Best 73 to all
Once again I have been out on a SOTA activation, this time to CT/BT004.
For some time I had been thinking to go to this hill because, according to Google Earth, its trail would be very easy and it is very close to IC33/EN120 and has, at opposite side of road, another trail where I can park a car safely.
However I had a family commitment for 8th of December and so put SOTA activity out of my mind. Fortunately the family commitment went away, so I awoke quite early on the morning of 8th of December and now had nothing to do for the day (for us this day is a bank holiday). Immediately I thought to go for a summit because I always have all my equipment ready for any potential radio activity, SOTA or any other.
Weather was quite good for an activation, some fog, but no rain nor wind and, since I like this kind of Weather quite a lot, I prepared all my kit in a short time. I posted my activation on sotawatch .Also I had configured my new smart-phone with the SMS number from MM0FMF to self post spots and I just had time to buy a cell phone charger for my car.
Everything was ready, and hoping that Murphy would not show up, I was heading for CT/BT004. I went by the EN10, then by the IC1 and finally by the IC33/EN120, with the GPS on my smart-phone helping all the time and I took about 1 hour and 30 minutes to reach parking for summit. One of the reasons for this activation was to experiment with capabilities of my new smart-phone for this kind of activity - the result was very good.
There was a lot of fog so I could not see the top of Grândola hill and also I was confused by my watch altimeter, so that I was a bit lost and not finding the exact position of parking spot for the summit. After some smart-phone research , I realised it could be very easy to determine the exact route for the summit, using the proper software to locate the summit and at same time see my own position. I am going to use this facility often in future.
When I arrived at the correct starting point, I parked my car off the IC33/EN120 road, in the trail on the opposite side of the road. I loaded up all the equipment I needed and I walked to the summit, about 150 meters far from the car.
During the SOTA activation I made 31 contacts with the regular SOTA chasers such as G4SSH, OZ4RT, HB9AGH and with VE1WT, WA2USA and N4EX. Unfortunately I did not make any contacts with Portuguese amateurs. The activation took place between 13.36 and 14.25, almost 1 hour of SOTA activity.
Weather was quite good for my activation but chasers had already dried up and fog was getting more intense, just the way I like.
So it was time to return home, by the same roads but this time I did not have need of the GPS. I have arrived home around 16.00, starving but happy with the activation.
I thank CT1BWW Marques for publishing my article and I would recommend readers to conduct SOTA activations regardless of bad Weather, because the satisfaction is always great, for the activators as well for the chasers.
Best 73 and till next SOTA activation..
CT1DRB David Quental