I’m heading off to Laško in Slovenia this coming week for a work conference.
I have all of Friday free to myself so figured I’d head for the summit of Hum (S5/BI-054) seeing as my hotel will be right at the base. Weather permitting, of course, if it’s too hot I’ll probably not attempt it.
I’ll be travelling light so I’ll only have my TH-D74 with me and possibly a slim G antenna.
Does anybody know what midweek and mid-day 2m activity is like in that area? Is this going to be a tough activation simply because there’ll be nobody listening?
Also, can anybody give my any pointers for 2m FM etiquette in S5 land? Calling freq etc? I’m finding conflicting information around this and have two concerns; I might upset the locals and my radio won’t tx on >146Mhz. I know Slovenia is region 1 so should be okay here but the conflicting information makes me worry.
That would be my guess on such a low summit.
If the conference is not coincidently a ham radio conference - hi.
But 145.525 FM is the usual SOTA call frequency in S5. Give it a try. One QSO is enough to add it to the database and as the assoziation to your activator stats.
Hi, Pete!
Designated VHF/UHF frequencies for SOTA activations in S5 are 145.550MHz and 433.425MHz. There are many hams QAP waiting for SOTA activators.
I activated Hum four years ago. It was a weekday and I was quite surprised to get a response on the first or second call. QRG was 145.550
My Baofeng UV-5R, however, had an issue with strong RF signals overloading the Rx’s front end. I couldn’t figure out where the RF source was located and as I had no suitable filter with me, I could only complete two QSOs on 2m FM. But there were more stations calling.
So, I recommend using a proper radio or taking a filter with you.
Ah, and don’t miss the beer
we held S5 SOTA/POTA activators last weekend nearby at Smohor, that is also a POTA location. As such there is SOTA location Malic - a hill nearby Smohor. You can walk to Malic in aprox. an hour.(or probably less) if you leave your car at Smohor parking place. Do make a Spot and you will have a Pileup of S5 SOTA chasers
