Motivation
Every now an then I spend a weekend visiting some relatives in Vitoria, about 90 kilometers west of my hometown. There I took the chance of activating a new one for me, Mt. Arreduy, EA1/BU-096.
Activation date: January 22nd 2022
Climb
The nearest parking place is the port of Okina (850m).
- Track length: 2,3 km (one way)
- Summit elevation: 1043 m
- Height gain: 190 m
I followed a track uploaded by EA2CW in Sota Mapping web site: thanks Mikel!
The path is not steep and easy to follow, passing by a forest first, with a clear path, and leaving it while approaching the summit.
Activation
The very summit is a large open area, with deep slopes at both sides of the ridge.
The big town down there is Vitoria:
The mountain mailbox is made out of an engine part:
I arrived in the summit at 14:10 utc, therefore this would be an afternoon actvation that enhances the chance to work some NA DX stations.
It was easy to install the fishpole with the EFHW inverted vee, tied to a barbed-wire fence, with the feedpoint heading towards NA.
Equipment today was my minimal setup: LNR MTR-3b CW rig, powered by 3 x 18650 LiIon cells, and a homebrew SWR reading meter. Paper log as usual. Antenna is a trapped EFHW.
My activation went well. While setting my HF aerial I started cqing on my VHF handheld and logged a couple of local stations.
Then I moved into 14 MHz and I soon got calls from EU frequent chasers.
First DX was Fred @WX1S (NH) and he was soon followed by Roger @KF9D (IL), Fred @KT5X (NM) and Mike @WB2FUV (NY) to whom I frequently chase from any NA Sota: today we switched roles!
Soon after a few more EU I logged Oleg @K1WAT ¶ who was afterwards joined by Charles @AE4FZ (NC) and Pat @WW4D (SC).
Weather was perfect as you can figure by the pictures but I had to move into the city, so after one hour on air I called it a day and went QRT.
Today I only ran 14 MHz plus 4 qso in VHF, and closed my log with 47 qso.
Thanks all chasers and the 7 NA DX of the day. Is there anything more rewarding that a nice collection of qso and DX with a tiny radio? Sometimes less is more.
I took the chance of using @M0NOM Google earth qso calculator (ADIF PROCESSOR) that is a very nice tool to plot the qso path. Thanks Mark!
73 de Ignacio