When I left home with my son today, I had no idea of where we would finally go. There were so many options that I only made up my mind after picking up my son’s friends and having a brief chat with their parents.
That’s why I had not alerted any activity. Simply because I didn’t know which SOTA and at what time.
We headed to the village of Oteiza de Berrioplano, where we parked and started hiking at 1000z. Hiking with three 10 years old boys doesn’t go as fast as when I hike on my own, so we got to the summit a few minutes after 1100z. This was a relaxed ascent compared to the 45 minutes ascent time of my previous activation last June, if I recall correctly.
This picture was taken as soon as I got to the summit:
The views towards the SouthWest were like this:
And here you’ll see the views towards the NorthEast:
We found a cute Nativity set at the summit:
I quickly set up my 10m long endfed wire as a sloper from the top of my fishing rod to my 9:1 unun and a 6m long counterpoise wire extended on the grass.
When I arrived to 14.062 there was YU1CA activating SOTA. I could copy him with not too strong signals and his pile up seemed big, so I decided not to waste my short time trying to be heard by him among so many strong signals from the chasers and QSYed up to start CQing on 14.065.
I tried to selfspot with SOTAspotter, as so many other times in the past, but something wasn’t working and I couldn’t get a spot out.
After my first CQ, @DJ9BX chased me, I asked him to spot me and he kindly did so. Thank you!
I had a short run on 20m CW and logged 13 QSOs in 15 minutes. After a few unresponded CQs, I QSYed to 14.310 and this time I selfspotted on SOTAwatch using the browser in my smartphone. This produced 11 QSOs in 10 minutes.
After a few unresponded CQs, since I didn’t want the boys and the mother of my son’s friends getting cold with the cold breeze we had, I went QRT and this picture was taken before dismantling:
Descent was uneventful, although it had to be done with care to prevent from slippering in the mud present everywhere after the snow, first, and rain, later, that we’ve had over the week.
24 QSOs in the log and another pleasant time in the mountains.
One of the three kids has been listening with interest to the activation on CW. So he did the other day during my previous activation. Perhaps the seed is already on the ground and starting to grow up…
Thanks dear chasers for your calls and QSOs. I’ll be looking forward to copying you all again very soon from a summit.
73,
Guru