts. It’s about three years ago when I decided to start a second amateur radio life after thirty years of board work for our local Radio Club. I should gain more practical experience and do amateur radio henceforth instead of only administering it.
Those were the days of the decision to buy my first own shortwave radio in 2016. It was a KX2, since it should be a portable radio and had ufb testimonials. I didn’t want to set up a permanent big station in my town with all its electronic noise and difficult neighbours. I simply imagined that SOTA could be my playground since I love my country and its diversity in geography and could even find a reason to hike regularly.
And it was a good decision. I started 2 years ago in May 2017 with a test activation on my home hill Sonnenberg. I had well prepared this kick-off over the winter period by reading articles, talking to people, participating in a preparatory course, watching tons of Youtube videos and discussing the antenna with HB9BXE. This test activation was a success with Mariusz, SP9AMH, as my first QSO partner and Manuel, HB9DQM, as my first S2S partner. Waiting for the voices after a spot is for me as fascinating as in the beginning – even now.
What else? Continue! I suppose that I can aim now more to the Gourmet components of the programme instead of collect the points on any possible occasion. At least I hope so. At present, I enjoy travelling throughout the Bavarian and Bohemian Forest and discover not only their summits but also the regional culture, hospitality and cuisine.
And how was the Mountain Goat activation?
What could I do to let my Mountain Goat activation become something special? I had collected 990 points before these holidays, so a single (and the first) 10-pointer of my holidays would be the special day. I’m not an ibex type to do a first activation somewhere high up in the Swiss Alps. My type of summits are lower regions and since the holiday region was set, I simply had to choose an appropriate summit around Grainet in the Bavarian Forest. I had the idea to invite other activators of the region to the summit and to do a co-activation. I had Sylvia, OE5YYN, and Peter, OE5AUL, in mind and asked them to meet on the Plöckenstein summit, former OE/OO-066 and nowadays OK/JC-001, top summit of the Bohemian Forest.
They agreed, despite a car travel of 90 minutes and a hiking time of 90 minutes for one direction. Unfortunaltely the weather forecast was not favorable, so they had to resign due to heavy rain in their region. We started our Dreisessel tour of day 1 of our own and had the umbrella open on the border ridge. The rain was strong enough and I resigned to build up the shortwave equipment. Thanks to Sylvia, Peter and two other locals around OE5 I could make the necessary four contacts on 2 m FM.
So it was not an opulent MG activation, but we kept the good mood on the Czech Dreisessel OK/JC-003. I had found a place just beside the trail with a natural support for the umbrella, so the equipment could be kept dry. We drank the bubbly by ourselves and had a pleasant day in this beautiful and impressive border region.
I’d like to thank all and everyone contributing to 2 happy years of SOTA and growing up this mountain goat, especially HB9BXE as my mentor and discussion partner, the fellows of our local SOTA club HB9SOTA.ch and you the chasers and S2S partners. A special thanks aims to my partner for supporting me in this time consuming hobby since we do most activations as family activations and are happy with it. And thanks for all your nice comments on the bands during the past activations in the region, here on the reflector or by e-mail.
Cu on the bands, and vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ
…und doch hätten wir’s fast verpasst 
…aber nur fast 
…und so gratulieren auch wir ganz herzlich zum Mountain Goat und freuen uns schon jetzt riesig auf unser nächstes S2S-QSO mit Dir - wenn alles gut geht, dann könnte es übers Auffahrtswochenende von unserer Seite klappen