OH/JS-047 Ukko-Vanu 212 m activation

In the morning I was not still sure if I could make it. The old Toyota was inside snow and had not been used for a while. The outside temperature was -18 C. The car started however and I could go on with the expedition. It took me a while to find the right road and I made one orienteering mistake in reading the map. The land is covered by 20 cm of snow, so my snow shoes were not really necessary. There is a path to the summit, which is inside a nature protected area. You can not camp there and not damage animals or vegetation. In the winter the land is frozen and I used the snow to support my fishing rod for the antenna. The snow anchors for the guy lines are made of wood. You just bury the anchors inside the snow.

I could see myself on the GPS display from the digipeated packets (OT1+ SMT tracker can do this). Thus I knew that the SOTA chasers could see that I was moving in the area, though the position coordinates do not seem to fit exactly the google map. I was afraid of the wind, since -19 C with 5 m/s would give a wind chill index of -29 C. And that is already pretty cold. On the summit the wind was not really a problem however.

I start from 18086 kHz at 1014 UTC. At this time I have no idea if the link dipole is working or if the band is open. There is soon reply from LZ2BR and few minutes later the regular chasers start to work me. Finally 39 QSOs on the 17 m band. Then QSY to 14058 and move a little up to find a free frequency. I start to feel cold already and after five minutes of CQ I announce QSY to 30 m. Then I hear probably from HA7UG that I was already spotted on this frequency. After a few mistakes I manage to send HR COLD QSY 30 M. In some other conditions I would not mind staying there longer :slight_smile:

The 10118 kHz is busy so I move to 10119 kHz. I get a reply soon and there is again a pile-up. The pile-ups are not so easy with this small ATS3B transceiver. 21 QSOs on 30 m. I send a few more CQs hoping that nobody will reply and give finally QRT. Disassemble the antenna and put everything into the rucksack at 14:00 local time (the sunset at 14:29).

Radio: ATS3B 8xAA lithium battery, link dipole 40 - 15 m/7 m up, VX7R and OT1+ tracker

Map: Ulkoilukartta Kuopio 1:25000

APRS: aprs.fi - live APRS map