I had been planning to do the Heukuppe and Dreimarkenstein earlier in the week, but I woke up late and felt too tired for the 90 minute drive. However, I dragged myself out of bed this morning and set of with a good weather forecast to look forward to. There are many ways up the Heukuppe, some harder than others. I wanted to try a new route and went up the Gretchensteig:
It weaves its way splendidly up a ridge and offers some great views. I got to the summit in good time and the wind was much lighter than last year; the Heukuppe can be quite a windy summit. The view back to the Fischbacher Alpen was fantastic:
20m is definitely the stronger band at the moment and I have never had such large pile-ups on 20 as today. I went down to 40 but there were only a handful of contacts. There is a very nice hut on the way to the Dreimarkenstein:
All the food in the hut is organic, so I had a carrot and ginger soup; very healthy. I finished up quite quickly and headed straight round to the Dreimarkenstein, which takes about 45 minutes. There is not much at the summit, but you can often get out of the wind at least:
A very satisfactory activation. I also contacted Laurent F8CZI and Colin M1BUU, which was nice; I think today was possibly the first time I have worked Colin. Thank you to all the chasers who made today so enjoyable.
The way back to the car park leads down another beautiful ridge:
I got back to the car at almost exactly 17:00, so about a 9 hour day. After all my exertions in Iceland, it really didn’t feel like much at all. Hopefully I can keep my condition into the winter season.
73 de OE6FEG
Matt
Thanks for the QSO - I happened to be at the Yorkshire Dales Shack. I’d only taken a QRP sized straight key and an MFJ Cub 18MHz transceiver, just in case I fancied a CQ or two - my business there wasn’t strictly radio related.
The IC7100 had been set up with the autotuner that I’d been tasked with repairing last week. I couldn’t resist trying a bit of SOTA chasing, but I must admit, my keying was awful, thanks for managing to make sense of it! I hadn’t taken a paddle as the MFJ Cub doesn’t have a built in keyer. The tuner now works FB after replacement of a transistor and Schmitt trigger IC
Your Morse was very good. I find that if the character spacing is right then the Morse is legible even if there are a few errors😉. It’s when the spacing is wrong and all the characters are run together that it gets a bit tricky🤔. Don’t worry, you’re a pass. Nice work on the rigs, fb sigs here in Austria. Thanks for the QSO.
73 de OE6FEG
Matt
At the Graz Morse Code School we try to teach people that everyone makes mistakes (myself included), but with the right technique, eg. QRS for slower OMs, repetition with pauses between letters and longer pauses between words, we can still make ourselves understood. Being a good CW operator is a matter of style not speed.
73 de OE6FEG
Matt
Yes, I totally agree, the element spacing is equally as important as the element itself. ‘SOTA’ is one of the things frequently sent incorrectly the gap between the T and the A makes all the difference!
I will never be a CW master - the one thing I’m truly good at is judging my ability, I’m not afraid of pushing myself to achieve things, but I know my limits. Morse is hard for me, but I really enjoy it when it goes well.
