Hi everybody,
sorry for the unexpected qrt from this summit yesterday. Monkey weather all day with some rare dry periods - when I reached the summit visibility was still bad but the rain had stopped, so I was looking forward to the activation.
I quickly set up and just as I plugged in the antenna cable it was starting to rain again. As always I went to 40m first and began calling, but to my surprise nobody had answered after feeled 10min of CQing. I checked all connections, which were fine. I was able to hear some rather weak stations across the band so I blamed the conditions and went to 30m. In the meantime the amount of rain had easily doubled and the wind was driving it against my location almost horizontally. This was the right time to change the umbrella with the bivvy-bag but soon another problem turned up. The moisture generated so much static that I was hardly able to hear even the strongest stations. At time qrn had reached the S9 level and there was no sign of relief, I decided to quit after a short try on 20m. 30 seconds out of the bivvy-bag to complete the pack up were enough to soak me to the skin, which was rather uncomfortable at about 4°C air-temperature and the strong wind. My fingers soon became clumsy and I really struggled to unscrew and stow away the antenna elements.
I finally managed to activate the summit with 5 QSOs. Apologies to all who might have been waiting for me and thanks again to Roy who put a spot onto Sotawatch. A few pictures to follow.
73 Bernhard DL4CW