Earlier in the year I had an email off BA saying the Avios points I had collected many moons ago were going to expire unless I spent or bought some. Available options for using the points were either a flight to London or a flight to Billund, Denmark so I obviously opted for the latter.
90 minutes later we were back on the ground, hire car collected and a quick stop in the town centre on the way to the hotel.
Day 1 started with a pleasant drive to Gammel Ry for OZ/OZ-003.
I parked in the town centre in the car park by the school and followed signs for Sankt Sørens Kilde, then carried on up through the forest. There are signs warning that it is a working forest and sections may be closed off with no notice, but access was generally permitted. The track was wet and muddy in a few places, but no problem in trail walking trainers. At the summit was a watchtower where I initially set up with my 10m flowerpot dipole but failed to make a single contact, probably because it was too early in the day.
What was to become one of the recurring problems of the trip then became apparent - my mobile phone was automatically connecting to TDC’s 2G network rather than the 4G network. Selecting the 4G network manually allowed me to self spot, but after a while it would disconnect itself again until the process was repeated.
I climbed down the tower and set up the inverted V antenna on the ground, I was able to qualify the summit on 20m. Unfortunately while working on 20m, I became aware of the sound of machinery nearby and the local farmer was out clearing some trees very close to where I was operating so I wasn’t comfortable sticking around to try any other bands.
Back in the town centre, the shop had a good selection of snacks and warm food for lunch before the short trip up the road to Sorring for the next summit, OZ/OZ-004.
Previous reports suggested that I was likely to be chased by a dog at the farm so during lunch I did some more searching Google and found a listing for the burial mound which gave instructions for where to park and how to access the site which was really helpful. I drove to the suggested parking spot in the farmyard but found the whole place deserted, and a large new house under construction in front of the farm.
The brick pilar on top of the mound has a nice hole in the top, ideal for supporting the antenna pole.
Again, no takers on 10m but the summit was qualified on 20m with a couple of extra contacts on 40m.
After checking into the next hotel on the trip I headed over to OZ/OZ-006. A large parking area at the bottom of the hill and a well made path to the summit with a picnic bench on top (already occupied when I arrived).
No takers on 10m again but qualified on 20m. Sotawatch showed some activity on 15m so I switched the dipole over and managed one more on 15m. This proved to be a mistake as I found out the next day…
Day 2
After breakfast at the hotel it was a long 150km drive north to OZ/OZ-007. Details were a bit thin on the ground for this one, however after a lot of studying aerial photos showed a large clear area where a footpath met the road and a check on Google Streetview showed some parking signs. As it turned out, there were lots of signed, gravel parking areas along the main road so plenty of options for starting a walk.
The route is signposted from the car park, I took the longer route on the way up and the shorter on the way down to make a loop.
I set up the inverted V antenna on top of one of the mounds to try and start on 40m but when checking the antenna the SWR was off the scale. I tried switching bands but got the same on 20m and 15m. Fortunately I had a spare antenna for 17/12/10m which I was able to use and after sorting out the 4G problem again and finally managing to get a spot out plenty of contacts came in on 17m which was working well with a couple of extras on 10m.
Next on the list was OZ/OZ-012 which, after a bit of searching the night before suggested parking at the chuch in Hem, or at the Mosely camp site. I opted for the camp site car park (empty, nobody using the camp site), walked along the road, turned up the gravel track then headed right along the path into the forest and managed to find the burial mound at the summit.
Just down from the summit was another watchtower/high chair but I chose to set up on the conveniently placed wooden cabinet.
This turned out to be a mistake as after setting up ants appeared from everywhere, were climbing up the guys to the mast, over my shoes and up my trouser legs. Other insects kept jumping out of somewhere and biting me so after calling CQ on 10m for a while with no replies while pacing back and forth around trying to keep the insects off me, I jumped onto 17m and quickly qualified the summit before going back on 10m to try and get at least 1 contact to get the challenge bonus before quickly packing up and making tracks.
Next was OZ/OZ-008. Time was getting on so I considered knocking this on the head but the weather was still good and it was only around 30 minutes drive away and on the way home. Unfortunately on this one I decided to take Google Maps’ “more economial but similar ETA” route which took me around to the west and up a gravel road. In a 4x4 you could probably manage 50 km/h along most of it but in a brand new hired VW Polo I decided to keep the speed down which ended up adding 15 minutes to the drive. From the east, the road is tarmac the whole way.
There are several parking areas shown on maps here, but all looked quite boggy so I carefully parked at the side of the road. The walk to the summit was wet underfoot, particularly at the summit plateau which was like a swamp in places.
A large radio mast was present on the summit in the swampy forest, but I couldn’t see any sort of decent track to allow access for maintenance.
The vertice seems to be on a raised hardcore/concrete plinth above the waterlogged ground so was the operating place of choice where I was able to hold the antenna pole in place against the pillar in the now stiff breeze while using the 10m flowerpot antenna to qualify the summit. 10m seemed to have picked up a bit but contacts still took a while to come through.
Day 3 was the day of the big one after a morning of sightseeing in Aarhus.
OZ/OZ-001 is basically a drive on summit and I went into the woods to set up behind the burial mound.
There were enough trees, and enough clear space to just lean the antenna pole on a branch and tie the ends of the dipole to other branches.
The HF bands seemed to have settled down a bit after the weekend’s solar activity and 17m brought in several strong contacts, plus two on 10m but no more. The DX cluster was showing some DX on 6m FT8 so I changed the dipole over to 12m which gave an acceptable SWR reading on the radio and with the power dialled back I tried my luck.
Some partial contacts were made but not completed, and in the end only one contact was made with OZ5VW
OZ/OZ-001 isn’t the official highest point in mainland Denmark however, that was about 2.5 km down the road so after packing up I headed down to Møllehøj - the highest natural point in Denmark which overlooks this:
This turns out to be OZ5VW’s QTH
After a stroll over to Ejer Bavnehøj and up the tower I headed back along the undulating road to the car wondering if all 3 are in the activation zone: initial research suggested there was a drop of around 26 m between the two areas but I haven’t found a detailed contour map to check.
Day 4 was my final day and after waking up early at the hotel in Fredericia I headed to OZ/OZ-009. There’s a large car park at the bottom of this one, a short walk to the top of the burial mound with a flagpole on the top which was perfect for attaching the antenna pole.
The 4G problem reared its head again so Sotamat was used to spot, however contacts were very slow to appear. A bit early in the morning for the “higher” HF bands however 17m and 10m FT8 produced some contacts, and after nearly an hour 17m had warmed up a bit and a few contacts were made on SSB.
My flight back was at 1500 local time so after packing up I made it back to Billund with about an hour spare to look around the inside of Lego House, the gardens of the teddy bear museum (museum itself was shut) and around the shops before heading back to the airport.
The weather the whole time was fantastic, which I was told by a few people was unusal for this time of year but it has definitely made me want to head back to activate the rest of the country sometime in the future.
I will add routes and details for the summits when I get around to it (I have the gpx files), it may be a few weeks until I get around to it.
