Dear all
Allow yourself to take a glimpse at one of these 45 activations. I was looking forward to activate the Tomlishorn summit of Mount Pilatus, HB/NW-011. This one requires only a short hike of about 25 minutes from the top station of the cable car and is on the first ridge between the Swiss Mittelland and the Alps. So both directions north and south promise contacts to the chasers or other activators, even on VHF. Unfortunately the trail was still closed due to two larger snow patches.
But Mount Pilatus offers an alternative! Matthorn, HB/OW-015, is a wonderful and more secluded summit in the area. You need only about 30 minutes more for one way, but there is a descent/ascent of about 200 m to get there, according to SOTA rules, and the classification is T3 instead of T2. After bypassing some snow patches even on this trail we reached Matthorn in time. 2 m worked fine for several S2S QSOs and even to work Mike, DJ5AV, above Lake Constance.
Matthorn was on a border line between the nice weather pampering the Swiss Mittelland and the western parts of the country and a remaining layer of clouds and fog towards the Alps and eastern Switzerland. The sun has been appreciated since the temperatures were generally low with some wind blowing.
In most cases you don’t need much more than an operator, some dedication and joy, some equipment, other participants, a common programme, a scenery – and a finger and a smartphone, hi. That isn’t much in general! The mountain goat using the Mountain Goat app to send a spot for the VHF activation to the network. @HB9GIN will recognize the RH-770 antenna, hi.
The bench was mine today, and the summit cross supported the 10-m-mast with the usual EFHW for 20 m and 40 m, used with the coupler 1:64 to the KX2. I could have activated longer, but I still had to do some errands in the afternoon, and business closes at 16 hours on Saturdays in the state of Lucerne.
This winter 2018/2019 has been long, up to now. All main trails on Mount Pilatus are not yet cleared from snow, and some sunny days and some hours of work are still needed to open them for the public. The closed trails didn’t prevent numerous tourists to try to use them all the same.
We saw several persons bypassing this one by the gorge below. By fortune, no one slipped off to the valley.
Such should be forbidden . . .
. . . and this here should even be prosecuted. I can’t understand such parents exposing their children to such risk.
This year again I took the opportunity to operate HB9DX, the club callsign of the Swiss DX Foundation (SDXF) what is another part of my amateur radio hobby. “SDXF meets SOTA” brought them together and provided space for one question or another about the foundation. So these having looked for HB9DIZ mostly have recognized my voice behind HB9DX. See the website of the Swiss DX Foundation to read more about SDXF.
I’m looking forward to the HB9SOTA activity day 2020 – and you?
Vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ (resp. HB9DX yesterday)
PS: See this general report on the Mount Pilatus summits Tomlishorn, HB/NW-011, and Matthorn, HB/OW-015, on the SOTA reflector.