Mt. Iriberri EA2/NV-116 and Mt. Erreniega EA2/NV-092 by EA2IF/P on 10/01/2016

Dear all,
I had planned a nice activation of a new unique for this morning but unfortunately the weather forecast announced a rainy day, so I cancelled my activation with some frustration which got compensated because, at home, we anticipated my birthday celebration with a nice chocolate cake with candles. It will be tomorrow, Jan 11th but it’s better to celebrate a birthday on a Sunday :slight_smile: rather than on a boring Monday :frowning:

In the afternoon, I had to drive my daughter to Pamplona for movie and pizza with friends, while my wife stayed at home with our 2 younger kids, one of whom wasn’t feeling too well today with some fever and headache.
So this gave me 5 hours between dropping my daughter at the movies place and picking her up after the pizza. I quickly made plans for those 5 hours and I would do a couple of easy drive-on activations. The 2 summits circled in red on the map below.

The first one to activate was the 2 pointer Mt. Iriberri EA2/NV-116:

I’ve got this picture from the internet.

There is a dirt road up to the very summit, which I easily drove with my car after having engaged the 4x4 permanent drive and the short gears set.
It was raining a little when I got there, so I quickly set up my fast deployable antenna: monoband mobile whip with a linked single wire radial.

As you can see in the above picture, the wind mills were very close, so the QRM was quite bad.

I had to keep the umbrella open all the time to protect the rig and the paper log because the rain soon became heavier, not much but enough to quickly get everything very wet. Believe me, sending morse, hand writing on a paper log and keeping the umbrella in place is something really hard to do, particularly when the wind is blowing, as it was today…

My first CQ SOTA was on 20m CW and I immediately got some few chasers, which included a DX from Canada. After 5 QSOs no more chasers called in and after letting Jorge EA2LU know, I QSYed to 10m, where himself and Manuel EA2DT (both in Pamplona) chased me immediately.
No more calls on 10m after a few more CQ calls, so I QSYed to 40m, where Santi EA2BSB (also in Pamplona) was the only chaser.
It was raining quite a lot by that time and I had already qualified this summit, so I decided to QRT and pack up for a possible 2nd activation this evening, rain permitting…
This is the log of this short activation:

The second targetted summit was Mt. Erreniega EA2/NV-092:

This picture has also been taken from the internet.

There’s a pretty good mountain road up to the very summit.
At some point during the ascent drive I passed by this monument to the pilgrims of St. James Way, who must pass this mountain through this path on their way from Pamplona to Uterga, Muruzabal (my QTH), Obanos and Puente la Reina.
The lights of the city of Pamplona can be seen far in the distance. Shame it was pretty dark.

By the time I got to the AZ, it wasn’t raining so I decided to quickly set-up.
I started this activation on 40m because it was the last band I used in the previous summit, so the antenna tunner settings and the linked wire radials were all set.
Jorge EA2LU raised a spot for me and I quickly got some few chasers.
After 6 QSOs, there were not any more callers and I told Jorge my intention of giving 10m a try, but he discouraged me as he believed the band was totally closed.
I changed my mind and I QSYed to 20m, where I was chased by a couple of DX stations one from EA8 another from USA.
Some more CQ calls didn’t produce any more replies and given that it was very dark (I was using a head torch), a little bit cold (7° C), slightly rainy and windy, I decided to QRT pack everyhting up quickly and go down to Pamplona to pick up my daughter after having bagged 9 activator points today and a total of 11 activator points for the whole weekend, which makes me feel like a child with his nice birthday gift :slight_smile:
This is the log of this second activation:

Thanks very much dear chasers.
Have a very nice week.

Best 73 de Guru

1 Like

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GURU!

:birthday:

Ed.

1 Like