After yesterday failed activation of Mt. Soratxipi EA2/NV-084 and once the problem of my rig not switching ON was found and corrected, I went there again today and activated that summit successfully. In this occasion, I drove about 2 Km on the mountain dirt road and parked at the point marked with a red arrow on the map below:
Since I knew the drive on the dirt road would give me a good amount of extra time, I prepared for a possible 2nd activation of the nearby Mt. Aitzarbil EA2/NV-179.
Another mountain dirt road started by the NA-4114 road and let me drive about 3.5Km up to the point marked with a red arrow on the map above, which is about 850m a.s.l.
From the parking spot, the hike included another lower summit on the way and was a bit over 200 vertical meters.
After parking the car, I started a steep hike through forest. See this picture taken with my parked car visible:
The ascent went through the forest and the track often wasn’t too obvious:
And the summit was finally reached:
There’s not much room for long wires at the summit, which is more or less clear but surrounded by forest:
I managed to erect my 7m fishing rod but the 14m long antenna wire couldn’t be fully extended as a sloper and I had to do a bit of zig-zag with the help of some branches. I didn’t take any pictures because I had no room enough for me to have the right angle.
The activation started on 30m CW, where I logged 14 QSOs, one of which S2S. Then I QSYed to 20m SSB, where I logged 9 QSOs. After a number of unresponded CQ calls, I went QRT because I wanted to descend the sometimes not very clear path through the forest well before the Sun went down.
Thanks dear chasers for your calls and QSOs.
I’ll be looking forward to copying you all again from a summit soon.
73,
Guru
