In late September / early October Max, OE3MHU, and I did a small SOTA tour in Slovenia.
We were bound for a sailing-race in Croatia and decided to take some days before and after the race to do some SOTA-activity.
In preparation I’ve picked out some SOTA mountains in Slovenia and Styria (OE6) that were relatively easy to reach, but also offered us the opportunity “to visit some new landscape”.
Said and done - on Thursday, 27.9. in the morning we went to the border between Slovenia and Burgenland (OE4).
There are two summits almost next to each, Sotinski Breg S5/GS-025 and Serdiski Breg, S5-GS-026.
Both are easily reached by car. Despite wind and a brief rain shower, we have activated both succesfully.
To our surprise we found on Serdiski Breg a super amateur radio station, however, we have used our QRP equipment - hi.
After a night in Klöch (Styrian volcano land) we went on 28.9 to the Croatian border - not on the highway - but just across Slovenia on federal roads.
The border region of Slovenia / Croatia strongly reminds us of the Styrian hills. Many vineyards, small roads, up and down.
There we activated Brezova Gora, S5/GS-009, the first time on shortwave.
Accordingly, on each band - both cw and ssb - we always had a nice a pile-up.
So we spent 2,5 hours there and made a total of 83 QSOs.
Then 400 km to the south we visited Richard, 9A5PH, at the Island of Murter and stayed the night there.
Thank you Richard for your hospitality!
After a successful sailing race and another stopover at Richard, on 6.10. we went to Sv. Avgustin, S5/GS-022. This is also right on the Slovenian / Croatian border in Slovenia and is a famous pilgrimage site,
with stunning views both to Croatia as well as to Slovenia, at clear wx also into Styria.
St. Augustin is celebrated in August with a large event - that we have been told by friendly forest workers, who have feasted us with a “jung wine” on the way down.
Back we went west of Marburg over the Radlpass to Styria. For the next day the weather forecast for whole of OE was not very good, but at morning the sun was still shining in the south.After a brief internet search, we decided to make one more activation in the area.
It was the Demmerkogel, OE/ST-302, located on the picturesque “Sausal wine road”.
In summary we have seen a lot and had a comfortable trip to and from the south!
A total of 277 contacts were a satisfactory results of our 5 SOTA activations!
Mni tnx to all Chasers.
The video including all 5 activations could be seen here:
73 de Chris, OE3CHC