Motivation
My friends Aljandro EA4DON and Elena EA4DOS proposed a joint activation of Mt. Tablones. This is the third year we meet to activate together. I feel that time passes very fast!
Activation date: August 15th 2023
Driving directions
I drove by road N-232 towards Cornudilla and Pino de Bureba and exit left towards Terminon to take road BU-V-5024.
The trail starts at the little village of Herrera de Valdivielso (870 m elev.), located high near this summit. Right when parking at the entrance of the village we had a first look of the broadcast towers located in the summit. Our destination was at sight.
The climb
There is a chance to go further on the road and take a dirt road that reaches the broadcast towers.
Instead, we started walking in the village to take a tiny mountain path through the forest that goes up and finally connects with the dirt road in the last part of the trek.
- Trail length (one way): 3,1 km
- Mountain elevation: 1248 m a.s.l.
- Elevation gain: 380 m
- Walking time: 1h 15 min from the start to the summit.
The walk was easy and we enjoyed the way up chatting. Here and there we took some pictures:
The summit
We knew the summit is occupied by tall broadcast towers and a fire lookout hut, but the summit is large enough to accommodate two stations and run a comfortable activation.
The mountain mailbox is at the top, aside the lookout hut:
The activation
When we arrived in the summit I found a spot in Sotawatch of Gotzon EA2CSC, who was doing his Mountain goat activation in EA1/BU-007. Alejandro switched on his VHF handheld and we heard Gotzon calling CQ. With ease we worked and celebrated with him his first MG, congratulations!
Then we separated a bit to avoid mutual interference and installed our gear.
EA4DON / EA4DOS setup: KX2 + 18650 LiIon + Multiband dipole on a 7m pole.
They use a comfortable collapsible and light table and chairs, sitting near the edge to have a nice look to the valley.
EA2BD setup: LNR LD-5 + 21700 LiIon +EFHW inverted vee on a 5m carbon pole.
We combined bands and modes. I prioritized SSB while they ran on CW.
I closed my log with 33 QSO. I was happy to log 13 S2S; to my surprise many of them were from EA: EA4HGT, EA3AVV, EC2AG, EA2EYI and EA5M.
EA4DON had 16 QSO mainly on 21 & 7 MHz, and EA4DOS had 18 QSO mainly in 14 MHz.
Sure everybody could reach us in any band or mode.
Thanks Alejandro and Elena for thenice joint activation. Looking forward for another chance next year?
73 Ignacio
