I first attempted Mt Tzouhalem last week (report at: Attempted my first activation yesterday - #12 by VE7AJK).
Today was very sunny and clear so I thought I’d give it another go and use all the advice and tips I learned from all of you.
Before I left I created an alert and posted on the VE7 SOTA Facebook page.
I took a quicker route up to the summit which took about 45 minutes. I setup at a slightly different spot at the summit and got the end fed antenna up higher than before.
During setup two mountain bikers asked if I was placing a geocache in the tree. I briefly described amateur radio and SOTA to them.
Got on the air about 2330 UTC and spotted myself. First contact at 2331 and I stayed on for about 30 minutes and got 10 contacts in all. Much better than my 2 contacts from my previous attempt.
I called CQ on 2 metres as well using my Baofeng but didn’t hear anything. It’s actually the first time I’ve tried transmitting on the Baofeng and I wasn’t expecting much. Oh well!
Lessons learned:
- Don’t rush the setup. I took my time to find a good location and good tree for the antenna.
- Spotting/alerting helps. Will do this going forward.
Thanks to all who chased and who offered tips/advice.
