The alarm went off at 0415 local time this morning and I can honestly say, I wasn’t exactly over the moon to hear it. Nevertheless, I threw the Rucksack, Kite and A-99 into the car and made the 50 minute journey to G/SP-004 Shining Tor. When I arrived at the parking spot, it was pitch black and even though this was my 90th activation of this summit, I had to use the head torch. The WX was dreek, just heavy with clag and after the 35 minute walk to the summit, I found myself pretty wet.
Carrying the kite to the summit was a complete waste of time as there wasn’t a breath of wind anywhere
So the A99 it was. At about 0539z I was QRV. A look along the 20m band and at the SOTA spots, showed the German Activators were in amongst the VK’s. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the band to open into G. A self spot brought my first call of the morning from Mark G0VOF, up in Blackburn at 0540 for our usual Saturday natter. The summit was qualified by a call from Tony VK3CAT at 0559z…Cheers Tony!
It’s always good to see one of VK’s most prolific chasers Matt VK2DAG enter the log. The 20m band was in pretty good shape and at 0614z VK1NAM called me for my first s2s of the day. He was the first of three Andrews. I would work s2s into VK this morning! Three Andrews, that must be some sort of a record
Sadly, the clag was making this a pretty wet activation, with water running off of everything. Nevertheless, I pressed on, working plenty of VK’'s, mixed with EU and s2s calls. Trevor G1JZY, from the Bolton Wireless Club called me at 0707 to say there was a ZL special event station ZM90DX on 14.190. I took a look down there and got through his pile-up with my first call for a very nice 11,550 mile contact… Thanks Trevor.
Great to get Greg VK8GM in the log again, with his fantastic signal. Sounded like you were on 2 Metres FM, Greg!
My 0720z call was something special. Alex VK2HAS working with his Clansman 320 called in. This guy loves Clansman rigs and we finished our very long QSO with him running just 2 watts into a half wave folded dipole with a 300 Ohm feeder…sheer magic! If you’re a VMARS member or military radio fan, well worth taking a look at his QRZ page,
My last call of the day was an s2s with Bob, VK5FO activating VK5/SE-013.
By now, I was so wet, I was past the point of caring and decided to pull the plug.
Big thanks to all the Chasers for taking the time to call in this morning.
18 VK’s logged 4 of them s2s and one ZL out of a total of 50 callers.
73 Mike
2E0YYY